Author: Boonsita Kitikhun

In the past three years after I came to the United States to study, I didn’t have as much time eating with my family. I miss home food and those time with my family. One of my most favorite time of the year is meeting with my whole family for Tomb Sweeping Day.

Because my family has a Chinese blood, every year we go to the ancestral gravesite to glorify our ancestors and clean the site. It is one of the most important time of the year that all of my family members come together, see each other and carry out our tradition. Everyone helps each other bring food and picnic stuff there. My mom always prepares for most of the food. She will cook some food one day earlier and she will get up at 3 am to make sure that we have all we need and ready to go by 5 am. My aunt usually takes care of the fruits and drinks. She is a fruit professional. All of the fruits that she cuts look so neat and pretty. As for mats and sticky rice, my uncle is responsible for that. In addition, my grandmother makes other food which most of the time pretty oily, but it is so delicious. Basically, everyone brings what they have and what is needed.

I am always excited to see my cousins and play with them. As we are getting older and older, we all have more and more responsibility, which means we have less and less time to see each other. My favorite part of this occurrence is when we all eating together after we finish worshiping. My mom, my aunt and my grandmother will bring the food and fruits that they prepare to the mat and we will sit in a circle getting ready to eat! In the middle of the circle, there are northern-style yellow curry, chile-based dips, deep fried crispy pork rinds, chicken stir-fried with sliced ginger, grilled chicken, fruits–mangoes, papayas, watermelons, durians–and sticky rice. Moreover, we have the food that we pray our ancestor to combine, for example red curry, thai basil stir try, dim sum and desserts–cakes and rice balls. As usual we sit on the mats around the food and start eating. My parents and my aunts always stay out of the circle because there is not enough space and they want the kids to eat as much as they can. I always appreciate their sacrifice and their love to us.

This time is always my most joyful time because I have a chance to talk and catch up everything that is going on with our lives.

Even though I don’t have a chance to go to this event anymore, when I go back home during summer, we will have an opportunity to get together in Mother’s Day or “would like to meet” day. Having a good meal and good time with my family is always the most precious and greatest time. Honestly I don’t want anything special but family time.

The past fifth day, I had an opportunity to listen to Rob Kingsolver’s lecture about the Economy and Food system in the United States. He showed the statistic data about the number of farms in United States that exponentially decrease and farm size in past 60 years that exponentially increase. He suggested that the average farm size has increased because farmers start to use more technology in farming and having a bigger farm which allow the farmers to meet the idea of economy of scale (the more products one produce, the less money he will spend on each unit).

The technology obviously helps the farmers to work more conveniently. However, this also decreases the number of employees that the farm needs.

“They limited their use of technology so as not to displace or alienate available human labor or available free sources of power (the sun, wind, water, and so on).”

This principle makes me think of my family’s life. For my mom, technology is almost like my mom’s enemy. She doesn’t like to use the computer, cellphone or even air conditioner. I rarely see her look for the stuff from the Internet. When she needs to look up for the recipes for cooking, she will look up in the books. When she needs to use coconut milk or tofu in any of her dish, she will make them by herself. In my opinion, I think she is very patient to do all this work, because she loves to do it and she cares the food that will go into her and her family’s member’s body.

I think I am very lucky to have her as my mom. I have learned to do stuff from scratch. Because my mom doesn’t like to use the electrical stove and she has a belief that using clay firepot makes the food taste better, I got a chance to learn how to use clay firepot.

This relate to the principle of Amish about preserving domestic arts of kitchen. Since my mom learned this cooking skill from her grandmother and her mom, my siblings and I are also learning about this skill and will preserve it to the next generation.

I think what can I do now is starting from myself by paying more attention in my valuable culture because I believe that anything that I would like to change cannot be changed if I can’t change myself first. I would like to learn more and pass on these valuable tradition and culture to the next generations. Moreover, more power can increase more impact; so I would like to encourage people in my generation to get involve more to make the impact to the society.

“Be joyful/though you have considered all the facts.” Considering this quote, I find a release in them. This quote makes me think of  life. For example, during the academic year, we all have a lot of works. I know the facts that I have to do homework even though I do not enjoy the class or the homework is really tough, long, and boring. But we have to force ourselves to love, enjoy, and get it going by being positive about it. I try to find the benefits of the subject and think that I will learn a lot from doing the homework. Therefore, I can enjoy the class and have fun with it. Classroom can be fun when we think of it as an laboratory; we can do the experiment there and see the result at the end. So enjoy the experiment!

At Middlebury, I adopted these practices to think positively about the class and enjoy it. I tried my best in the class and accepted whatever results turned out. Even though the results were not as great as I would like it to be, I think I have learned something from the class and I definitely will improve myself in the future. Just forget about the past and focus in the present.

For the next two months, I know that I have to deal with both stuff that I like and I don’t like, but I should be optimistic. For instance, I know that some days I have to pull weeds all day long, which is a boring and tolerance-needed stuff. However, when I see my garden looks beautiful and my plants grow well, I satisfy in the effort that I have put in. Moreover, not only me but also other people in the school will be delightful to see a nice garden and they are able to get the fresh produce right from the garden. Finally all of us are happy for the result. 🙂