Salmon on a bed of rice

My first flight in my life was to America. I had a rough flight with many flights missed and couple unplanned overnight layovers. I retired to a memorable dinner of salmon on a bed of rice at a Ramada Inn near Chicago airport. My first dinner in America. In the morning, I woke up to a view of Dunkin Donuts.

It was fascinating to know that Chinese language is pictorial and goes top to bottom. I was taken by ancient travelers too – eg Hiuen Tsang, a Chinese traveler to India. Greek Mythology with so many stories enchanted me as a kid.

The first I heard of America is through Hiawatha, Washington Booker, San Francisco bridge stories in high school. Tom Sawyer and Mark Twain. Later in undergrad, I read about it in Harvard Business review. One article that is still in my mind is about the last mile problem for postal delivery. I also learned about America through movies – Never Ending Story, Invisible world documentary, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy as a child. Later on weekly movies at college – The X files, Rush Hour, Dante’s peak, whatever HBO played.

During undergad, when the library was molting and shedding of some of its books, I bought a German and Japanese language book.

I set sail to America to pursue Masters in Electrical Engineering. During Masters, I interacted with a Japanese student and a sweet Samoan girl who introduced me to baloney but couldn’t eat the carrot halwa I made.

During an internship while pursuing Masters, I went on a week-long trip each to Shanghai and Singapore as part of the Corporate Leaders program. In Shanghai I bought a book to learn Chinese. I took the bullet train, saw amazing gymnastics and met with students from Europe, China and Singapore. We heard some lectures at a Finance University.

Now I have an Italian and Spanish dictionary too. I got to indulge in some reading during my first job, where I stayed by myself – Catcher in the Rye, Great American novels, Guy Maupassant stories.

I have been taken by Japan due to its many management terms – Kaizen, Kanban. Ikigai.

At work, we work with colleagues from Romania. My boss is Korean which started my interest in Korean movies.

When I travel to my home country, the flight movies is my best way to catch up with foreign movies – French, Italian, Japanese. I also watch travel documentaries.

I read a lot of books on different cuisines and parenting in different cultures. In India, I had only tried Indo-Chinese. Later, I realized that was a special cuisine from Schezuan and that there is more to it. After coming to America, I have been introduced to Mediterranean, Mexican, Thai, Irish and many other cuisines. Lately, I am into fitness and love Muay Thai. I am now curious to know about how different cultures exercise or keep fit.

I also like art. I read a lot books on Korean, Palestinian, African arts.

For me the bigger world is a great place of amazing literature, cuisine, arts and culture.