Text 8809, 107 rader
Skriven 2006-12-14 22:30:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av DAVE SACERDOTE
Ärende: What? 2
===============
There was dread in my godbrother's heart.  He was going to have to ask
Tam where he got the dog, and he feared the answer.  There were the
rumors. Unsubstantiated reports.  Hearsay.  Talk of Vietnamese here and
Vietnamese there who had taken a stray dog. Dogs that disappeared from
neighborhoods.  Nothing ever proven anywhere, but rumors that were
common enough to have been repeated by Americans themselves.

Had Tam done something that seemed normal to him but was abhorrent in
his new land?  In Vietnam, certainly, Tam had been poor enough.  He
might have taken a stray dog home to feed his family.  He might have
even stolen a dog, such things were common enough back in Saigon.  And
the decrepit American ghetto in which Tam was now living, it was full of
stray and abandoned dogs.  My godbrother was already blaming himself for
this situation before he even asked the next question.

"Tam...  where did you get this dog?  Where did you get this meat?"

"From the American store.  Isn't it good?"

Was this sweet and honest boy who'd been so candid and forthcoming about
everything else lying to his Si Phu? Impossible.  No, wait, if he knew
it was wrong to take and kill and eat a dog in America and wanted to lie
about it, he would never have served a bowl of dog meat to my god-
brother.

"Tam...  American stores do not sell dog meat.  Nobody here eats dog
meat."

Uh oh, my god, my godbrother thought.  Oh no!  Some stores *do* sell
dog...

Had they gone to a pet store?  Had they mistaken a pet store for some
kind of live animal meat market? Bought a dog from an American pet store
thinking the store was selling them as food?  That was something else
that Si Phu never thought to cover in his orientations.

"Tam...  can you tell me where is the store, where you bought this dog
meat?"

"The store you showed me, the one right up there," Tam said, pointing up
towards Front Street.

Ah wait.  Wait, OK, my godbrother thought.  The *mercado*.  That was it!
The mercado sometimes sold goats, to the Puerto Rican and Caribbean
customers. They often had whole skinned goats hanging right in the front
window of the store.  And a skinned goat, to someone who never saw one
before, might look like a skinned dog.

So my godbrother felt relieved that they were eating Thit De (goat
meat), and *not* Thit Cho (dog meat), and tried to establish with Tam
that this was a meat he bought at the mercado.

Tam, however, insisted the meat was not from the mercado.  It was from
the American "Food Value" market.  And that Tam and Tien had bought it
there a few times already and thought that American dog meat was really
tasty.  Very sweet.  Tam spoke about how much better American dog meat
was, compared to Vietnamese, and how tender it was.

My godbrother insisted that American stores do *not* sell dog meat,
least of all "Food Value," but as he was trying to persuade Tam of this,
Tam offered to show him.  Tam got up from the table and went to the
kitchen, and when he returned he handed an empty can to my godbrother.

The label on the can had the word "Recipe" across the top.  Below that
was a picture of a large, handsome, and meaty-looking dog.  Below that
were the words "Dog Food."

My godbrother blamed himself at once.  He'd told the boys that you can
tell what's inside a can by just looking at what's pictured on the
label.  In this particular case, the can clearly indicated that it
contained a large Collie.

Anyone who ever learned a second language will immediately recognize the
situation.

To be fair to Tam, if Americans wanted to be clear with their English,
they would label such cans "Food for Dogs."

As is, the can is clearly labelled "Food."

And the answer to the question, "What *kind* of food?" is clearly
stated.  "Dog."

So Tam and Tien hadn't been dining well on tasty, high quality American
dog.  They'd been heating and eating cans of dog food.  Recipe brand,
chunks of meat in a mildly seasoned brown sauce.  Garnished on top with
chopped scallions.  When asked about it later, Tam admitted that he
assumed that the label pictures of all the different breeds of dogs
simply indicated cans of dog meat from those different breeds.  ("Honey,
which do you prefer for dinner tonight?  Shepherd or Retriever?  Or
Collie, "the other white meat?")

My godbrother wasted no time in trying to clarify this misunderstanding
for Tam and explain what had been in the can, but even as he spoke Tam
continued eating from the bowl of Recipe brand dog food.

Cheers

Jim, in Yellowknife




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