Althougha foreigner, I’m truly Chinese in one respect: I see food, from preparation toconsumption, as the cornerstone of good living.
This love goes back to mymom’s cooking, and to the many restaurants in my home country, as well as inChina and across the globe, where I’ve enjoyed the bounty of the fields and thefruit of skilled labor.
In Beijing and elsewherein the food-adoring Middle Kingdom, you’ll find chefs who, judging from theirscrumptious results, work miracles each time they light a fire in the kitchen.
Yet, despite the fact werely so heavily on their good graces, these often unsung heroes — who bring joy to our breakfast, lunch anddinner tables — generallywork in seemingly intolerable conditions for pay and benefits far below whatthey deserve.
Nonetheless, I’ve noticedthat these workers who sweat and toil in steamy kitchens, who serve us andclear our tables and who endure so much to ensure our daily dining happiness,have something in spades that most of us in other lines of work do not.
That characteristic, myfriends, is camaraderie.
I realized this recentlywhen, well past closing time, I passed a shrimp hot pot restaurant near my homeand saw the doors fly open as the employees, finally finished with theircleaning and countless other chores, emerged and began to walk home.
They had a bounce in theirstep, they walked arm in arm, and they genuinely liked one another, teasing andpoking and laughing.
I recalled my own daysworking in a hamburger restaurant, leaning over a hot grill and scraping itclean after each batch of burgers, garnishing buns with pickles and lettuce andonions whose scent clung for hours, and standing over bubbling grease waitingfor french fries to reach perfection.
When our shift ended, wegathered as a group and headed off for the same boisterous banter that Iwitnessed that recent night in Beijing.
In contrast, a good friendin China told me of her boyfriend’s company, which organizes “team-building”exercises each weekend in an effort to create this very camaraderie.
Good luck with that.Circumstances, not planning, make these bonds that seem unbreakable.
We all probably wish weshared this magical trait in the workplace. But aside from the military, firefighting,police work and the medical profession — all of which involve high stress andlife-or-death situations — the restaurant industry is one of the few placeswhere true camaraderie seems to manifest naturally.
They meet the public’severy demand (preferably with a smile), endlessly strive for quality andcleanliness, and endure extreme temperatures, loud noises and constantly spattered,soaked or stained clothing. But notice next time you dine how restaurant crewsgenerally draw together.
Camaraderie, that elusiveworkplace commodity, usually comes at a high price. These friendships, afterall, are forged in a fire most of us could not endure.
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