"What are you cooking?" - My 4th American Road Trip

Every year I take some months off and cruise around the US surfing and seeing nature. I write about this trip and some other old trips, as a way to resonate with my conflicting points of view.

Americans are strange. Especially if I am wearing a down jacket in the California spring and trying to cook my Korean marinated pork rib by the pop-up table behind our Toyota Sienna - our camper home for the road trip.

I often start the trip in California, my favorite state, or the favorite state of many Vietnamese refugees who couldn’t stand the freezing cold of Minnesota or Pennsylvania and moved to San Jose or Orange County in the mid-1980s.

My daily routine is simple. I surf at some favorite beaches and cook. I write, read, and sleep in between. Swami's is a beginner-friendly surf spot that I love. San Elijo, Beacon, D Street, and Cardiff are some other breaks that I routinely move around. Oftentimes, I cook in Swami's due to its big parking lot and friendly atmosphere. (Maybe TOO friendly)

At meal times, I take the top out of the car, screw in one leg and hook it on the behind bar of our car. There it goes. I make curry rice or something simple like burritos with pork or beef. People are curious about our pop-up kitchen. Some genuinely wanted to know how the kitchen worked and approached and asked my boyfriend, Chalu, how he made it. Some smelled the food we cooked and asked where I bought the ingredients. One time, a lady walked by and asked us to demonstrate how to make corn tortillas for her because she couldn't make it at home without sticking the corn all over her equipment. A man wondered why the curry I cooked smelled so strong and spicy.

The kitchen became our conversation magnet, where we encountered exciting and kind people on the way. They expressed their interest in traveling with the convenience of having a kitchen and making their own food. I am happy because the kitchen keeps my belly warm and full while I enjoy the trip.

But there is some inconvenience out of being too obvious with the outdoor cooking style. Some wealthy-looking women walked by me sometimes and asked, “What are you cooking, honey?”. As a foreigner, I thought those were proper questions that I was supposed to answer properly. But no, they didn't care what I got to answer; they walked away in the middle of the sentence as if the questions were thrown out as a mundane and useless conversation device. As if I was just a dog or cat standing by their paths, they reluctantly had to offer a conversation exchange to show their kindness and acknowledge me as another human being.

This didn't happen once. It happened too often that I started realizing the underlying meaning of these questions were just meaningless conversation devices, or worse, a warning saying that I should stay away from their paths. "What a wonderful morning, what are you cooking?", "I don't know what you are cooking, but they smell good; what is that?"... Most of those sentences starting with cheesy empty compliments often signal that the person just speaks them out loud without even thinking what they mean. Sorry, if you asked someone what they were cooking, at least spend ten seconds listening to what the food was.

Those empty, shallow questions offended me with their impolite walk away. In Asia, we walked past each other without saying anything, as we are strangers and do not often talk to one another. But if we say something, we expect others to respond and listen to them respectfully. We don't just throw questions on others' faces and walk away without even saying goodbye. That is just outright looking down on others.

Maybe Americans are too busy; they can't make time to have some short human conversation, although they have just enough seconds to pretend to care about the world (or some stranger with a pop-up cooking counter out of a car).

At first, I got upset when those (mostly women) walked away right in the middle of my answers. Later, I was tired and just threw back a shallow smile and didn't bother to answer. I told my friend that I didn't like that behavior. He replied: "Next time if they ask you, just tell them: your husband's genitals." I cracked out laughing amid our conversation.

It has taken me a while to understand sometimes people ask me questions but they don't mean to get an answer. Questions are just to cover the anxiety of encountering a stranger (cooking in the parking lot). I looked into their eyes, and they panicked, and maybe they just wanted to show some kindness to this unrelated person happening to show up on their usual exercise paths.

From where I come from, questions show that you care. We ask questions because we care about the situation of the other. We ask questions because we want the problems to be reminded and discussed. We ask questions about people we love and things we nurture.

Americans in this part of the town are too busy to care so asking question is a fast instant way to show off your caring. It also shows that in the surrounding of the places we travel by, like Encinitas or Carlsbad, everyone talks about protecting the environment from climate change. Still, people immediately purchase the latest swimming clothes when the patterns show up in the shops. They keep talking about protecting the sea, but look at how many pieces of plastic or leftover food they throw away in public and private trash bins. Their waste is enormously massive compared to other countries I traveled to in South East Asia. Do they think that the plastic would magically disappear into thin air?

But they keep throwing questions around or talking about something in high pitched voice, that helps them feel safe as if persuading themselves that they care, as if they talk enough, the environment would save itself from destruction.

What am I cooking? - Do you even care?

Khải Đơn