Deep like a graveyard. Wild like T.V.

Today I was eating Vietnamese flan (caramen) with a student when he said, at least to my American ears, a very peculiar thing. It was along the following lines. “I want to invite you to my home for dinner with my family, but since my grandmother has recently died, we haven’t been able to fix up the house.”

Okay, at this point, I could do one of two things. Either chalk it up as another strange cultural quirk that’s bound to develop in a country destitute of Nascar and move on. (By the way, Microsoft Word just put a red line under Nascar, and, as such, I’m asking all of you to boycott this obviously Al Qaeda loving computer program.) Or rack my brain and put to use all of those ingenious investigate techniques I learned from that brilliant cinematic masterpiece, Corky Romano.

Needless to say, I chose the latter, and judging by the fact that there are only four hits on the official movie website, I’m sure that Frost would commend me for taking this road less traveled.

With very genuine interest I asked him exactly what he meant, a question he has grown used to and I believe appreciates. I mean without understanding, you’ve got nothing. In turn, I took off my denim tasseled 10-gallon hat, placed it on my lap, hoped dearly that my jeans and the newly touching tassels wouldn’t ignite, and prepared to absorb. This is what I found.

Apparently, when a close family member passes away, certain activities are prohibited for that first post-mortem year. From my newfound understanding, which is anything but a fortified factual Frommer’s, one such action is making your house a more expensive place. Another is attending weddings. This behavioral theme of familial fasting is to allow those surviving loved ones to more fully mediate on the life and memory of that person who has passed. It may, to our Western worldview, seem a bit intense, but you have to admire and respect that devoted dedication.

As is often the case, he was surprised to find that no American cultural counterpart exists and that we have no similar traditions to promote such thoughtful abstaining.

And that’s fine. It’s just culture, a neutral entity. However, as one who also lost a grandmother quite recently, it most certainly drives me to protect that memory more so than before.