Paper Plates

In an effort to keep western traditions and to ensure human interaction, my girlfriend and her roommate threw a brunch this past weekend at their apartment; I was to be employed as official egg maker (a task which I feel I satisfactorily completed). This brunch, attended by about 15 people ranging from the age of 2 to 30 something (a married couple brought their child), was a veritable smorgasbord of food - eggs and bacon, waffles, Dunkin Donuts, home-made hummus and vegetables, chips and salsa, pate and sushi. If that isn't an international spread, I don't know what is. Enjoyable as the brunch was (with the cleaning up was not so much), the more humerus incident happened the night before.

We had ventured to the Carrefour near my girlfriends apartment to buy supplies - eggs, bacon, utensils, etc. After securing all the edible needs, we proceeded to hunt around the bottom level of the store for the paper goods, including paper plates which were curiously hidden from us. After 5 minutes of hunting on our own near the disposable silverware, paper cups and bowls, we got smart and asked one of the workers where we could find paper plates. Her response: "We don't have any because there isn't an event [or holiday] this month, come back next month."

The sheer Chinese-ness of the response is beautiful. While completely illogical (what do you mean no events? My brunch isn't an event?), it has a screwball grain of thought behind it (most people wouldn't be buying them, so you shouldn't either). How a store which carries over 30 varieties and brands of green tee (they have a green tea isle, where no black, herbal or medicinal tea is sold), can not carry any paper plates is still a mystery to me. But then again, so still is most of the culture here.