On Tom Hill in Macon, Georgia, stands a strip mall, and in all-capital red letters, above one of the doors, is the name RON & CHEN’S HOME COOKING & CHINESE FOOD. I do not know how this amalgamation came about, and I have not yet eaten there myself, but it is, at least conceptually, an ingenious accomplishment.
I once worked for a man named Art, an electrician. He ate out for lunch every day; and, except for the time I asked to go to McDonald’s, every day he ate at a buffet. And the only buffets available, as far as blue collar men in middle Georgia are interested in eating at for lunch, are pizza buffets, country buffets, and Chinese buffets; and pizza can usually be found in Chinese buffets these days.
So at some point as Ron was down at Ron’s Home Cooking, dropping a ham hock into a pot of black-eyed peas, and Chen was over at Chen’s Chinese Buffet dropping an egg in the egg drop soup, the thought happened to one or both of them, whether for business advancement or mutual appreciation of cultures or the adventurous curiosity of entrepreneurship, that these two staples of the blue collar man’s diet might not only stand across the street in separate parking lots, but might even be served from a single establishment.
More likely, it was the idea of a man like Art, who, as his name suggests, in the midst of blue prints and switch-legs and 12-3 m.c. cable, experiences flurries of right brain activity. These flurries manifest themselves in such forms as the deer trap he created from metal conduit, or in more legal and benevolent forms, such as the day he might have wandered into Ron’s, eaten three plates of various fried meats, and said on his way out, “You ever think about joinin’ up with that Chinese guy across the street? That way I could just come to the same place every day.”
After Noah and co. stepped off the ark, one family headed east and one west, and along the way each got a lot of ideas about how the world is and how things work. And after travelling halfway around the globe over several thousand years or so, the circle has been completed by Mr. Ron and Mr. Chen. The East-going and West-going Zaxes let a city spring up around them as each waited for the other to give in to his way; but Ron and Chen joined hands and created something themselves, and something of a long overdue family reunion is taking place there each day while the rice is being fried and potatoes mashed.
The genius is that Ron and Chen have come together; the question is how they have been working together. With such a name for their restaurant, it seems that each has maintained his method and tradition, and the two function as if they were still across the street from one another. But it is possible that they have begun to mix their methods, that Chen has begun rolling turnip greens into the egg rolls, and Ron has been making sweet and sour gravy for his potatoes. It could be that down the road Ron will have some sort of identity crisis in which he loses confidence in his own cooking skills and techniques, and in his search for meaning and stability, he takes heart from Chen’s confidence and begins to adapt Chen’s methods. Or perhaps, each with his love for good food retains hold of his ways while appreciating the ways of the other.
But Ron and Chen aren’t the only two working their way through these questions. The world has been encircled, and we in the West have met again with the East. When my grandfather was my age, we were fighting the Japanese in the Second World War; when my dad was young, watching Bruce Lee movies led him to taking Okinawan karate. But I have had perhaps more of an encounter than either of them with the East, for I have seen the meshing and merging of cultures and the mixing of ideas and practices, the products of two several thousand year journeys in opposite directions that have ended up in the same place. Not that what has generally been considered Eastern and Western thought are the only two ways of thinking encountering one another in our culture, nor that this hasn’t been going on for some time, but today the two are more often than ever before found side by side, or even under the same roof, as in the case of Ron and Chen. Indeed, we are in a way under the same roof, living in the same country under the same government and laws. But it is not the meeting of races, ethnicities, or even cultures and customs of which I primarily speak, nor is this, I think, the main of our experience in this encounter. It is rather the meeting of philosophies, of ways of looking at the world and conclusions drawn from the observation.
Some of us would march strait through and finish encircling the globe ourselves, if not militarily then at least philosophically. Others among us open arms and ask the long lost relatives to please show the way to enlightenment, having not yet found it themselves. And others dwell side by side, cooking chicken in separate ways under the same roof, as it were.
I have been told the East has a cyclical view of history, the West a linear. But I have thought that history is something more like a wheel: a circle rolling in a direction. For there are cycles and seasons that are seen over and over, that have been and yet again will be. But I have also been taught and do still believe that all these cycles are going somewhere.
And this is an illustration of my take on the encounter, that we neither in our Western zeal outright resist Eastern thought, nor in frustration with what we perceive as Western shortcomings give way to Eastern thought. I’m all for standing my Western philosophical ground, but I prefer to do it with an Eastern fluidity, a calmness of mind which is really open, not only asking thoughts to tea but even leaving the door open so they might come in unannounced. Yet if my guests forget their manners or become hostile and begin throwing the scones at me, I know where I stand, and I know how to bid them good-day, as forcibly as needed.
And this is the key to understanding and benefiting from the encounter: Where do you stand? For if you know this, then you will know what of the East and what of the West fits into your own thought and what doesn’t. If you know this, you can advance and revolutionize and categorize with Western fervor and see the natural harmony and unity of all things with an Eastern calm.
For when it all comes down to it, I am a man. And a good God made a good world that is not now as good as it was when things got started. Many men have lived in that world, some in the East and some in the West and many in many other places, and they have seen things I have not seen and things I have seen, and have understood them and described them better than I. I’ll be the one to organize my home and arrange my furniture; but I’ll be glad to have a conversation with anyone who stops by.
I once worked for a man named Art, an electrician. He ate out for lunch every day; and, except for the time I asked to go to McDonald’s, every day he ate at a buffet. And the only buffets available, as far as blue collar men in middle Georgia are interested in eating at for lunch, are pizza buffets, country buffets, and Chinese buffets; and pizza can usually be found in Chinese buffets these days.
So at some point as Ron was down at Ron’s Home Cooking, dropping a ham hock into a pot of black-eyed peas, and Chen was over at Chen’s Chinese Buffet dropping an egg in the egg drop soup, the thought happened to one or both of them, whether for business advancement or mutual appreciation of cultures or the adventurous curiosity of entrepreneurship, that these two staples of the blue collar man’s diet might not only stand across the street in separate parking lots, but might even be served from a single establishment.
More likely, it was the idea of a man like Art, who, as his name suggests, in the midst of blue prints and switch-legs and 12-3 m.c. cable, experiences flurries of right brain activity. These flurries manifest themselves in such forms as the deer trap he created from metal conduit, or in more legal and benevolent forms, such as the day he might have wandered into Ron’s, eaten three plates of various fried meats, and said on his way out, “You ever think about joinin’ up with that Chinese guy across the street? That way I could just come to the same place every day.”
After Noah and co. stepped off the ark, one family headed east and one west, and along the way each got a lot of ideas about how the world is and how things work. And after travelling halfway around the globe over several thousand years or so, the circle has been completed by Mr. Ron and Mr. Chen. The East-going and West-going Zaxes let a city spring up around them as each waited for the other to give in to his way; but Ron and Chen joined hands and created something themselves, and something of a long overdue family reunion is taking place there each day while the rice is being fried and potatoes mashed.
The genius is that Ron and Chen have come together; the question is how they have been working together. With such a name for their restaurant, it seems that each has maintained his method and tradition, and the two function as if they were still across the street from one another. But it is possible that they have begun to mix their methods, that Chen has begun rolling turnip greens into the egg rolls, and Ron has been making sweet and sour gravy for his potatoes. It could be that down the road Ron will have some sort of identity crisis in which he loses confidence in his own cooking skills and techniques, and in his search for meaning and stability, he takes heart from Chen’s confidence and begins to adapt Chen’s methods. Or perhaps, each with his love for good food retains hold of his ways while appreciating the ways of the other.
But Ron and Chen aren’t the only two working their way through these questions. The world has been encircled, and we in the West have met again with the East. When my grandfather was my age, we were fighting the Japanese in the Second World War; when my dad was young, watching Bruce Lee movies led him to taking Okinawan karate. But I have had perhaps more of an encounter than either of them with the East, for I have seen the meshing and merging of cultures and the mixing of ideas and practices, the products of two several thousand year journeys in opposite directions that have ended up in the same place. Not that what has generally been considered Eastern and Western thought are the only two ways of thinking encountering one another in our culture, nor that this hasn’t been going on for some time, but today the two are more often than ever before found side by side, or even under the same roof, as in the case of Ron and Chen. Indeed, we are in a way under the same roof, living in the same country under the same government and laws. But it is not the meeting of races, ethnicities, or even cultures and customs of which I primarily speak, nor is this, I think, the main of our experience in this encounter. It is rather the meeting of philosophies, of ways of looking at the world and conclusions drawn from the observation.
Some of us would march strait through and finish encircling the globe ourselves, if not militarily then at least philosophically. Others among us open arms and ask the long lost relatives to please show the way to enlightenment, having not yet found it themselves. And others dwell side by side, cooking chicken in separate ways under the same roof, as it were.
I have been told the East has a cyclical view of history, the West a linear. But I have thought that history is something more like a wheel: a circle rolling in a direction. For there are cycles and seasons that are seen over and over, that have been and yet again will be. But I have also been taught and do still believe that all these cycles are going somewhere.
And this is an illustration of my take on the encounter, that we neither in our Western zeal outright resist Eastern thought, nor in frustration with what we perceive as Western shortcomings give way to Eastern thought. I’m all for standing my Western philosophical ground, but I prefer to do it with an Eastern fluidity, a calmness of mind which is really open, not only asking thoughts to tea but even leaving the door open so they might come in unannounced. Yet if my guests forget their manners or become hostile and begin throwing the scones at me, I know where I stand, and I know how to bid them good-day, as forcibly as needed.
And this is the key to understanding and benefiting from the encounter: Where do you stand? For if you know this, then you will know what of the East and what of the West fits into your own thought and what doesn’t. If you know this, you can advance and revolutionize and categorize with Western fervor and see the natural harmony and unity of all things with an Eastern calm.
For when it all comes down to it, I am a man. And a good God made a good world that is not now as good as it was when things got started. Many men have lived in that world, some in the East and some in the West and many in many other places, and they have seen things I have not seen and things I have seen, and have understood them and described them better than I. I’ll be the one to organize my home and arrange my furniture; but I’ll be glad to have a conversation with anyone who stops by.