East versus West

Am I re-living the American Civil War? Or maybe I'm in West Side Story? Better yet! The Real World! Regardless, house division has occurred and a mandatory "House Meeting" has been set for tomorrow evening.

What happened?!, you ask. Well ... let me tell you!

This has all been brewing for quite some time now. Freddy (German) & I have mentioned on numerous occasions that we needed to call a House Meeting just to establish some general rules, but we were lazy & never got around to it. Nothing "bad" had happened that constituted getting all 8 of us together until this evening.

Jordan (Canadian) & I were in the kitchen, happily eating our supper, when Freddy & his girlfriend Barbara (also German) came in to fix dinner. Jordan & I were enjoying our "delicious" meals, while Freddy & Barbara prepared their own. Ayan (Chinese) bustled in, shoved Freddy out of her way, & did whatever. (This is comical as Freddy is 6'7 & Ayan is shorter than me!) Freddy nicely told her that had she asked him to move, he would have - our kitchen is very small & even when Freddy & I are the only ones in it, we still bump into one another. Out of nowhere, Ayan goes off. Now, her English, I must say, is not very good & can often times be difficult to understand. Well, the words we all needed to really understand was "I hate you. I hate you. (door opening, slamming, opening, slamming, locking)" Yup, I think I'm living in "The Real World."

Ravi (Canadian/Indian) comes out of his room, which is next to Ayan's, & just looks puzzled. We explain that the "uncivilzed one," which is what he calls her, was throwing a temper tantrum. Matt (CA) comes out of his room & just rolls his eyes.

Ayan eventually comes out while we are all in the kitchen cooking, talking, doing whatever. She bangs in, picks up a chair that she bangs against the wall, sets roughly down on the floor in the kitchen to get to the plates, takes her plate out (which someone had put there by mistakes), shoves it in her drawer, slams the drawer, picks chair up again, brusquely moves it back, & stomps to her room. Yes, she may have just turned 23, but our only child from a wealthy Chinese family has a temper & certainly acts the part of a pampered 2-year-old. (And you all thought I was spoiled!)

That all occurs ... we are all sitting around the dinner table, chatting. We decide we need a House Meeting tomorrow night to address various issues (i.e. General House Rules, Cleaning, Kitchen/Bathroom Maintenance). These, sadly enough, will be addressed towards Ayan as she has been the worst about not shutting the fridge/freezer doors completely (why we had to throw out 95% of our food the other day because it had spoiled), does not clean up after herself, does her laundry in the bathtub & gets water everywhere, & never cleans the shower drain of her hair.

Yesterday at lunch, Freddy, Barbara, & I decided thatwe should govern our house like Survivor - each week we can kick off those we do not like. Needless to say, it would become a Western Culture household of no more than 6 people.

But we aren't on Survivor & we can't kick people off. So Freddy, christianed the Dictator, will have to be diplomatic tomorrow night & we will all have to compromise. Let's hope it works -