I was at my local sushi bar the other night. They had 3 sushi chefs working most people assume chefs in sushi restaurants are Japanese, but that is not the case. Also a common assumption is that all sushi chefs are trained sushi chefs. In fact, most sushi chefs in the U.S. are sushi chefs that have done their apprenticeship in Japan, under a master for 7 years. O.K. back to my story.
This place I have been to many times, so I do know the ethnicity of the chefs. One guy, a short, stocky guy with huge hands is from Burma, the guy in the middle who wears a black hat is from Mexico and a very funny guy, the third has a very zen-like, focused appearance and looks very Japanese.
A woman is sitting next to me at the sushi bar. I engaged in a conversation with her and she is Chinese and has just come back from Hong Kong. She has a heavy Chinese accent and loves to eat. As I was pigging-out on an extraordinary quantity of Japanese food, this woman was outdoing me on the quantity she was eating. She had a huge bowl of yosanabi ( japanese noodle,seafood soup) in front of her, plus various other dishes she had already finished. Now she tries to order some sushi directly from the sushi chef. This is from the zen-like sushi chef. She says in a thick Chinese accent, " I would rike some sushi, same rike rast time. I want a rot" The sushi chef, replies in his heavy accent, back to her " zushi? you want zushi"? She says " zushi? what that? I want sushi." He says " zushi, with Lice"? she says "SUSHI" . I feel I must help them. You see the zen- like chef, although appearing to look very Japanese, and he even speaks Japanese, is Chinese and speaks Chinese. I know this for a fact, as a good friend of mine is Chinese and has spoken to this chef in Chinese. So I say to the woman" you are Chinese. He is Chinese. If you speak in Chinese , you will get what you want!" She asked him in Chinese, he smiled, and answered in Chinese. They began conversing at rapid speed. She got tons of sushi. She was very happy. The sushi chef was very happy. I was very happy
