Waiter, there's someone else's fork in my food
Often the third question Thais will ask after "What's your name?" and "Where are you from?" is "You like Thai food?"
The answer in my case is “Yes, I love it.” I also love the way Thai meals feature an array of dishes – spicy, salty, sour, sometimes bitter, sometimes a little sweet, all balancing each other for the perfect meal served with rice.
But there is one aspect of this that is disturbing, not to say unhygienic and inviting the spread of disease and illness. This is the habit of people using their own spoon or fork to dig into one of the dishes, transferring a portion to their own plate and eating it, before digging into another dish with the same spoon or fork.
Rarely, even in so-called upmarket Thai restaurants, are separate utensils provided with each dish, and if they are I notice that my friends tend to ignore them and still use their own.
Many places sport a “Clean Restaurant” logo. Perhaps this campaign could be extended to include a tick for restaurants that provide serving utensils, with an accompanying cartoon character suffering from the effects of not observing basic personal hygiene habits when eating. It might get the message across.
David Brown
Rayong
