Multinational Dinner

Brett and I were invited to a dinner hosted by my boss. I work with Dr. Smith's (my boss's) research teams of undergrad and graduate students, and this dinner was for them. As we ate, each of us around the table talked about the holidays we celebrate and our family/cultural traditions that go along with those holidays. We got to learn about customs in different states of India, Libya, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, as well as the different Christmas traditions celebrated by the Americans in the room. We learned about Indian weddings (and divorces), Ramadan, Hajj, Chinese New Year, and several others I cannot pronounce.

It is interesting to note that the underlying significance of these diverse traditions is to preserve the unity of the family - in order to preserve unity as a community - in order to preserve unity as a country.




From the left, around the table: Brian, Steven, Uday, Kyle, Lisa, Dr. Smith (the boss), his wife Eileen, Brett, Hassan, Vikram, Reza, Chen, and Mohamed. (Josh, Jia, and Vivek are also part of the group, but they were not present.)


Please excuse the overly-large picture. This program does not allow me to change the border dimensions of the picture besides choosing 'Small,' 'Medium,' 'Large,' and 'Xtra Large.'

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