| Muller | Hitchhiking Vietnam
Page 45 |
Lunch turned out to be oily green beans and snails in their shiny black shells. I ate two helpings of the vegetables and then pushed my bowl away with what I hoped was a satisfied smile. Fung watched me over the edge of his bowl, then deliberately picked up a snail with his chopsticks and dropped it into my bowl. I protested silently with my hands. Fung stirred it around with his chopsticks, his eyes brittle and hard. I had thus far eaten every bit of food that found its way into my bowl, received countless corrections of my eating habits and gone without meals when my guides had already satisfied their appetites with beer. But this was different - I knew what the snails lived on, where they flourished and what parasites dwelled inside their guts. I shook my head. Fung picked up my chopsticks and pushed them into my hand. I put them down, feeling like a rebellious two-year-old refusing to eat mashed peas. Two adults drawing battle lines over a plate of food. My mother would have been appalled.
