I had my first embarrassing moment in class today.
The topic of my political theory class was about how social constructs shape our decisions and actions. A girl asked a question so the professor made an example. He told her that if she came to my country (he pointed at me), she might be offered beef. She would find it wrong and offensive to eat it but in the US it’s alright. Then he said that she wouldn’t be able to digest it anyways because of the way she was raised, it would be foreign to her. Then he points to me and said that I wouldn’t be able to digest sambar. Then he asked me “do you know what sambar is?” I just shook my head, which actually means ‘yes’ in India, but I really meant ‘no’. So he said, “you do know what it is?” and I said “no”. The whole class was silent but the moment I said ‘no’, everyone started laughing and talking to each other, not in English so I couldn’t understand. Then the professor asked me how long I had been in the country, and I replied that I have only been here about a week. The students kept laughing and I was blushing but also laughing. Then the professor explained to me what sambar was.
It might not sound like a very embarrassing story, but it felt so embarrassing. There was another American kid in the class but I guess the professor chose to call on me.
As soon as I got back to my dorm room I googled ‘sambar’.
