There's No Such Thing as an Empty Table

Approaching hospitality from another perspective

Photo this week by Joel Heard on Unsplash

I am sitting in an American-style burger restaurant in the heart of Kyrgyzstan’s newest mall. It’s 2 PM on a Tuesday afternoon, a time when malls are at their laziest, when people are sparse and sellers have turned to their phones for entertainment. I’m with a friend, and we’re the only customers in the restaurant. 

There’s no music, no movement—just a steady hum of air conditioning in the background of our conversation. Occasionally our waitress peeks her head out of the kitchen, only to return a second later.

Things remain still until about 2:30, when the doors of the kitchen, once again, creak open. But this time, out of the corner of my eye, I notice a handful of waitresses and cooks walking towards a set of tables nearer to the kitchen. They’re chatting with one another with friendly voices and gestures, a contrast to our surroundings in sound and movement. Soon they line a set of three fast food tables in a single row, side by side.

The workers go back into the kitchen, coming out seconds later. Each of them is holding several platters, bowls, cups, trays, all ornate with traditional Kyrgyz and Russian designs. A waitress spreads out a tablecloth. They’re still talking with one another, barely paying attention to what they’re doing, but with rehearsed precision they arrange the dishes like a chess board.

Once all the pieces are laid, they go inside one more time, only to return seconds later followed by the rest of the working crew. Each of them takes a seat and begins the process of opening platters and filling plates.

I’m sitting a distance away from them, so it’s hard for me to see exactly what they’re eating. But I can tell they have opted against making more burgers. Instead, the soda is exchanged for tea, the fries for bread, the burgers for plov, or some other Central Asian dish.

I watch them as they pass food and cups of tea to one another. It’s really a foreign image. In a restaurant striving to replicate American culture, its workers, whether they realize it or not, are certainly not replicating America in any way.

. . .

In the United States, it is often easy to find neighborhoods, cities, and states that pride themselves in their hospitality. Particularly in the South, people often go out of their way to express warmth towards strangers, and most will agree that this friendly attitude is the backbone of a hospitable culture.

And in many ways, this concept of hospitality has evolved over the years. Now, most people opt out of tablecloths when guests come over. Some opt out of eating at the table altogether. Instead, hosts in recent years have strived to create a “family” tone, where former traditions of etiquette are being discarded and ignored. Politeness still exists, of course, but ceremony doesn’t.

What is at the center of our American hospitality is openness, a desire to share life with one another without pomp and circumstance. And so we sift out the formalities and are left with empty tables.

. . .

Several years ago, when I still lived in the US, I had the opportunity to visit a family who had recently relocated from Kazakhstan to America. This family invited my family over for a meal, and we happily accepted, driving a few hours to meet them at their house for dinner. We were welcomed with a table holding enough food to feed us for days.

“In Kazakh culture,” the wife explained, “there’s no such thing as an empty table when a guest comes over. Every part of the table must have food on it.”

And so go the rules of the game, or the brushes of the artwork. It can be overwhelming as outsiders looking in, especially as Americans, where we like to conflate the idea of hospitality with casualness and accessibility. A meal with a Central Asian, though always friendly, has a markedly different tone.

The rules of the game are plenty:

·      Guests must bring a gift

·      Hosts must cover the table and use a tablecloth

·      Guests must remove their shoes

·      Hosts must serve teacups half-full

·      Guests must wait for their host to indicate their seating

·      Hosts must never leave a plate empty

·      Guests must eat with their right hand

·      Hosts must pronounce a blessing at the end of the meal

And the list could go on.

Unfortunately, to many of us this system of hospitality may merely be seen as rigid formalism. We ask ourselves why the ceremony is necessary. Why must we add the tablecloth, and leave no spot uncovered, and eat with our right hand, and pronounce a blessing over our guests? Why can’t we be like family with one another and skip the formality?

For many of us in the West, these really can be genuine questions. But to our friends in the East, these genuine questions have an obvious answer.

. . .

I’m sitting at home with a Kyrgyz friend of mine, a lively translator in his forties. He has agreed to help me practice Russian. I’ve found that one of the difficult parts about Russian is that Russian has a formal “you” (vi)— and an informal “you” (ti). As the names imply, vi is used in formal and polite contexts, whereas ti is used among family and friends. The nuances of ti and vi can sometimes confuse me, so I ask my friend for help.  

My friend explains: “I was recently sitting in a park when some young teenagers came up to me, wanting to ask me something. They began the conversation saying, ‘hey ti.’” My friend laughs to himself. “And it was so rude.”

I turn my head a little. How is that disrespectful? Surely, they were just wanting to be on friendly terms.

“To approach someone clearly older than you and call him ti,” he goes on to say, “that is disrespectful. That shows that you do not want to honor someone older than you.”

I come from a country where we’ve almost gotten rid of the terms Mr. and Mrs., so it takes me a second to realize his perspective.

. . .

This ti/vi distinction, the game of chess at the dinner table, the rituals and formalities are all rooted in showing honor to another individual. Unlike in the States, where openness lies at the heart of our informal style, Central Asia takes the concept of respect and creates branches of tradition and formality. A Kyrgyz will fill your teacup only halfway because he wants the honor of refilling your cup. The less you have in your cup, the more often he will need to refill it, thus giving him more opportunities to show you honor.

To one culture, formal traditions and customs imply distance or coldness. But in Central Asia, the rigid customs imply value in another individual, and to ignore the custom is to suggest that the person is of little value.

That seems to be the reason why it’s completely normal to find a traditional, fully ornate Kyrgyz table set up in a US-style burger joint. It’s also the reason why I’m served free hot tea anytime I’m ordering to-go at my favorite Turkish restaurant, or why I’m expected to give up my seat for the elderly if I’m on the bus. These actions all communicate honor here, that respect ought to be given to the people in front of us.

And it makes me wonder: should I be adding more to my table? Or keep taking things away from it?