Different Slants

On Christmas Day, I always close my back-issue magazine store, Magazine Memories, just north of Chicago, and I try do something else more spiritually stimulating.

This year, my son David, then 29, and I decided to spend the day together, going to movies and also have dinner. He is a filmmaker and had just returned from eighteen days in Asia after being hired to record the daily activities and performances of a DJ called Jazzy Jeff.  He went all over, including Hong Kong; Jakarta, Indonesia;  Taipei, Dubai; and Bangkok. He especially liked Bangkok.

So, after hearing that, I suggested we go to an intimate Thai restaurant I knew about for dinner, because that’s one of my favorite Asian cuisines, as well.  We had green tea, mild tom-yum soup with shrimp, bamboo and lemon-grass, mini toasted egg rolls, spicy crispy chicken wings with sweet and sour sauce, and then roasted duck. Great food and great conversation, too.

For Dave’s 12th birthday in 1990, my wife Joy and I gave him a video camera, and it must have been the right thing to do, because now he’s traveling the world, filming it.

After dinner, I went to pay our very cute and slender Thai waitress, who was also the cashier. After handing me my change, she wished me a “Merry Christmas” as people had endlessly said to me that day and other recent days. Then she looked uncertain, her lovely black eyes looking into my dark brown ones and she said, quietly:

“Is it all right to say that to you?  Is that incorrect?”

She seemed both disturbed and confused. I was enchanted by her question and wondered why she asked me. So I responded, gently, but with amusement as well.

“Miss, if you’re from Thailand, I’m guessing most likely you’re a Buddhist….if you’re from the northern part of the country, correct?  Well, I’m Jewish. So…neither one of us celebrates Christmas. But in America, at Christmas time, since this country appears to me to be overwhelmingly some kind of Christian faith, it’s perfectly fine to wish anyone a ‘Merry Christmas.’

The meaning of the greeting is more than only for Christians. It is meant to convey good-will and a sense of, well, peaceful co-existance. It’s a very relaxed time of year for me, even though I’m a Jew. People are just nicer, in general.

So, while it seems a little funny for a Buddhist to wish a Jew “Merry Christmas” you can’t stop every single person to see if they are offended by that greeting. No one will be. I don’t mind it at all, and you shouldn’t worry about it.”

She smiled at me, and she seemed reassured. We shook hands. Her hand was small and delicate. I smiled back at her and then thought to myself:

It isn’t every day that a Buddhist-Thai immigrant asks a third-generation Byelorussian/Lithuanian/Polish Jew about safe and appropriate Christian holiday practices in America.

But then, that’s most likely why both our families chose to come here in the first place….mine a century ago and hers more recently. Overall, it’s safe to be different, in America.

Therefore: Happy Kwanza, Happy Chanukkah, and, of course, Merry Christmas!!

And what would the Buddhist response to all of that be?

Like that young Thai girl, I’m uncertain as well, but I expect they would be silently in sync with anything involving peace and good will.

And the Moslems?  Them too, I believe…and I hope, too. 

Salaam Alakem to all of you.