Eating Sugar It has always been easy to judge other people before you know them – much easier than it is to open up to a complete stranger. Every day we judge other people by the way they look, and especially people with different backgrounds than ourselves. But isn’t it wrong to make first-hand impressions before you know the person? It might turn out that it is a nice person with a great personality hidden under a different appearance. The short story Eating Sugar, written by Catherine Merriman,_ _describes the meeting between two different cultures; how their first-hand-impressions on each other are and how this impression develops over time. The story takes place in Thailand in the month of April. We are in the deserted rainforest where an English family, consisting of Alex, Eileen and their twenty-one-year old daughter Suzanne, have been on a trip with other tourists and guides. But they decide to stay a little longer than the other, so they can enjoy the waterfall alone and end up getting lost. After a while - and many thoughts about the situation, they meet a group of Thai men. Suzanne and her parents have very different views on strangers. Alex and Eileen are very suspicious about the Thais, and they do not feel safe among them. They do not trust them, and especially Alex is sure that they have met someone who might be dangerous as he states: “...Christ, they could be up to anything” (_page 5, line 125)_ Unlike her parents, Suzanne is very cool about the whole situation. She is not afraid of meeting new people, and does not judge them beforehand: _“They offered you a beer, Dad. Why’d they do that if they were up to something? ... They’re nice people, Dad. I’m sure ... Everything’s going to be alright” (Page 5, lines 126-128) _ Suzanne is very optimistic and unlike Alex and Eileen, she is actually interested in getting to know the Thai men. _ _ In a way it is like Suzanne is the parent and Alex and Eileen are the frightened children. She constantly has to calm down her parents, and convince them that nothing bad is going to happen: “There had been a role reversal here. Suzanne, their brave twenty-one-year old daughter transformed this side of the world to a competent, patient, encou_raging parent. He and Eileen her anxious, fractious, dependent charges” (Page 3 lines 39-42)_ But it is probably only in Thailand Suzanne is “the parent”. We hear how Alex wants to protect his family, but he does not have the courage around the four unfamiliar Thai men: “There were four of them, and only himself, with his wife and daughter” (Page 3 line 71-72) Therefore it is necessary for Alex to have someone who can protect him. Actually we hear that it is Eileen’s anxiety that keeps his own fear away, because he constantly has to show a cool facade so they don’t both freak out. Alex compares the whole incident in the forest with the one time he and Eileen had taken a LSD-tablet when they were young. Back then Eileen had a bad trip – she felt anxious and had eaten a lot of sugar (at that time there was a myth that sugar was meant to bring you out). Just like the pill, Thailand is an unknown area – a different culture, which you cannot imagine before you have experienced it yourselves. Alex thinks of Thailand as “The Land of Smiles”, but also as a land with pirates and bandits. But the big question her is; isn’t there bandits everywhere? You cannot assume that all people in an entire civilization are alike. There will always be good and bad people, but that does not mean that you can denounce the country and all the inhabitants as dangerous. Actually the story gives us the impression that there is no reason for Alex and Eileen to freak out. The Thai men seem to be friendly and obliging to the family. Suzanne is an English teacher in Thailand, and speaks with the one of the men who also speaks English. His name is Wirut, and it turns out that he is an English teacher too. Surprisingly his English is bad considering that he is an English teacher. Instead of saying “English” he says “Engyish”, but he still enjoys speaking English with Suzanne. In fact he asks her to speak English instead of Thai, and at the end of the story we can see that he is becoming better. Now he pronounces “English” as “Engleesh”, which is closer to the right pronouncing. But it does not come as any surprise that Wirut does not master English. We hear that he comes from a place where there is not many western to speak with. So English is not the language that he uses on an ordinary day – the mix of cultures is missing. But in this story we see how important it is for people from different countries to have the possibility to communicate with each other. If Wirut hadn’t been able to speak English and Suzanne to speak Thai, there could have been some misunderstandings which maybe could have led to troubles. During the story there is a description of a wild dog: “Still, _quiet, patient unassertive ... It wasn’t afraid of the forest or the men” (Page 5 ling 131-132)_ The dog can be compared with the Thais. It is not afraid, even though it does not know the people around it. Neither do the Thai men know Alex, Eileen and Suzanne and they also do not show any sign of fear. The reason why Alex and Eileen are so afraid is that the Thais are people they do not know. But the Thais do not know the family either, so they would have the same right to be afraid – but they are not. They believe in the best in people until proven otherwise. Alex on the other hand believes in the worst in people. He will not believe that the Thai men actually will give them a lift back home, until he sees the car: “He felt his fear drain away” (Page 5 line 139-140) This is the first time he realizes that the Thai men are good people, who are not up to anything else than helping them. And after this realization he begins seeing Thailand from a different view; now he sees it as it is – beautiful and lovely. The title of the text is, as earlier mentioned, _Eating Sugar. Metaphorically _it could be connected with the fact that Alex could need to eat a lot of sugar to see things more positive. Also because we hear that after Eileen had eaten the sugar in connection with her bad trip, she had began enjoying herself instead of feeling anxious – just what Alex needs. The themes of the text could be “cultural clash” or “first-hand impression”. The English culture clashes with the Thai and first-hand impressions as made right away - but only judged by appearances. When they begin to know each other, they realize that they are all good persons. Therefore the moral the auther wants to tell us could be that we are not able to judge other people, just because they look different than us. Instead it is possible that we can help each other and learn from each other. In this text Wirut’s English becomes better after talking with the English family and the Thais help the family getting back to their apartment. But another meaning with the text might also be that we shall be open to other people but not reckless. It is reckless to hitch all the way to Yugoslavia – as Alex and Eileen had done when they were young. But to judge other people before you know them, is also stupid. There must be a middle course between thoughtless action and being too cautious. In this case this middle road might be found as a mix between Suzanne’s fearlessness and Alex’s and Eileen’s anxiety against everything that is unknown.