Allergy

One tradition of hosting an international conference is there is a faculty dinner to thank all speakers and organizers.

This time, we make it on a floating seafood restaurant. The expense is reasonable, and, at least we local organizers believe, there is a good touch of local flavor for all those gweilo.

But we had a hiccup. Shortly before the dinner was served, AF, an American professor of a Chinese descent, came to my table and spoke to my colleague BK, "Em... there's a problem. My friend CL, who is sitting next me, actually has very bad seafood allergy."

We were dumbfounded. The invitation letter we sent out did put up clearly that this event is on a seafood restaurant, and we expect most of the dishes to be coming from the sea.

Thank goodness our trouble did not last long. Our secretary quickly fetched some French fries and Indian naan for our unfortunate guest. Nonetheless, we continued to talk about this event the whole evening and kept watching to make sure he was OK.

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Some time later, the dish of vegetable was served. (Visitors who understand the routine of a Chinese banquet would know what I mean.) One of us smiled and pointed at the lettuce and mushroom, "You know, our allergic friend couldn't even try this. It is cooked with oyster sauce!"

"Maybe not," I chuckled, "As it comes to light recently that our beef meatball does not have any beef, it seems equally possible that our oyster sauce contains no oyster!"