During the packing process, I found something very interesting about myself, and I believe those reading this post will be clearly divided into two camps. And I wonder if the two sides correlate at all with ethnicity, politics, or whatever else.
Here's what it is: I simply cannot throw away things/food!! It's really painful for me to toss a half a bag of frozen peas, a shampoo bottle with a quarter left, or even an empty preserve jar! Over the past two weeks of packing, I keep running into this situation, and every time, I hear two voices in my head, "Sylvia, just toss it! You are wasting time and herding things to make life more complicated than necessary!" Then I hear, "It's still useful/good, why waste nature's resources and money? 惜福 (Xifu, roughly translated as "treasure your fortune")"
I am so torn that it's almost funny to me. My inclination is to save everything. In fact, I did pretty well planning our meals around our move to maximize the chance of using up everything. I also gave away pantry items to neighbors. I think about my mom, my aunt, and many others who would definitely feel the same pain, if not sharper pain, when they see some good things or food being thrown out.
Why this pain? Is it just an obsession or a worthwhile virtue? It being such a personal, intuitive decision, I know it's much related to our upbringing. This reminds me of the "recyclying maniac grandmas" I heard about in Taipei:
Apparently, Taipei has a superb city-wide recycling and composting program. This has gotten many housewives very busy lately. I heard on two seperate occasions about some friends' mother/grandmother practically altering their lives to perform a thorough recyclying job. This doesn't just entail getting up at 6am to catch the recyclying truck. One friend who was visiting her mother wanted to find some food to eat in the freezer, and found bags and bags of what seemed to be food. She thought they were cooked dishes, and after some thawing, they turned out to all be "compostable goods"!! Yucky indeed.
This obsession with composting everything compostable seems to go hand-in-hand with the traditional Chiense value of not wasting ANYTHING, so it gets taken up very well by traditional housewives. And boy, when they are retired and have all the time and energy on this matter, they surely take it to the extreme.
Please let me know how you feel about this topic. I am curious.
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3 comments:
This is often a big topic of discussion (and contention) in my family.
My grandma and late grandpa always had a hard time parting with anything--old clothes, jam jars, extra straws taken from McDonald's, small bits of aluminum, anything that might be useful. And, they really didn't like to see food go to waste. Rumor has it if they went out to eat (a very very rare occurrence, since they didn't like to spend money) they'd sometimes ask people at other tables for their leftovers to take home to their dogs! I guess this is what sometimes happens when you grow up having very little, around the time of the Depression.
My mom, deprived of new things in her childhood because her parents were always trying to save money, collects a lot of "luxury" items, like artwork, Native American jewelry, shoes. But she also hangs on to those potentially useful things too like jelly jars and shopping bags. And, although she doesn't like to waste food, she is not obsessed with it like her parents were. (Of course as a child, I did hear about the "starving children in Ethiopia" if I left too much on my plate.)
As for me, I have always felt like my mom and my grandparents kept too much stuff around the house. Too much clutter makes me tired and stressed out. I am delighted to recycle anything I can (even "treasures" like jam jars) and donate things that are still useful. I hate it when too many shoes, clothes, trinkets accumulate. I feel weighted down. But I also hate to see things go to waste because Americans buy and throw away too many things. The only solution I've come up with is to buy less, and hang onto a FEW potentially useful things (shopping bags, plastic spoons). As for situations like moving, I think there are times when you simply have to throw things away that you otherwise wouldn't, and try not to feel to bad about it.
Buying less is definitely a good solution. I didn't mention that this also goes to water usage and air- conditioning, and that's kind of a sore spot in my family because Paul's upbringing and mine are quite different in this respect. But, I am happy to say that I think Paul and I have slowly gotten to accomodate to each other over the past years (e.g. he would turn off the faucet during shaving, and I keep the house cooler than I would have been willing to endure).
I think buying less is the ultimate solution! I admit I have a habit to throw away uncooked or cooked food that has been in the refrigerator for more than one week. As a result, I make sure I don't buy too much food in my weekly grocery shopping.
Many people depend on paper products (i.e. paper towels, paper dishes/bowls, napkins, Swifter wipes) too much. I feel we need to limit the use of paper products in order to save more trees and protect our environment. However, being a working mom, I am too lazy to use old towels to wipe floor. I really feel bad about this....
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