Tales of (Tibetan) coworkers.

At my one resthome job, I have a lot of (Tibetan) coworkers, including...:

1) A(n older) (Tibetan) woman who was a refugee in India at a young age, and grew up there before moving to the United States.  She doesn't have a high school diploma and is ready to retire, and when she comes on shift she's always drinking this barley tea thing that they make in Tibet, which is tea and barley flour and some butter and salt, and she says you can have it when you get up in the morning instead of a meal.

She also said it's tough to find good barley flour and she used to have to order it from New York, but some (older) (Tibetan) folks in the area have started to make it, since you have to dryroast the barley and then grind it, and you need this special grinder that costs $300, which some of them have boughten.

Back in India, she said, you used to roast the barley in warm ashes, and then shift the coals and ashes out.

Sometimes for family celebrations, she makes curries and Tandoori chicken like she used to make back in India.

2) A (middle-aged) (Tibetan) woman with a soft voice who told me that most Tibetans get both their first and last names from monks, since they really don't have family names there, apart from a few old rich and powerful families.

When I asked her if anyone could ever meet a brother and sister or something and not know they were related because they had different names, she said not really, since it's small communities and everyone knows each other.

3) A (young) (Tibetan) guy who said his name means "something good, like love and peace," and who says he loves being Tibetan.

He's not really married, but he and his girlfriend were together forever, and so they decided to put rings on each other and they now say they're married.

He also sometimes goes to the casinos, and likes the buffet.

Me and him also talked with another one of our coworkers about Mongolian hotpot places in Chinatown where you get boiling broth put on a stove-table in front of you, and then you order meats and vegetables to put in the broth and boil however you want.

"It's like a buffet," he told our coworker.