Culture Shock

At the end of our trip, we spent a few hours in Tongatapu before our plane left for New Zealand. We spent some time with a friend of a friend, who's relatives from Australia were visiting at the time. We hung out with them for a while and then had dinner together. As usual, we used our hands to serve and eat and the food was so good we were probably eating really fast and at one point I bit off a piece of something and gave the rest to Allyson. The girls from Australia saw us and said "wow you guys really are Tongan!" because of how we were eating. I used a spoon I had in front of me to scoop out the coconut meat, and they said "use a knife!" and I looked down at my spoon, and I didn't even realize that I had the option of the knife, I just used what was there! I had been so used to eating this way in Tonga, but to the girls who grew up in Australia, they were totally grossed out and I realized I had forgotten my "proper table manners." I tried to eat more "civilized" as to not gross out our new friends, however I couldn't help but think about how I experienced some sort of reverse culture shock, and new eating habits I had picked up in Tonga weren't necessarily acceptable to these Australian girls and wouldn't be acceptable to our American friends/family as well.