Where's the kitchen?

One of the things that surprised us when we first moved to SE Asia was the lack of kitchens in many of the homes.  For homes in the States, the kitchen is often the central room in the house.  Not so in SE Asia.  For many homes, the kitchen is simply a tile topped narrow table attached to a wall roughly the size of a coat closet.  Or more than likely, the kitchen is simply located outside -- a rough wooden shelf with a few pots and pans on it, and all the cooking is down out of doors.  Well, you can imagine how excited I am with the prospect of cooking out of doors and being used to an American kitchen, we installed a basic kitchen in our new home that simply consists of a tiled countertop with a fridge and oven located on either side.  We also installed a sink to wash dishes. 

With us looking at moving in a few days, our home owners have been showing our house to new prospective renters.  A group showed up unexpectedly yesterday while I was right in the middle of cooking dinner. I had pots and pans everywhere and was chopping tomatoes.  The family apologized for disturbing me, I said "Oh, not a problem," and then they began to look at the house.  They went in all the rooms and then came to the kitchen, walked right past me and all the bubbling pans and the vegetables being chopped, opened the door to the tiny mosquito infested storage area in the back of our house that's outside and covered and said, "Oh, here's the kitchen."

Joseph and I just laughed.  We are the first to recognize that culture is a crazy thing and things are done so differently at times than what we're used to .  .  . but sometimes, it still surprises us.