Cultural Encounters in Catherine Merriman's 'Eating Sugar'

As human beings we love to explore and extend our minds. Sometimes we end up, being in situations we can’t handle, in the way that we are used to. Sometimes we travel all over the world, just to discover something new, but end up being too safe, in the fear of mind expanding. Life might be dangerous, and natives might kill us? Don’t you think?

The short story written by Catherine Merriman “Eating Sugar” is about a family, who is going to Thailand for the first time. They are too afraid all the time, so they aren’t enjoying it as much as they could. In this text one of the themes is parents and children who are changing their roles, and feeling helpless under unknown circumstances.

They are lost, and they can’t find a ride back to the city, which makes them freak out. Thailand is “The land of Smiles; but also of pirates, and bandits”, they focus too much on the dangerous parts, then the fact that it is a land of smiles. Again, Natives are always dangerous. The daughter Elieen is takes control, and tries to calm down her family and friends. They meet some Thais that want to help them, and they are really kind. The Thais are not pirates or anything like that, they are just really friendly. The whole situation reminds her brother Alex, about a LSD situation Elieen had a couple of years ago. When they were younger and still lived with their parents, Elieen had taken a tab of LSD, which Alex himself had done once. Elieen was sitting on the kitchen floor, shoveling spoons of sugar into her mouth. She did it because, of a myth there where at that time. The myth said that: if you eat sugar it would bring you out if the LSD. I did not take Alex long time to realize that, you need to try something to comprehend and understand. Just like the LSD and the sugar, the family and he needed to get “out of control” for a while, and experience what it feels like. The Thais helped them coming back to the city. When they finally are going back to the city, they end up feeling that Thailand is a beautiful land, and they feel more familiar with it, instead of just compare it with a land of pirates. Like the LSD they end up being glad about having tried it. They learn to trust, even the grown ups needs to learn how to trust.