Garnish
by Paul Ho.

Before we send a dish out, we always garnish it first. As a final touch, a small twig of parsley does a great job. Actually garnishing a plate is an art by itself. It doesn't take you too much time or cause you too much trouble, yet it really makes a boring plate look attractive. People always eat with their eyes first. Some of them even say, "What a delicious dish"! by just looking at it. See, my little magic parsley works out so wonderful just like the sudden shower in April days.

Without a proper garnish, even life looks like a boring dish. Once in a while we really need something to boost up ourselves. Your date didn't show up? Fail the exam? Fighting with your family or lose in the game? Sometimes we really push our luck and yell around that life is getting tough. Take it easy, don't get mad. All these little misfortunes are just like magic parsley put on the boring dish; they can make our life more interesting, more challenging and more fruitful.

Since our dish of life was carefully prepared by invisible hands, in order to make it

more attractive, a little bit of garnish is a must. Memories are exactly like our tasty dessert and usually we don't use parsley to garnish them because the whole dinner course had almost come to an end. "What a wonderful dinner". We always say it from our hearts with thankfulness.

Do you agree, that kind of wonderful feeling is exactly like the merciful smile hanging on our granny's wrinkled face?

Background Information

Have you eaten in a restaurant and found a small sprig of green on your plate? That's a garnish. Do you know why restaurants put that green stuff on your plate? Talk about this. Why do you think it's there? Also talk about how people garnish (or add to) their lives. What makes life more meaningful. How is that connected to what is put on a plate of food? Or is it?

Questions

1. What is parsley?

2. What is an art?

3. What does garnishing a plate do?

4. What do people eat with first?

5. What do you think eating with the eyes means?

6. What does Paul say all our misfortunes are?

7. What's another word for tough?

8. What does the word fruitful mean in this story?

9. What are memories exactly like?

10. What do you think the last paragraph means?