When I worked at the Japanese bar years ago, there was a Korean "kitchen mama" who made all the food, including giant barrels of kimchee, grilled fish, etc. She was an excellent cook but she didn't didn't speak English and the others treated her as low-class.

When Japanese businessmen would come in groups, she made all of the most delicious gourmet food for them. No bill was ever presented for food, because it was a "gift" and the men were supposed to give back a gift of money, whatever they thought the service was worth.

Sometimes "haoli" (white) men would come in and you would have to present them a bill because if you didn't they thought it was free. But you had to use discretion, because if you gave someone a bill who knew the etiquette they could get really insulted.

Once the kitchen mama betrayed me though. Someone had been making long-distance calls on the kitchen phone and I was blamed for it because sometimes I would hide in the kitchen when the men harassed me. She wouldn't back me up and say it wasn't me making the calls.

You were supposed to flirt with all of the men but not let the other men know you had other customers. It was dark and the booths faced away from each other so you played musical booths.

Sometimes also the haoli men thought that if you sat with them you were picking them up. They didn't realize it was part of your job. And that got really uncomfortable and even dangerous sometimes.

That job made me think about class a lot. Because if that woman had been working in a kitchen in a fine restaurant, she would have been a famous chef. But she was treated as just a low-class peasant.

My palette has developed a lot since then, but at the time I thought the food she made was the most delicious I had ever tasted.