In days afterwards, whenever David enter the computer room of the Burrito House head office, and if time permit, he often stopped by to see Derrick and exchange one or two stories about customs or anecdotes of their own ethnic groups. Derrick wanted to teach David to become a brother like Chinese and David wanted to teach this brother a thing or two about China too. For starters, Derrick stopped David one day and said, "Don't call me Derrick any more. Call me D-Rick-D or D-Rick for Derrick Davis" and he showed a clinched right fist with palm side facing forward: "This is black pride. I am going to teach you to become the most hip-hop Chinese in this company. Or I should say: 'I'll hip you up'".

David seemed to have seen a similar gesture before with two black American Olympic medalists clinching their fists when receiving their medals. The difference between the gestures was that those medalists seemed to have their arms extended much longer than D-Rick did in the Burrito House computer room. D-Rick nodded and said those gestures meant the same thing. Both meant black pride and in protests of racism.

Back in 60's and 70's, racial tension was much more intense than in recent decades. Overall, black and white divide today can not even begin to compare with anything happened during the days of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or the days with Black Panthers patrolling the streets. On the other hand, there are always sporadic problems flaring up here and there between the blacks and whites and it's hard to tell when those problems would come to an end.

Sometimes problems between black and white seemed to have been overblown for other purposes in America or for other selfish purposes. David told a funny story to D-Rick. One day, he was walking the downtown streets of Houston and a black man stopped him asking for a few changes and then asked whether he was from Korea. David said he was a Chinese, not a Korean. The black man continued to speak along his trend of thoughts: "I've been to Korea. I was in Korean man. I was in the War. I killed a man". Then realizing it was not so logical to tell an Asian looking fellow regardless of Chinese or Korean that he had killed Asians in the Korean War and expect to get some changes, the black man added: "I killed a white man, a white man. I killed a white man over there. Come, hit the rock brother. . ." and then he showed David how to bump two fists to display affection of brotherhood.

David commented on the story to D-Rick, "Look, if a black man was in the Korean War and survived, most likely, he killed more China man than white man. Did I say 'China man'? Well, I am a Chinese so I am allowed to say that, just like Chris Tucker in Rush Hours was allowed to say the N word, while Jacky Chen was pummeled when he tried".

D-Rick could not focus on the overblown aspect of the "racial things", but instead he liked to talk about the how "racial things" were real in America. A Burrito House employee passed by the computer room, and he would say: "Look at Carl, usually we are friends, and we can even talk like brothers commenting on white man. He would come to me and say 'how come there were no African Americans in the judging committee of the Christmas decoration contest?' But when there was a time I told him to clean up his desk, because there were people from top management passing by with photographers and a entourage, he yield at me out of his frustration at work: 'if you want to be a servant and carry a tray, go ahead and clean my damn desk for me'. . . 'I was speechless, you know. That was just what was in his mind. Usually, everything is quiet and fine and rosy and all, but many small troubles would just show racial problems here and there'.

There were days when David would pass by the big black AS/400 box and D-Rick would ask him, whether there were racial problems in China similar to those in America. David first admitted without hesitation that discriminations were naturally everywhere, or got setup for scandalous reasons. In most cases people who discriminate were the weak and insecure type of people, not necessarily feeling any superior over other people being discriminated against. But since social establishments like to play the discriminating game and there could be promotions or a few more bucks of monetary gains coming along with playing along, why not.

David thought for a while to briefly search through Chinese history and really couldn't think of similar racial co-existence and conflicting period like those of today's America. He said: "while Mongolians were in China, it seemed they imposed a ranking system for races more or less like that of the 'cast' system in India which lasted until today. Later there were other rulers briefly imposed ranking systems of families and tribes based on heritage. But it is really hard to find any segregation, enslavement or punishment, such as forbidding black kids to go to school, based on skin colors. Maybe we just never had people with colors that are too distinctly contrasting to the most populous ethnic group. Or maybe Chinese just couldn't tell the color of skins that well, since there have always seemed to be a full spectrum of skin colors among Chinese minorities and ethnic groups. It is also possible that majority of the Chinese really have the same skin color, and they never had been put to the test for their tolerance levels with people bearing different skin colors.

The most inexplicable thing about the racial disparity is this: When a foreigner thinks of the national image of the United States of America, there would probably be a very high percentage of black superstars immediately jumping into their minds. It's hard to imagine a race that helped winning American so many medals and awards on the international stages is so underprivileged in their own country. Before coming to America in the early 90's, I saw Carl Lewis, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson, etc. Those people formed a large percentage of the American that I knew from overseas. It gave me a shock when living in this country through the 90's and witnessed that black quarter backs and black coaches in the NFL would still become subjects of debate lasting into 00's on TV and the Rush Limbaugh show".

Sometimes D-Rick would be listening to music and David would pass by the computer room and ask him a few questions about the black culture in American culture -- a sort of "culture within the culture". Other employees passing by would chime in occasionally and joke to D-Rick: "make sure you give him proper education on 'soul music', 'soul food' . . ." David often wonder what kind of nouns could be prefixed with the word "soul" to mean "black". "Can I say we are making 'soul conversation' or talking 'soul talk'?" D-Rick frowned and said "No, it don't go like that". David asked D-Rick whether "You are really rock'in baby" sounded black or white. D-Rick said: "it's white". "How about someone 'freaking rocks'"? D-Rick said: "That's white too. Some of the stuff you asked me sounded like from white mafia movies. Whites have their share of criminals you know. When I was a boy we used to hear this song, let me think how it goes. 'Brown, Brown, Lee Roy Brown, Baddest man in the whole damn town. Meaner than a junk yard dog, badder than the old King Kong'."

Suddenly, David thought of something and started asking, "Snoop Doggy Dogg is very black isn't he", "Yeah. Do you like his songs"? D-Rick asked. David laughed slightly and said, "Not that much, the funny thing is that when I worked in Sweden, there was a Swedish technician who loved Rapp music very much. He would turn on his radio all day while working and I kept on hearing a song 'I don't really know what you ever think about me. I am just a mother f**ker P-I-M-P'. Then at the end of the song, the Swedish DJ would come on the radio and say a phrase of Swedish along the line of 'you have been listening to' and then with perfect English 'Snoop Doggy Dogg: I am a pimp'. I just though that I would let you know: the black culture had strong appeals even to people in the Nordic countries as off springs of the Vikings. D-Rick amused and said: "I am a pimp, aha? There is another song from Snoop Dogg also talked about pimps. It goes like this: 'pimping ain't easy, but it's very necessary, I chase those holes like Tom chasing Jerry'. David shook his head and said: "woo, this one is just as bad as, or even worse than the other one". D-Rick asked: "do you know what Tom and Jerry are?" David said: "Tom cat and Jerry mouse?" "Yes, so you know". David thought: "oh, an AS/400 operator must not have known the fact that most Java programmers who worked on the Internet heard about Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse these days, especially with the help of the popular Java Application Tomcat. On the other hand, there could be Java programmers who were not inquisitive enough to discover the origin of the name Tomcat rooted from a cartoon character".

D-Rick sometimes to overestimate how high an upbringing David had, because he heard that David's parents are both medical doctors and medical doctors in US are licensed Gods, so he thought David was a Chinese version of spoiled brat. Seeing how David behaved normally, he even underestimated how Chinese street cultures could get rough too, and once asked: "are there such things like 'Gangster Rapp' in China"? David said, "there were certainly Rapp in China and I don't know if there are 'Gangster Rapp' these days, but the street talks in my hometown when I grew up as a child certainly sounded similar to those of Snoop Dogg's'

In order to show how different blacks and whites talk, D-Rick started pointing out the variations in words one day. He asked David: "if you are going to say that you are going to take 3 tests today, how would you say it". David said: "I am going to take 3 tests today". D-Rick said: "For some of the old black folks, they would say they are taking '3 tesses', and if they want to say they have 3 desks, they would say they have '3 desses'".

As David and D-Rick spent more and more time in the Burrito House computer room, D-Rick felt like obligated to enhance his Chinese brother's knowledge about black culture each day, and eventually came up with a routine which he called "the daily lessons". He would sometime start the teaching with phrases like this: "Today's word is: 'government cheese'". After a few months, D-Rick felt his Chinese brother as being too mellow and wanted to toughen him up. He started teaching David how to quarrel with people, by pounding the table a few times and then said: "when you want to argue with people, you want to say: 'I am about to get boutit, boudit.' 'Don't start none, won't be none.' 'I am gonna get a crunk'". After David repeated those phrases several times, D laughed uncontrollably and talked to himself all tears: "You are cracking me up man! You are cracking me up!"