I suspect England once conquered the majority of the known-world singularly in search of a good meal. It’s not true that traditional English food is flat-out bad, but to Americans who are accustomed to heart-clogging flavors, the food is relatively bland. I understand why a small island nation such as England could at one point reign supreme over so much of the world. The literal hunger of a nation can induce empire-like behavior.

I wasn’t sure why I had taken or what I was going to do with chopsticks. At lunch in Pembroke College’s regal dining hall, I unzipped a pocket of my backpack and with dignity shoved in the fistful of disposable chopsticks I had hoarded from the silverware display. Friends around the table looked at me with embarrassment as I committed petty theft.

The general propaganda for study abroad is that time spent outside the United States encourages students to broaden their perspectives by experiencing another world culture. Many students return from foreign countries with new perspectives about the United States from living abroad as well. In watching our country in the news, or needing sometimes to claim to be Canadian, Americans abroad receive a healthy dose of outsider perspective of this country.

Being a Chinese-American in England, I also had the interesting experience of living abroad as a minority American. You could say I was doubly a minority, though I don’t mean this in any victimized way. Instead, living abroad as a Chinese-American can induce peculiar, inexplicable behavior. I sometimes felt like a subject in a psychology experiment: what happens if we plop a generally white-washed yellow kid in a foreign country?

For the most part, I didn’t feel much different from the other Americans traveling with me. But when it came to food, I began acting a bit nutty. Born and raised on Chinese food, the combined forces of monotonous English cuisine and not knowing where to go for good Chinese elicited my inner Chinese senses to go into overdrive.

At Pembroke College, I stole chopsticks, rationalizing to myself that I might find them handy. Disregarding the fact that I can’t even cook, I slowly amassed enough pairs of chopsticks to build myself a small pagoda.

On a weekend trip to London, I dragged my travelling friends to Chinatown and navigated the streets and alleyways trying to select a restaurant that would satiate my hunger. The problem with Chinatowns is that I am functionally illiterate and can’t read menus. Haphazardly, I pointed, and we ate an admittedly boring, almost English, Chinese meal. It’s not that there weren’t Chinese restaurants in Cambridge either. There were. And I made my rounds eating – mostly unimpressed. I think, to a certain extent, I was just pining for food made by Mom.

I eventually stumbled upon Wagamama, a popular English chain of Asian ramen noodle houses. Having read about the chain before, I was skeptical of paying 8 pounds for a bowl of instant noodles, but given my predicament, I went in and ate nonetheless.

Wagamama, according to its website, is Japanese for “willful, naughty child.” The restaurant smacks of Chipotle in its pseudo-fast food, chic design style. The ramen at Wagamama isn’t quite the same 25 cent stuff American chain stores hawk. I resist the urge to gush, but the noodle house is gourmet-cool. Shortly after I finished my first bowl of ramen, I professed my love.

Wagamama is definitely not authentic by any measure of Chinese food. But I’m okay with that; I’m not by any means very authentic either. In the days after my discovery, my inane kleptomania receded and I stopped dreaming of home-cooking.

Living abroad, you can learn a lot about new culture and home culture. In addition to all that, I’m pretty glad to have learned a little about what makes my Chinese-American self tick. I don’t always need what’s really Chinese; places like Wagamama satisfy me.

And the best part is: there’s a Wagamama in Cambridge, Mass.

Henry is a sophomore in business. Unlike the history of England, he’s glad his hunger pains for Chinese food didn’t lead him to anything brash or Napoleonic.