Albanian immigration to Italy

From the New York Times:

In the Italian popular imagination, Albanian immigrants are more often depicted as scofflaws than as upstanding members of society. Anti-immigrant sentiment runs high, and many Italians blame foreigners for what they say is a rise in crime. In recent months, there have been several highly publicized cases of violence against other immigrant groups.

But amid the turmoil, families like the Murrizis are quietly integrating into middle-class life in ways that Italy is only beginning to acknowledge. Like new shoots grafted onto an old vine, they are fast becoming an essential part of the country’s most valued traditions, including winemaking.

The Murrizis work full time for the Salcheto winery, based in nearby Montepulciano, planting in spring, pruning in summer, picking in fall and preparing the vines in winter.

They are the new face of Italy, and Italy is slowly recognizing them.

“At first we didn’t realize they have different needs,” said Salcheto’s owner, Michele Manelli, 33, who has gone out of his way to help the Murrizis navigate the Italian bureaucracy. “When we’d have dinner at the end of the harvest, we’d have a normal menu. But little by little we understood: no pig, no wild boar.”

Individual vs. group rights: virginity testing in South Africa

From the Washington Post:

"They must leave culture aside," Ngobese said. "Human rights are individual rights, which is not the way for us. We live communally."

NYT: Saudi women inspired by Oprah

From the article:

When “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was first broadcast in Saudi Arabia in November 2004 on a Dubai-based satellite channel, it became an immediate sensation among young Saudi women. Within months, it had become the highest-rated English-language program among women 25 and younger, an age group that makes up about a third of Saudi Arabia’s population.

In a country where the sexes are rigorously separated, where topics like sex and race are rarely discussed openly and where a strict code of public morality is enforced by religious police called hai’a, Ms. Winfrey provides many young Saudi women with new ways of thinking about the way local taboos affect their lives — as well as about a variety of issues including childhood sexual abuse and coping with marital strife — without striking them, or Saudi Arabia’s ruling authorities, as subversive.

Some women here say Ms. Winfrey’s assurances to her viewers — that no matter how restricted or even abusive their circumstances may be, they can take control in small ways and create lives of value — help them find meaning in their cramped, veiled existence.

“Oprah dresses conservatively,” explained Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud, a co-owner of a women’s spa in Riyadh called Yibreen and a daughter of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States. “She struggles with her weight. She overcame depression. She rose from poverty and from abuse. On all these levels she appeals to a Saudi woman. People really idolize her here.”

Jamais trois sans quatre... (?)

I know I've been posting about this for the past three days, but I just can't get enough! Gender, anthropology and cross-cultural studies, all at once? Love it!

In addition to the article I keep linking to, John Tierney has a post up on his blog (the Tierney Lab Blog) on the topic. The post itself is essentially a paraphrasing of the "Findings" article, but the comments are pretty interesting. The vast majority are insightful and on-point, but the few truly dumb/insane ones are worth quoting:

So, does all this mean that if you answer the door and there’s a woman on the stoop dressed as a police officer with baton and cuffs in hand and a holstered pistol strapped to her waist you can still ask her for a date?

— John Brady

My… There are a lot of angry women out there stuck on all the ways life is unfair… I only wonder when a men’s movement will form to protest the injustices of education and preferential hiring and scholarship for women?

While this research may not be perfect, and like all research may leave more left unanswered than of seems to answer, I’m left feeling glad that despite the efforts of social engineering and feminism men and women are still maintaining some of their unique and special characteristics… maybe even emphasizing them! Could it possibly be that women’ salaries aren’t lower because of the evils of men, but because they took their positions for some other reason than money? Why should women get to be described with all the positive adjectives and get the same salaries as the aggressive and competitive males their forced to tolerate?

Women are women and men are men, for better or worse. As interesting as it is to explore and as enticing as it may be to change, we’re in the process of killing our planet and all the other beautiful forms of life on it… Can we turn our attention to that now?

— carver

What difference does it make? We’re all doomed. Have a nice day.

— Jagdish Collins

Possibly my favorite comment on ANY NYT blog, EVER :)

More on negative correlation between gender equality and gender sameness

Come to think of it, if this stuff about gender differences becoming more pronounced as society becomes more egalitarian is true, that ought to shut up those geezers who are still claiming that women's lib is turning us into men. If anything, it's turning us into girly-girls.

Anyway, I just wanted to link to a few articles I've found on this topic:

Why Can’t a Man Be More Like a Woman? Sex Differences in Big Five Personality Traits Across 55 Cultures

Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from
55 nations (N
17,637). On responses to the Big Five Inventory, women reported higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than did men across most nations. These findings converge with previous studies in which different Big Five measures and more limited samples of nations were used. Overall, higher levels of human development—including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth—were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men’s personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual dimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to naturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate personality differences between men and women may be attenuated.

Gender Differences in Personality Traits Across Cultures: Robust and Surprising Findings

Secondary analyses of Revised NEO Personality Inventory data from 26 cultures (N = 23,031) suggest that gender differences are small relative to individual variation within genders; differences are replicated across cultures for both college-age and adult samples, and differences are broadly consistent with gender stereotypes: Women reported themselves to be higher in Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Warmth, and Openness to Feelings, whereas men were higher in Assertiveness and Openness to Ideas. Contrary to predictions from evolutionary theory, the magnitude of gender differences varied across cultures. Contrary to predictions from the social role model, gender differences were most pronounced in European and American cultures in which traditional sex roles are minimized. Possible explanations for this surprising finding are discussed, including the attribution of masculine and feminine behaviors to roles rather than traits in traditional cultures.

A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Behavior of Women and Men: Implications for the Origins of Sex Differences

This article evaluates theories of the origins of sex differences in human behavior. It reviews the cross-cultural evidence on the behavior of women and men in nonindustrial societies, especially the activities that contribute to the sex-typed division of labor and patriarchy. To explain the cross-cultural findings, the authors consider social constructionism, evolutionary psychology, and their own biosocial
theory. Supporting the biosocial analysis, sex differences derive from the interaction between the physical specialization of the sexes, especially female reproductive capacity, and the economic and social structural aspects of societies. This biosocial approach treats the psychological attributes of women and men as emergent given the evolved characteristics of the sexes, their developmental experiences, and
their situated activity in society.

Run, Forrest, run! Forrestina, not so much

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, another interesting finding from the same NYT article:

Competitive running makes a good case study because, to mix athletic metaphors, it has offered a level playing field to women the past two decades in the United States. Similar numbers of males and females run on high school and college teams and in road races. Female runners have been competing for equal shares of prize money and receiving nearly 50 percent more scholarship aid from Division I colleges than their male counterparts, according to the N.C.A.A.

But these social changes have not shrunk a gender gap among runners analyzed by Robert Deaner, a psychologist at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, who classifies runners as relatively fast if they keep close to the pace of the world’s best runners of their own sex. When Dr. Deaner looks at, say, the top 40 finishers of each sex in a race, he typically finds two to four times as many relatively fast male runners as relatively fast female runners.

This large gender gap has persisted for two decades in all kinds of races — high school and college meets, elite and nonelite road races — and it jibes with other studies reporting that male runners train harder and are more motivated by competition, Dr. Deaner says. This enduring “sex difference in competitiveness,” he concludes, “must be considered a genuine failure for the sociocultural conditions hypothesis” that the personality gap will shrink as new roles open for women.

Makes me feel better about my complete lack of interest in competitive sports. Sort of. (PS, apologies for the ridiculous title).

NYT: As Barriers Disappear, Some Gender Gaps Widen

In the NYT's Science section on Monday,

When men and women take personality tests, some of the old Mars-Venus stereotypes keep reappearing. On average, women are more cooperative, nurturing, cautious and emotionally responsive. Men tend to be more competitive, assertive, reckless and emotionally flat. Clear differences appear in early childhood and never disappear.
....
For evolutionary psychologists, the bad news is that the size of the gender gap in personality varies among cultures. For social-role psychologists, the bad news is that the variation is going in the wrong direction. It looks as if personality differences between men and women are smaller in traditional cultures like India’s or Zimbabwe’s than in the Netherlands or the United States. A husband and a stay-at-home wife in a patriarchal Botswanan clan seem to be more alike than a working couple in Denmark or France. The more Venus and Mars have equal rights and similar jobs, the more their personalities seem to diverge.
...
These findings are so counterintuitive that some researchers have argued they must be because of cross-cultural problems with the personality tests. But after crunching new data from 40,000 men and women on six continents, David P. Schmitt and his colleagues conclude that the trends are real. Dr. Schmitt, a psychologist at Bradley University in Illinois and the director of the International Sexuality Description Project, suggests that as wealthy modern societies level external barriers between women and men, some ancient internal differences are being revived.

The biggest changes recorded by the researchers involve the personalities of men, not women. Men in traditional agricultural societies and poorer countries seem more cautious and anxious, less assertive and less competitive than men in the most progressive and rich countries of Europe and North America.

To explain these differences, Dr. Schmitt and his collaborators from Austria and Estonia point to the hardships of life in poorer countries. They note that in some other species, environmental stress tends to disproportionately affect the larger sex and mute costly secondary sexual characteristics (like male birds’ displays of plumage). And, they say, there are examples of stress muting biological sex differences in humans. For instance, the average disparity in height between men and women isn’t as pronounced in poor countries as it is in rich countries, because boys’ growth is disproportionately stunted by stresses like malnutrition and disease.

I remember reading somewhere that gender-specific dysmorphic disorders such as anorexia and the Adonysis complex (ie body building syndrome) tend to be more common in relatively egalitarian societies and groups. Otherwise put, the more men and women are socially equal, the more they try to differentiate each other physically by accentuating their secondary sexual characteristics. I wonder how that all ties in...

(More) bloggers wanted!

Third culture kid? Expat? Bicultural? Bilingual? Minority? Invisible minority? Aspiring writer/blogger? We're looking for you! The Interculturalists are looking for new voices to join our discussion on culture, identity, assimilation, travel, and life as a global citizen. No topic is taboo, we just ask that you look at issues from an intercultural communication perspective and keep it civil. No minimum blogging requirements, either - so if you're looking for a platform for your material, we'd love to help you out!
If you're interested, please post a comment with your email address to this post. It will go into a moderation queue, and I promise to remove any personally identifying information before making the post public.
Material in languages other than English is welcome, by the way, though we'll most likely make an English translation available.

Politics and pregnancy

French Minister of Justice Rachida Dati is pregnant - and unmarried - and won't reveal the name of the father. "I have a complicated personal life," she explains. The collective French reaction: "Congrats on the baby, ma'am. We don't give a f@*! who the father is. Now go back to work and fix France, please."

Given how crazy we're going in the States over the pregnancies of Sarah and Bristol Palin, can you imagine how we'd react here if an unmarried cabinet minister was pregnant? Say, Condoleezza Rice?

Podcast recommendation: Dear Amber - ChinesePod

Even if you're not studying Chinese, this podcast provides great insight into Chinese cultural quirks. Episodes are about 15 minutes long, which makes them perfect for commuting.



"Dear Amber - ChinesePod" is also available on iTunes.

Quick hit - kawaii!!

From Jezebel: there are now more pet dogs in Japan than children under 10. Said dogs are mostly kawaii (tiny and cute) - when they're not inbred and deformed - and are pampered, adored and paraded around in prams. Like babies, only less demanding, and you can keep your job:

For Ms Horikoshi, sharing her life with dogs instead of babies is an active choice. She divorced her husband who had asked her to follow Japanese tradition and become a stay-at-home mum; she wanted to pursue her career. Her current partner has to accept that her dogs and her work are at the centre of her life.

A specialist in cataracts, Ms Horikoshi is now at the top of her profession and likes to spend her money on travel, her black Porsche and her dogs. Her friends share her choice.

"My friends - married, one poodle, no child. Married, two Chihuahuas, no child. Married, one Chihuahua, no child," she counts off her fingers.

According to ABC news (the Australian one), you can buy all sorts of stuff for them - bumble bee costumes, spa packages, silk-and-cashmere dog sweaters, kimonos, sushi, cookies... who knows what else.

Muslim women and sports

There's been quite some discussion about Saudi Arabia's ban on female athletes competing in the Olympics. Owl's recent blog post on the tensions she's encountered as a "sporty Muslima" is an interesting contribution. Excerpt:

So why is this such a taboo in the minds of so many Muslims? Well, partly I think it’s a culture clash. I notice many questioners come from ethnicities or generations where women do/did little physical activity beyond child rearing and housework, which are worthy pursuits but currently not part of my life. The idea of women wanting or enjoying sport and fitness is as foreign to them as the idea of women wanting to stay in the home all the time is to my peers. It is simply an unknown to them and they are expressing their curiosity, which is fine. Most retain an open mind and have a willingness to understand, which we all need to have.

But the rest of the complainants are men of a certain bent - men who not only disapprove of my athleticism, but also my profession, my education, and my mind. And as they cannot easily forbid me from any of those – as Islam urges education equally and allows women to earn and own – they focus on my hobby. It strikes me as a control issue, and that saddens me. I am a much more fruitful contributor to my Ummah if I am capable, strong and empowered. To be a mindless subservient would make me drain instead of a boon, and though it would probably be easier to ‘control’ me that way, it would be at a cost of the energies of my ‘controller’ and of the actualization of my own potential.

Check out the blog itself for a breakdown of the religio-cultural arguments against women exercising.

Regional cultures

A prime example of regional cultural diversity within the US, from Streetsblog:

While in DC bikes are all the rage and bike-sharing is brilliant, apparently in Michigan biking is a "transportation alternative" and bike-sharing qualifies as "bizarre news."

Pulpeuse - or, the most disturbing commercial ever

How disturbing is that commercial? Jessica over at Jezebel counts the ways, including the raunchy inter-species sex, the oddly anthropomorphized animals (a doe with breasts? a panda sans bikini?), and all the bodily fluids apparently replaced by Orangina.

According to the British newspaper The Telegraph,

The advert was based around the idea of "pulpeuse", which in French means both "containing pulp" and also "voluptuous" or "sexy".

And Orangina does have pulp, which is a sought-out quality in a fruity beverage (unlike the US, at least in my experience). So yes, I get the pun, and like most French people I appreciate the desire to capitalize that (whereas in the US puns tend to induce eye-rolling, in France jeux de mots are the highest form of humor). I'm also used to sex being used to sell pretty much anything in France - in fact I'm pretty sure you are required to show at least one nude breast if you're selling body wash, and two for yogurt. But I'm still skeeved out. Thoughts?

Science!

Ok, so maybe I've been (successfully) avoiding science classes since I was 15, but I still thought this was pretty cool (thanks Emma for sharing it!). Full story at Wired Science and the actual scienciness at PLoS ONE. It also appears that Japanese are more sensitive than Westerners to the Big Picture.

Culture shapes perception so fundamentally that it may determine the way we look at faces.

East Asians focus their gazes on the center of faces; Westerners looked to first the eyes, and then to the mouth.

The findings were produced by University of Glasgow psychologists who tracked the eye motions of observers as they looked at portraits.

The study was small and hasn't been replicated, but the differences were stark.

Other researchers have found similar differences in the perception of scenes, but never something so basic as individual faces. The phenomena could reflect a cultural mediation of individual neurobiology.

"Western society is very individualist. Asian societies are much more collectivistic," said study co-author Roberto Caldara.

From that perspective, the Western approach to facial recognition is piece-by-piece and intimate. The East Asian approach is both more formal and holistic: peripheral information is gathered, but without direct confrontation.

But is this tendency a product of a particular approach to life -- or vice versa?

"It's the chicken and the egg problem," said Caldara. "We're testing children to see whether these effects arise early in time."

The tendencies do appear plastic, he said.

"We tested some Chinese who had been in Glasgow for three or four years, and you see a clear difference between them and those who just arrived," he said. "That really demonstrates that it's not genetic. It's experience."

Caldara suspects that the East Asian approach may be more efficient, but both groups in the study proved equally adept at learning and recognizing faces.

"It's fascinating, and this is just the beginning," he said.

Caldara's next studies will involve British-born Chinese and children, but he said that the current research is already instructive.

"Culture is underestimated. The majority of papers published in psychology are based on Caucasian populations. In the future, before generalizing findings, we should be careful. Human beings are not all the same," he said.

Guess the accent

From Amanda over at Wrong Rights:

The Language Trainer's Group has posted an accent guessing game on their website. You watch people from around the world read bits of Kipling (in English), and try to guess where their accents are from.

Quick hit from Jezabel

We've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. ... [Always 'asking' For It]

from Jezebel by Megan

We've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. Many women in Egypt report being harassed by men, even when wearing the pictured niqab or the more common hijab. Seventy-two percent of the 83 percent of Egyptian women that reported being harassed say they were harassed while veiled. Conservative groups in Egypt are encouraging women to adopt hijabs or niqabs to avoid harassment, while some women say they gave it up entirely after experiencing so much harassment — and are harassed less without. Once again, the problem is never what the woman is wearing — or what she was drinking — it's what men feel inappropriately (or illegally) entitled to do about it. [Washington Post]

Stuff White People Like... where's the line?

From this week's edition of Campus Progress:

Earlier this year, Lander, a red-headed Canadian who lives and works in Los Angeles, became somewhat of an Internet celebrity when he started publishing his blog, Stuff White People Like. The site—a pseudo-anthropological study cum satire—documents what a certain type of upper-middle class, educated white person likes (dinner parties) and doesn’t like (typos on menus). Because of his blog’s popularity, Lander is now considered one of the web’s iconic embodiments of white identity.

Not everyone likes Lander’s shtick and, at the reading, he was quick to acknowledge that. But he was also quick to respond, “So let me get this straight, you’re getting angry about someone making broad generalizations about your race? Hm, I think we know some people who can probably relate.”

It was his best point of the night. Lander seemed to understand that his jokes straddle a thin line between satire and barbarity, and that, when poking fun at an entire race, context and self-awareness really matter. As Lander asserted, he skewers a privileged racial group in a “non-hateful way.” And even if some people are offended by his jokes, he said that wasn’t his intent.

...

One of the women, a teacher, admitted that the blog makes her challenge her own sense of identity, but not necessarily in a good way. Many of the things Landers says white people like are things she also enjoys. Which leads her to wonder: Does her love of coffee and sweaters make her less black?

One of the other black women noted that by identifying what is “white,” Lander is also defining what is "not white." That, she argued, can reinforce classist and racist attitudes. By claiming something elitist is by default “white,” Lander implies that such elitist affinities do not belong to other racial groups. For example, Lander claims perfect grammar as evidence of “whiteness.” If that’s true, is poor grammar a black thing? And by arguing that going to graduate school is white, isn’t Lander reinforcing assumptions about the kind of people that fill the ranks of academia?

Certainly, white people should be able to talk about “whiteness” without having to parse every aspect of their conversations. How else can we expect white people to deal with the issues that surround race relations in modern America? The problem with the folks at the book signing was that they seemed to be laughing about stereotypes without acknowledging a key component that allows racism to continue: the inability of a person in an advantageous position (like a white person) to recognize privilege.

This strikes at the problem of Stuff White People Like. Lander and company seem aware of the complications of their elitist attitudes but don’t care about changing them. It’s okay to laugh at Lander’s satire, of course, but white readers need to be self-aware and self-critical about why they are laughing, too.

As I walked out of the bookstore discussing this with the three black audience members, the young teacher said, “I’d like to see Lander give a book reading to a room full of non-white people. Somehow I think the reactions would be much different.”

First off, I should say that I'm a big fan of Stuff White People Like, and of its brother-, sister- and cousin-sites Stuff Asian People Like, Stuff Black Greeks Like, Stuff Black People Love, Stuff Desis/Brown People Like, Stuff Educated Black People Love, Stuff God Hates, Stuff Korean Moms Love, Stuff Nobody Likes, and even the very bizarre Stuff Stick Figure People Like. If there are any others out there that I'm missing - and I hope there are - please send them to me and I'll be sure to link.

Saxon Baird makes a good point that "It’s okay to laugh at Lander’s satire, of course, but white readers need to be self-aware and self-critical about why they are laughing, too." But isn't that true of most humor? Isn't it only ok to laugh at Jon Stewart and especially Stephen Colbert if you understand WHY it's funny?

Russian judge: Sexual harassment a patriotic duty

Ugh. This just creeps me out. That said, Natalia Antonova raises some good questions about the Russian/English translation and the way the Russian and Western media have been covering this.

Is Google Streeview un-Japanese?

Thanks to KT for emailing me this link to a Slashdot post about the unease that Google Streetview is apparently causing in Japan. Global Voices has the full text (with English translation) of a letter written by blogger Hisamu Oguchi, in which he explains what it is about Streetview that offends the Japanese sensibility. Some excerpts:

The residential roads of Japan's urban areas are a part of people's living space, and it is impolite to photograph a stranger's other people's living spaces.
In the United States, and particularly in the case of people living on the west coast, the boundary line between private space and public space, both in terms of actual ownership and in terms of the way people think, is in the boundary line between the public road and privately-held land. In fact, I think that you all will agree that your home's garden, which faces the street, actually feels itself more like a public space, and that not keeping your front yard tidy ruins the look of the community, right?
For people living in urban areas in Japan, though, the situation is quite the opposite. The residential street in front of a house, the so-called “alleyway” (roji/路地), feels more like a part of one's own living space, like a part of the yard. In urban areas in Japan, sweeping the road in front of one's home, sprinkling water over it, shoveling snow off it, these are all considered to be the responsibility of the resident. Wandering around the older parts of the city, you'll see evidence of this way of thinking in the potted plants and little storage rooms crowded out [onto the street].
...
To have one's own living space exposed to the whole world without ever having been asked about it beforehand, this however really makes me uncomfortable. It ignores our “right [to demand that] you leave us alone”, and comes off as nothing short of “evil”.

The comments are quite interesting, as well:

I must admit, this particular reaction to Google Maps puzzles me. It reads very much as if the writer actually believes that Street View (and the general excess of detail on Google Maps in general) is fully accepted in other nations, where it is culturally more acceptable... The real revelation here, as far as I’m concerned, is the implicit assumption that Japan is fundamentally culturally different from the rest of the world... In summary, I fully agree with the complaints here about Google Maps, but find the cultural arguments superfluous and distracting. Enough people from a wide enough variety of locales have levied these same complaints that there’s no real need to taint them with divisive red herrings like “Japan is a unique culture unlike any other on Earth” or “America is culturally imperialistic”.

Don’t want to get into an argument here, but I do take issue with your casting aside the world’s cultures as so many different “ways”. It may not be easy to define, but there is certainly a “Japanese way” whether or not every single Japanese person adheres to it is a different issue. And I tend to think that that is a good thing personally.

@Julian Stoev: “There is no Japanese way. There is also no American way, BTW.”

Wonderfully said. The letter by Osamu Higuchi posted here, like nearly all entries in the “culturally opposite ways of thinking” category, is a bunch of assertion backed by NO PROOF. Concerned people everywhere in the world have pointed out his same privacy concerns about Google Street View. While millions more around the world – including in Japan! – aren’t concerned enough to say a word. Where’s the difference? Show me EMPIRICALLY.

As a resident of Japan for over 20 years, I get so tired of “we’re so different” claims backed by nothing more than the speaker’s desperate wish for it to be true. (Unfortunately, I fear that other people will pick up on Higuchi’s blather and shout “me too!”, just because it scratches that itch for “cultural difference” posturing. )

I am always intrigued by "culture deniers," people who claim that cultural differences aren't real or are so minimal they should be ignored. For the most part, this sentiment comes from a very Western, egalitarian mindset: we are all people, we are all equal, our differences don't matter, let's not talk about them. But differences are real and carry meaning. While there are many constants across the globe (and being uncomfortable about Streetview may well be one of them!) I would also add that people can arrive to the same conclusion through different paths, in this case object to Streetview for different reasons.

Inside the mind of a DC tourist...

In quite possibly her best post yet, Liz (the new Randy) over at Why I Hate DC links to a Midwestern mom's story in The Columbus Times about her family trip to DC. Liz's post probably could have used some more vitriol, but the story itself is full of intercultural delight:

We get an early start the next day, since we discover, being the tourist-friendly city it is, many places are closed on the weekends and only open weekdays till 5. We ride to the top of the Washington Monument, visit Union Station, the Capitol, the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court, where a group of young people are standing on the steps with duct tape on their mouths. I’m not sure what they’re protesting. Maybe nothing. Traveling with three teens myself, it could just be a case of some parents who’ve had enough of the whining. I totally understand.

Consider that many of the "tourist attractions" you're visiting are actually people's places of employment - Congress, for example. And those kids with duct tape are pro-lifers, I used to glare at them every day on my way to work. They're prominently featured in the scary, scary documentary "Jesus Camp."

We stop to buy souvenir T-shirts from a street vendor with marginal English. Five for ten bucks, making me realize once again, is this a great country or what?
...
While the kids pop in at the Hard Rock Cafe, I look at trinkets, like a White House Christmas ornament and a miniature Washington Monument, all made in China. Is it just me, or is that just wrong?

Ah, the irony. Do you think your T-shirts were so cheap because they were made in North Carolina by adult workers making a living wage?

By day three the kids are navigating the subway and city streets like old pros. My daughter though, is puzzled by the fact that everyone walks on moving escalators up and down the subways, whereas we treat them more like amusement park rides.

Clearly they are not. And yes, we walk on escalators, we're trying to get to work. So please walk or get out of the way. How would you like it if I treated your minivan like a go-kart?

Ouagastreet Journal

Here's a job for you.  Push a hotdog cart up and down the busiest streets of the city at 2 p.m. in mid July with not a cloud in the sky.  Do it all day long.  Except, instead of selling hot dogs from the cart put and incased glass box with shelves of panties and bras. Most girls I know can't even count the times that they were walking down 2nd street and wished that some sweaty man was there to sell them some undies right in front of everyone.  Alas, this was the plight of poor Solomon.  He was a man I met across from my neighborhood doing exactly what I have described.  Except, I guess I live in more of a suburbia setting and it was about 110 outside.  Solomon seemed to be up beat though.  We joked around a little and he was understanding that I didn't want to buy any panties.  He just kind of smiled and said it wasn't easy and it was bad.  I didn't know what to say so I just told him good luck.

People here in Ouagadougou (and most of West Africa) will sell almost anything they can get their hands on here.  They'll either carry it to you or be a roadside vender. When I say "carry it to you" I mean that they seem like they have the attitude that you didn't want to  I like the time a guy walked up to me and tried selling me some g-string style tighty whities and some napkins.  I wonder if he just drew the short straw that morning or if he actually has been trying to sell those things for 3 years now.  I can't imagine who would buy them.  Well, I could see buying some napkins, but nut huggers?  No.  

My personal favorite is when I'm waiting outside of a club on the main strip and all the walking vendors come up to me to show me what I could take with me to the club that night.  I try to picture myself in the club dancing while holding on to things like two foot carved statues, leather sacks, picture frames, and spears.  I love it.  I'm having a beer right outside of a club and someone wants to sell me a spear at about midnight.  I'll like to smack the tourist that bought things in this situation and made the venders think it was a good idea.  

The bootleg DVD guys are every where.  They are there outside of cafe restaurants, clubs, and even the supermarket.  Each DVD comes with multiple movies.  Most of the movies are movies like The Marine with Jon Cena or other movies that went straight to TNT weekday time slots.  For the 20 movies on the DVD there are usually one or two okay ones though.  They always offer you some of the very best African porn.  I think every supermarket should have a guy selling porn to those who look like they could be in need of it.  That way, porn lovers everywhere wouldn't have to deal with the embarrassment of going into the "back room" of Blockbuster's.  

Buying things here can be fun and it can be frustrating.  If you buy from the street you can get a cheaper price than a store, but you run the risk of it not working because it was made in China.  Chinese stuff here is even cheaper than stuff that comes to the states.  I bought a pair of hair clippers on the street here.  Of course, they didn't work and with I took it apart to see why I saw that it was actually made with peices that were designed either to not work or break.  I found a foam spounge wedged between the plastic peice that was supposed to move the metal clipper head.  Good 'ol China business and its dirty ways.  Most of the bikes here are chinese too and I've seen first hand how they fall apart piece by piece and that's all I hear from the people that buy them.

Another way its frustrating is trying to haggle down from white prices.  I say white prices, but they know if you have money or not and if you do they start the haggling price out at amazingly bad prices.  For those clippers, the guy started out at $100.  No shame.  I talked him down to $30, but I still shouldn't have payed more than $20 for him.  It was just that I was surrounded by 20 smelly guys all trying to sell me things at once in 100 degree weather.  I was ready to get out of there.  People will say "My friend, my friend.  I give you good price.  Only one arm and a leg.  Good price because you my friend."  They really don't say an arm and a leg, but they might as well.  Assholes.  Turns out that you're really not their friend and they will lie to you through their teeth to get your money.  

Since I'm telling you about the negative I have to throw in a positive.  My mango lady was a sweety.  She had the best mangos in town and never once tried to over charge me.  As a matter of a fact, she would always throw in a free banana or small mango (I only bought the large ones).  She knew that if she was good to me I would pass up the other mango ladies and come to her.  She was a smart lady business lady because that's exactly what I did.  On a sad side note,  I'm talking about in past tense because its not mango season anymore.  I don't know when they are coming back, but my guess is that it won't be soon enough.

The fun part about bartering is that it makes shopping into an exciting experience when you're in the mood for it.  There are always 3 phone card guys waiting outside of the ATM.  When I go to get money out of the ATM booth they slyly wait outside like calm paranas before I stick my hand in the water.  When I come out I litteraly have to push them out of my bubble as I stand undecisive while they push each other like on black friday at Toys R Us.  Sometimes I take one of their cards and sometimes I walk past them to the guy who is waiting patiently behind them and buy his card.  Either way, I'm a stinker and they're a little crazy about selling those cards.  I don't blame them though.  People gotta eat.  

Quick hint from the WSJ

The Juggle had a neat blurb about blended families yesterday. Be sure to check out the comment threads.

Harassment, piropos and hollering back

Feministing's first Friday Feminist Fuck Yeah highlighted the New York City MTA's new ads encouraging victims of random ass-grabbings and other forms of harassment to report it - the idea being that you wouldn't tolerate it at work or at school, you shouldn't have to tolerate it on your commute.


This made me think of my college study abroad in Santiago de Chile, when street harassment (called "piropos" in Chilean), along with other factors, drove me into a pretty serious depression. I actually put on a good 15 pounds in less than 4 months in a failed attempt to get males to stop noticing me. Notice that I say males, not just men. I once had an old man point me out as "potuta" (nice assed) to his 12 year old grandson. The kid then winked at me and yelled "chupamelo princesa" (suck me, princess). Abuelo beamed with pride.

That is no way to start a workday.

I eventually learned some profanities at my own - not that it changed anything, but it did make me feel better. What did not make me feel better was my host mom's indifference to my complaints - she told me that when I got to be her age (50) and lost my looks, I would wish that men still shouted piropos at me!

Has anyone had similar experiences? Do you think that public service ad campaigns like MTA's can help change the cat-call culture?

8.8.08

In light of today's most auspicious date, I have a few thoughts on China and the Olympics:

I recently (okay, maybe it was about 6 weeks ago) returned from a week-long stint in Shanghai for work. It was probably one of the most interesting experiences I've had thus far. As best I can tell, there are not a lot of solitary black American women running around the hoity-toity foreigner part of Shanghai where we stayed. As I mentioned earlier, I was there on business, and my business involved meeting the head of a Chinese manufacturing company, and visiting some factories. One of the factories was used to having visitors come in and wander around, the other was not. I noticed at both places, I was subject to extra scrutiny as our group (which was about half white and half Chinese, with a couple of South Asians) toured the factory floor and grounds. No one was rude, mind you, there was just a bit more staring and whispered commentary in my direction.

I went to one of the old silk markets with two co-workers, and there, it was even more eerie. People stopped in the street, pointed and blatantly stared. For some reason (please enlighten me if you know) it was mostly older women. Older men and younger people didn't seem to notice, or gave me a passing glance. It was the little old ladies who stopped and stared, or tried to touch me (anyone who knows me will tell you I have an inordinate phobia of strangers in my personal space.)

My conclusion (which may be way off base) was this:
Much like many places in America, the residents of Shanghai are not exposed to a lot black people- in the streets, on television, or otherwise. And much like any sort of cultural thing, the earlier generations tend to have less exposure than the younger generations. Furthermore (I should have mentioned earlier- the factories were 1-3 hours outside Shanghai proper) people outside cities have less exposure than those in less urban areas.

Oddly enough, the whole thing reminded me of something someone (now a very close friend) told me during the first days of my freshman year of college. After a week spent at adult summer camp (drinking and partying to the wee hours, hitting the gym and having hungover meals in the dining hall), she looked at me and said "I've never met anyone like you." I asked her what she meant, and she replied "You're smart, you speak proper English, you don't try to be stupid. Where I'm from, there aren't any black people like that."

Moving onto the Olympics-
I know they're always staged and weird, but it gives me the heebie-jeebies seeing how incredibly staged Beijing 2008 seems. There is a front page article in today's Financial Times about China's massive "weather modification departments"- they employ 37,000 people, and have an annual budget of about $100 million. In that article I came across this quote:

"A senior official from the weather modification office in the northern province of Hubei, which is trying to intercept bad weather before it gets to Beijing, says it is not even keeping track of spending on the effort for the Games. 'Nobody is thinking about this at the moment - we'll consider it after the mission.'"

From the weather, to the displaced people, to articles like this one from the New York Times, detailing how many migrant workers have been ordered out until after the games, the whole dog and pony show creeps me out. Then again, maybe it's because I'm just killing time until football season starts.

In case you're interested, today's Financial Times comes with a great little magazine about the Beijing Games and the business of sport, and last week's Economist has an examination of the same, although less Olympics-centered.

In other news, Georgia and Russia are almost at war over South Ossetia, and Mauritania had a bloodless coup, in case anyone noticed.

[UPDATE: Now it is war.]

Thirsty Black Boy

Another quick hit, via Racialicious:

I recently came across the above campaign, produced by Mortierbrigade Brussel, an ad agency in Belgium.

MediaBistro notes:

To attract attention for the cause, a young boy dressed in shorts and a tank top could be seen running into prime time TV shows (live programs, with hosts) only to drink the water that sat in front of the hosts, or their guests. The boy chugged the water and ran off.

In three days, the boy had been on enough programs that a stir was created. In just six days, people donated the equivalent of $5.24 million dollars. Considering the relatively small size of Belgium, that’s no small feat.

The viral piece was meant to highlight the disparaging situation for the 1.1 billion people that don’t have clean water, and the fact a child dies every 15 seconds from a lack of clean water. The agency’s client ‘Music for Life’ and their partner, The Red Cross, did more for clean water in a week than anyone could have imagined.

(It is also interesting to note that Media Bistro took the word “Black” out of the title when reporting the piece.)

Take a look, tell us what you think. I, much like Latoya, find it interesting that MediaBistro took the word "black" out of the piece.

Bloggers wanted!

Third culture kid? Expat? Bicultural? Bilingual? Minority? Invisible minority? Aspiring writer/blogger? We're looking for you! The Interculturalists are looking for new voices to join our discussion on culture, identity, assimilation, travel, and life as a global citizen. No topic is taboo, we just ask that you look at issues from an intercultural communication perspective and keep it civil. No minimum blogging requirements, either - so if you're looking for a platform for your material, we'd love to help you out!
If you're interested, please post a comment with your email address to this post. It will go into a moderation queue, and I promise to remove any personally identifying information before making the post public.
Material in languages other than English is welcome, by the way, though we'll most likely make an English translation available.

Adopting America's Bad Habits

This article in the WaPo today highlights a phenomenon that I've long thought was a root cause of chronic health problems related to unsustainable lifestyle. When immigrants come to the US, they leave behind the physical manifestations of their culture but not the habits and mindsets associated with them. For example,

Instead of weeding fields and walking long distances, which make you burn too many calories, you vacuum floors and take buses, which make you tired and lazy. Instead of cooking rice and beans, which lack many vitamins, you stop off for pizza and fries, which have too much fat. Instead of catching tropical infections, you are at greater risk of developing diabetes and heart disease.

New immigrants typically lack knowledge of healthful behaviors that can counter unhealthy lifestyle:

"In my country, if you are thin, people think you are not healthy, but here it is too easy to get fat," Sosa said. "Americans sit in offices and drive everywhere, but then they go to the gym. We do the hard work, but we don't get any exercise. We need to get more educated and think in a different way. We are not in Guatemala now."

Passing through the middle east

Great piece of travel writing/intercultural musings on the fluidity of identity. Check it out.

Where in the world...

In case you're wondering why I haven't been posting... the past month has been rather hectic with two weeklong trips and a relatively sudden (though happy and exciting!) job change, so my reading/thinking/blogging time has been rather limited. That said I'm back in town and starting to settle into a new routine so just be a patient a short while longer! Also, it seems like the readership of this blog is expanding significantly beyond people I know in real life, and I'd love to hear from you, so please post! If you have a related site or blog I'll be happy to link to it if you'll return the favor. A bientot!

Bilingual baby update

Earlier this week I was hanging out with a friend of mine, her husband and their quite-not-one-year old. They're quite the international family: Mom is a Puerto Rican/American/Jew immigration lawyer, Dad is English, and Baby is a little Puerto Rican JewBrit. Anyway the kid's official first word is "Azha!" which is his way of saying "alla," meaning "over there" in Spanish. He points toward where he wants to go when he says it, too. I teased my friend for managing to give the baby the crazy island accent :-P

Quick Hit- The Most Racist City in America?

Another gem from the Freakonomics blog. By the way, if you haven't read Sudhir Venkatesh's Gang Leader for a Day, go out and buy it IMMEDIATELY.

Catch-up week continues: moral vigilantes in yemen

Whoa. It took me so long to post this b/c I didn't know what to say. I still don't, but check out the article.

As an American in France

I can remember the days when I went along with the rest of America and jumped on the I-Hate-France bandwagon. Those were the days. Days when I could feel perfectly fine and very American to substitute the word “french” in for queer, lazy, or snooty. I, along with any friends that would do the same thing, would get their knowledge of the French people and government from reputable places like Fox News, movies, comedy skits, and maybe other friends who had friends that knew someone who had traveled there once. Although, I even had a cousin who had lived in France and would tell me how rude the French could be. The height of French bashing in America was when they kept creating obstacles for the U.S. in the U.N. when talking about invading Iraq. Bush just wanted to do a quick little wisp of an invasion and France would go for it; further promoting the stigma of how the French were lazy and not a people of action. Well, I bet they feel silly considering how well everything is going over there.

When Colin and I were doing our Eurotrip our two main French stops were going to be Nice and Paris. We had our first taste of French laziness in the booth car of the train that we shared with 4 smelly African knock-off salesmen. These guys were everywhere in Italy, but as soon as we got into France, the cops came in and took one guy and most of their goods (this one guy took the fall and the cops didn't have any proof on anyone else). The booth smelled a little better after he left, so I was already feeling better.

After swinging by Barcelona for a few days we headed north to soak up some of the gayness of Paris. To my dismay, I had a hard time getting anyone to be rude to me. I wanted a story to take back to my French-hating Americans. Instead, all I got was smiles and good customer service. Ok, not everybody was happy-go-luck, but they were helpful when I asked them for directions or needed to ask for things like when the next train was coming.

One time we Colin and I got a perfect opportunity to build up some good karma with the French people, just in case. You never know when you'll need some good karma. We helped this old blind lady cross the street. Yeah, I know, it doesn't get much better than that. I was excitedly telling Colin that this was money in the bank and then we started in to saying our good-byes to the old lady and we started to walk off. There were chest high poles at the end of the cross walk and we let the old blind lady walk straight into them because we were so excited about our good karma we were about to receive for good deed we had done. Probably not my proudest moment. The lady smiled and laughed nervously with us and we walked away in shame.

On the second day we went up to visit the Normandy beaches. It was an amazing and humbling experience to see how impossible it would've been to get through the water and up the hill at Omaha beach. The mortar impact craters were still there, as well as the very well hidden German bunkers that still had chunks of concrete missing from grenades and bullets. We spent some time there and went back to Bayeau to catch the train back to Paris after dinner.

We hopped on a late train that we were pretty sure was going to Paris. We soon found out that the train was heading south when it hit the town of Caen. So Colin and I made a blind decision to get off the train at Caen and hope that there was one last train going to Paris from there. It was one of those decisions where you make yourself feel confident because you don't know what else to do. We got off the centipede and I watched it crawl away as Colin looked on the board for our train to Paris. When he told me it wasn't on there I was still in denial so I asked an attendant in the station.

Ronnie: “Hey, are there any more trains to Paris tonight?”

Attendant: “blah blah blah scooby doo blah. Blah blah?”

Ronnie: “Um. To Paris. Paris. Sil' vous plait.”

Attendant: “Oohh! Hahaha. Paris blah blah blah thththbbbbt! Hahaha.” (ththbbbt = fake fart noise).

Ronnie: “Paris thbbbt, huh? Awesome. Merci.”

I mean, I get it that there were no more trains to Paris, but sometimes you have to break that type of news to someone a little easier than ththbbbbt. I walked toward Colin about the noise the guy made that confirmed the start of our new adventure. We accepted our fate as we walked out and passed the closed bus station; we were there for the night. I did get a wild hair up my ass one time and tried to convince Colin that it would be so much fun to try to hitchhike to Paris. I convinced myself it was a good idea, but he wasn't going for it. It was about a 3 hour drive. I started thinking about how we let that old blind lady hit the pole. Yeah, we probably lost a few karma points for that one.

The whole city of Caen was dead by 7:30. I'm talking about the shops were all closed except one that luckily served beer and there was almost no one on the streets. Colin and I were trying to save money since we were wasting money on the hotel room in Paris so we just figured we'd wait it out until 6:00 a.m. when the next train left for Paris. Another night spent in the train station like in Genoa was going to be rough, but at least it would keep us away from the chilly breeze blowing that night. So our spirits were all but shot when the police kicked us and a couple others out into the cold. We sat on the sideway for a good 20 minutes until we noticed that there was still one bar open.

The bartender let us in on the agreement that we would buy a couple drinks because their closing time was almost up as it was 1 a.m. The bar tenders were husband and wife and spoke some English. They asked, so I told them our story and out of no where they offered to let us stay on their couch-bed for the night after they close up. I was shocked. So we stayed with them till after they closed up and headed back to their apartment which was a short walk away. I could have fallen asleep on a bed of nails at this point, but they wanted to stay up, chat, offer us beer, and feed us some goose liver on a cracker. I had a little fun with this because I saw how Colin wasn't wanting anything to do with the goose liver, so I excitedly told them we would love to try it. It was worth staying up a little longer see him have to try it. I personally thought it tasted like a lighter version of spam, but I think Colin thought it tasted like a darker version of spam... mixed with fish eyes. These people were really the perfect hosts though. They gave us an alarm clock, blankets, pillows and their first born.

We slept well for a few hours and left to catch our train. That pretty much ends my story in France. I loved the liberal and relaxed atmosphere in France, which is something that is rare or nonexistent in America. It still amazes me how hospitable those strangers were and they forever changed my opinion about the French, and I always tell any Americans that haven't had much contact with them.

Fighting gender-based violence, one woman at a time

Another post in the "I've been meaning to post this forever" category... Nora Boustany's WaPo article last month doesn't need comments from me.

As an American in Italy

I would have to say that my train trip through the Alps from Munich to Venice had the most spectacular views of any trip in my life going anywhere. At the foothills, one small German town was split by the rail way, but each side had a matching castle off in the distance up on a hill. Lush green fields were everywhere. Once we got into the mountains we were in a valley with walls a mile high on each side of us. Everything stayed green and there was one small house at the top of this mile high wall sitting all by itself. Coming down the other side we saw a light blue river that looked fake and then with Italy came the vineyards running up and down the valley walls. Small quaint towns were also climbing the hills.

Colin and I planned to stay in Venice for 3 days because our expectations where high. Long story short, we cut it short a day. I guess I can only explain it as strong feeling being a trapped tourist. I know it was always a city of vacationers and if I had a wife there and I was an old person looking for some quiet expensive nights with a gondola ride, then this would be the place. I don't think I will ever be that person though, and Colin will never be my wife. He's a good guy, but just kind of a control freak. Plus, he has a penis. The floating city would also be a very good place to go meet a lot of Americans and maybe the occasional European. I think I saw an Italian there too. I will say that I was glad that I got to see it for a day (that's it) and I was impressed with the canals, narrow walkways, bridges, and San Marco's Cathedral. It's also the place where I learned about the honor system with buses in Europe and how to dishonor it every once in a while to save money.

Now, Florence, this is the city that I remember Italy by. I finally felt like I was in Italy. Italians guys saying "Ciao, bella" to the passing girls, pizza with the freshest of toppings, cobble stone streets, scooters everywhere, and just a vibrant feel of people enjoying life all over the city. A small river cut through the city and separated the flat city center from the steep-hilled side. The two stone bridges couldn't have been more ascetically pleasing. I thought this even though we had just walked across town with our 30 pound packs on, in under a blazing sun, and staring at the next 2 miles up hill that we had to walk to get to our camp sight. There were a lot of tourists here because of the Ufizzi and statue of David, but it felt like Italy and you could get away from them if you went to certain parts of the city. I spent my nights at the camp sight getting drunk with the group of German girls, a Frenchman, and a Finnish guy. I made out with one of the girls after a couple bottles of wine. We all hung out overlooking the city from under a copy of the statue of David and had some laughs (as people do when they're drunk).

When in Rome, I did as the tourists did. I went to all the big sights, appreciated them as much as I could, then was worn out from walking, blah blah blah. I had three bad "firsts" in the subway in Rome. While I was trying to figure out how to get a ticket out of the machine I was approached by my first ever real life gypsy. Other than her ragged out clothes, stinky breath, messed up grill, and whiney attitude, she was a decent person. Well, maybe not decent, but she was a person. I'll give her that. She tried to explain the machine, but was really just distracting me and then wanted money for doing so after I told her to go away several times. The problem ended up being that my bill was too large. Unfortunately for me, I was in a place where asking people to make change was an insult. I got turned down by a couple locals and even a cashier at a book store. I forgot how I ended up getting the change, but I'm pretty sure I blacked out from frustration and killed someone. That's my other "first." My third "first", if I may, was getting on my first subway car. As it rolled up and stopped, I couldn't help but notice that all the original paint had been covered by horribly done graffiti so that it looked like a crash-up derby bus.

A couple of roommates from my hostel in Rome told me the great story of how they were late getting to their ferry in Croatia. They left one taxi on the way to the ferry because they were pretty sure the cabbie was getting ready to take them somewhere and kill them. So with their other taxi got them to the dock the boat was already taking off for Italy, but had only just left. Everyone on the boat saw them and started encouraging them on to run and jump to make it. So they did. They bolted down the dock and threw their bags on to it. Then they jumped a good meter onto the moving ferry. Everyone cheered. The end.

My action-packed Rome story is similar. At the top of the Spanish steps Colin and I found a Pub Crawl. Pay €15 for an hour of nonstop drinking and then they take you to a few pubs to drink and playing drinking games. Yay for binge drinking! Anyway, so after I had about 3 beers, 2 mixed drinks, and 3 cups of wine, they announced their first game of the night. About 10 guys lined shoulder to shoulder and we had a girl partner across from us. They shoved the can of beer up one pant leg and down the other, opened the can of beer, and whichever guy drank it first won. Long story short, I won. The guy next to me almost won, but instead of winning he puked and everyone saw. Haha. Then they took a picture of my partner and me and put us up on their web page along with hundreds of other untalented winners. See, pretty similar action-packed stories.

Rome was also where I learned that if you hesitate and try to let cars pass while you cross the street you may cause an accident. Everyone gets confused over if a pedestrian gives a vehicle the right-away and you end up playing Red light, Green light with them a few times. Its best to just walk and not look. At first, it felt weird; like putting your right foot on the clutch, but it worked every time.

The last thing I'll say about Rome is that they have the best fountains that I've ever seen, the people were beautiful, but they were probably the least helpful and most rude to me than any other place I have visited. Most of them were not rude, but I wouldn't consider them nice either. Oh, and the huge stylish sunglasses were EVERYWHERE and it kind of gave me the impression that Paris Hilton had been through there one too many times.

Leaving Rome, Colin and I opted to bite the bullet and get stuck in Genoa train station (on our way to Nice, France) so that we could stop off and see the by Pisa and see the tower for a couple hours. The tower was nice, but better was being part of the large number of people all pretending to hold up the tower while someone took their pic. Not my proudest moment, but it had to be done.

So there it was for the most part. Colin an I stay from 10pm to 5am sitting on a cold metal seat in the train station. The whole time the gypsies were trying to make sure their midget was comfortable, the same 20 second techno elevator music song played every 2 minutes, and stinky guy next to me kept falling asleep and leaning on me. Good night, Italy, and suck it easy.

Coup de coeur: Migration Information Source

Thank you, Boyfriend for sending me this NYT article about the Migration Information Source, an online magazine produced by the Migration Policy Institute. I have a feeling the Source is going to be the inspiration for many posts in the future, but for now check out their impressive section on refugees, asylum seekers and forced migration in general. I don't think I need to tell you guys that this is a topic near and dear to my heart :)

As an American in Germany

Prelude: Other than living the first few months of my life in Germany (my dad was stationed there at the time), really I've spent about 3 weeks there that I can actually remember. I can tell you right now that I feel like I've seen and experienced about 5% (at best) of what the country has to offer. I spent those three weeks in mainly Berlin and Munich during the summer of 2006.

I'm not even going to beat around the bush. The only real beer country that I had been to up to this point was Australia and I was hankering for some more yummy beer from the home of the biggest beer festival in the world. I ran into an early snag with my first beer tasting like a bitter Budweiser. I almost cried. I also noticed a lot of guys wearing tight jeans and jean jackets at the same time, so this wasn't a great start at all. I wasn't a happy American and my travel partner, Colin (not real name), wasn't happy to hear me bitch so much. So I don't count that as my first real beer or real memory of Germany. Oh, and the next day in Potsdam held another let down as I tried my first vendor bratwurst and it tasted like they just wrapped straight pig fat up into a sausage link. Off to a bad start.

A couple days later the true Germany emerged. We were waiting for our train from Berlin to Munich when we struck up a conversation with a local guy, Durk, who was about our age. Well, he was looking for the same train as us and it switched tracks, but no one gave us a warning. So we had two hours to kill before the next Munich train came. The 3 of us went the small park nearby and set up camp next to a girl reading her book in the middle of the lawn. She took us right in as friends. Durk bought the first round of beers from a vendor and we had our first taste of German yumminess. This was one of those surreal moments where you feel like the moment couldn't be set up any better. Sharing a great beer in public on a sunny day with two great people that you just met and will never see again; and you know you'll never forget the moment. After the third round in about an hour, we went up to catch our train. I personally was feeling quite nice after having a small breakfast smothered by all the tasty drink.

Durk stayed with Colin and me in the service car of the train. The car was a little wobbly and got more wobbly as we drank more, but it was great to just be on my first train and seeing the countryside of Germany. They have a lot of power generating windmills throughout the country. Fun fact: 10% of Germany's electric comes from wind power. These were the things I was thinking about while Colin and Durk talked a level of drunken politics that I couldn't handle. Durk eventually got off and we finished our ride down to Munich without a hitch.

We arrived in Munich at night and found our way to our first hostel. As soon as we turned around from the desk after checking in, there were some guys at the long picnic table wanting us to play cards. That's about how hard it is to meet people while traveling during the summer and staying in European hostels.

Cincinnati has flying pig statues in different colors and designs all over the city center. Louisville has its horses in the same fashion. DC of course has pandas, donkeys and elephants. Well, Munich has lions. And just so you know, after heading back from the Augusteiner beer hall, I rode the one dressed like a gesture. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Munich also has the beautiful Haufbrienhaus (Cincinnati has the only other one and it doesn't look as good, but is about as good of a time as you can have at any beer hall). I had always heard that the Haufbrienhaus was the beer hall of beer halls, but when I walked in on this Wednesday afternoon (apparently not prime time) I saw a grand restaurant with tall ceilings, a large courtyard in the center, a second story, and everything was covered in beautifully carved wood. Its not what I pictured a beer hall to be. Colin and I set up camp at a table in the court yard, ready to taste the world class beer. We also ordered the best bratwurst on the menu, the whitwurst (an albino brat). It melted in my mouth, literally. Beautiful. I chased it down with their dark dunkel beer and holly crap on a stick, it almost made me cry for a completely different reason than when I had my first German beer. It was great afternoon toped off with one of the Eastern Europeans, sitting next to us, puking right next to himself and just continuing the conversation as if nothing happened. The waiter had the "Did that just happen?" look on his face. Also, there were two ladies sitting on the other side of us that couldn't have been younger than 80 years old and they were running through their pints just as well as we were. Colin and I were so impressed that we went over there and got their number and showed up at their place later for a booty call and shuffle board... but not really.

When we were in Italy we ran into a group of German girls and I had a real enlightening conversation with one. She got upset after she found out that I had just got out of the Marine Corps and almost stopped talking to me completely until I reminded her of how mature that was and showed interest in how someone could be angry towards military members. She quickly went to Bush's Iraq War and how wrong it was and said that I agreed to it by volunteering to defend my country for any cause. I struck back quick and hard through the easiest and most honest route by telling her "If it wasn't for Americans volunteers you would be living in a Nazi regime along with a lot more of the world." Okay, this is when she did quit talking to me for a good 5 to 10 minutes and wouldn't even look at me. Maybe if I hadn't had a bottle of $2 wine it would have come out a little softer. When we started talking again is when I realized, well, she told me, that Germany as a whole still feels extremely guilty for the whole thing and doesn't want to be looked at as nazis. Up to this point it knew the war was over and nazi things were for the most part taken care of by the late 1940's. I never really pictured Germany as anything, but a nice place with good beer and great engineers. I had no idea how much of a consciousness they still have of it. Calling a German a Nazi seems almost like calling a black person a N$@*&^. I must have been in rare form that night because normally I would've thrown out a nazi joke and made a complete ass of myself. I've been described as "classy" when it comes to my word usage.

As an American in Niger

I spent 14 months in Niger. Before getting sent over there I had the mindset that of all the regions of the world I did not want to go to, I REALLY didn't want to go to Africa. Its always just seemed like such a rough place to live. When I arrived in Niger I wasn't proven wrong in that aspect. However, what I took from there was something that changed me forever. I'm not trying to say that to be all dramatic like I'm writing the narration for The Wonder Years either.

The ride from the airport to my house was one that I'll never forget. The kids playing in the trash wearing rags as clothes, the children leading their blind grandparents up to our car at every stop light, the layer of dust covering the city, the blow dryer wind, the polio victims in tricycle wheelchairs, the smell that I can only describe as African, and the way all looked at my skin as opportunity and bewilderment. I was instantly culture shocked. My ignorant mind couldn't handle this upside-down place.

I have tons of stories here, but I'll cut it short and just tell a couple that impacted me the most. The first was when a few white American friends and I went to see a West African wrestling match during the Francophone games. There were people packed shoulder to shoulder on the bleachers as we walked along in front of them to try to find a seat. A police officer walked in front of us and motioned us to follow him into the seats so we followed. He then pointed to where we could sit, but there were kids sitting there. We were confused so we started to walk away and he pushed motioned for all of the kids to sit on the ground and told us to sit down. He was so proud that he got seats for the white people. We sat down for a good few minutes until the cop left and we had enough time to talk about how the crowd would and should beat our asses. Then we left and gave the kids their seats back.

That's the most extreme situation of how it is to be white and rich in a place of poor black people in Africa. It disgusted me most of the time. I didn't know how to deal with it when almost every time I got out of the car I was swarmed by locals from 5 to 50 years old calling me master and beginning for money. I still don't know how to deal with it. I noticed in the year I was there that the same poor kids were begging for money when I got there were still begging when I was leaving. The feeling that I can't help everyone and that I had to choose who I wanted to give money to and when always stumps me. Part of me says that they survived before I got here and will survive when I leave. Another part is highly aware of how unfair it is that I was born on the other side of the Atlantic so I don't have to worry day to day about whether I will have a meal. I've found out that giving money directly doesn't really help at all and the best way to help would be to put in time or put in money to an organization that helps the region gain more wealth.

Another time, a very good Peace Corps friend of mine took me to on a 1.5 hour walk away from the main road and off into the bush. We crosses a shallow lake and arrived at a village. She knew someone there, but when we showed up the whole village stopped and came to the meeting circle. They feed us their best food (rice and fish), which was actually really good, and chatted with us the best they could. In their culture, a guest is treated with utmost respect. I thought of how I was a millionaire compared to them and they were feeding me and very happy to do so. We all had some laughs and atmosphere was rich with our excitement and appreciation for each other. My Peace Corps friend told me as we were leaving that they would talk about us for years and brag to their other neighbors that they had some rich white people stop by.

I was beside myself when I thought of their sense of community and their style of social respects. To me, Europe and America have some stunning sights, but places like this have more impressive and intriguing cultures.

There were definitely things in their culture that I didn't like. They had the strongest “What will be, will be” attitude I had ever seen or heard about. These people could be in on their death bed and if you asked them how they were, they would say everything is good. I liked their positive attitude, but it's too much for me. Their thinking is that they can always be in worse shape and that they shouldn't forsake what Allah has given them. They shouldn't be greedy and ask for more. This whole way of thinking meant that it was hard for them to change their ways out of tradition so that they could better their lives. I have seen glimpses of this, but it was affirmed by many Peace Corps volunteers.

Niger is also 95% Muslim, which was also different for me. You would see two guys walking down the street holding hands because they were friends, but you would never see a man and woman walking or eating together. I was told that wives cost about an average of $250 and camels were usually about $350.  Prayer call from a loud speaker started up about 5:30 a.m. everyday so I was glad that I could sleep like a dead bear in the winter.  I felt slightly bad anytime I was eating a delicious egg sandwich when I knew the local guys that worked for us were fasting during Ramadan, a month of everyone gets a taste of the hardships of the poor.  I didn't feel bad at all for the goats when they were slaughtered and their bodies hung up almost crucifixion style for Tabaski, a holiday about sharing a goat with your neighbors.  Who knew that something so gruesome looking and horrible smelling could be so good for the community.  Niger was wrapped in Islam and even though I saw a lot of great morals to the religion, I felt incredibly uncomfortable with things such as arranged marriages, extreme unequally of the sexes, and the minutely reminder of how they great it would be to leave this world be closer to Allah.  

Finally, I'll say that the people were friendly and I felt safe the whole time I was there. Those poor boys that were on the corner where there from when I got there to when I left only because of the way the community took care of each other. If one person in the family had money and the rest didn't then the money got spread out so that each person would have a meal. I would say most families in America would envy the way they took care of each other in Nigerien families, but hey, we do have our nice houses and fancy cars. That was the root of why it was so difficult for me to adjust when coming back to America from Niger.

Immigration/acculturation

Here's another article that I've been meaning to post for a while... And what a great argument for legalizing undocumented migrants: their very lack of legal status is the only thing preventing them from assimilating and becoming exactly the type of Americans the Lou Dobbses decry them for not being. So simple, and yet so brilliant.

Bilingual babies

Bilingualism and language acquisition has always been a fascination of mine, primarily because I was a bilingual baby myself. According to my parents (who would know) I spoke in a mix of French and English until age 2 or so, after which I realized that those were actually two separate languages. Since then I have maintained an equal level of fluency in each language (though there are quite a few topics that I can only discuss intelligently in one language). My brother, on the other hand is much stronger in French than in English, which no one in family has a good explanation for.
This intriguing article on Science Daily explains that children reared in bilingual homes learn language differently from monolingual babies. I'd heard that before, and in particular that bilingual children retained a much better ability to learn new languages in adulthood than do children raised with only one language. I've certainly experienced that to be the case. Which is why is baffles and saddens me when immigrant parents don't teach their native language to their kids, or when anyone claims that bilingual education is bad for children.

Working themselves to death

Disturbing article in the WaPo today about Japanese salarymen who literally work themselves to death... I wish the article delved a bit deeper into the social pressures and expectations that lead to this kind of destructive behavior.

Four young Arabs on the road in America

On the Road in America sounds like a terrific idea: four young Arabs, each from a different country, travel around the US in a quest to bridge the cultural gulf between the two cultures. Unfortunately, according to Campus Progress the effort falls flat, not because of the program's quality (full disclosure - I don't have cable and haven't seen it) but because of the inadequate distribution channel.

Because the program stars strictly voluntary participants and airs before elite audiences (even though the show is aimed at promoting broad understanding) the effect of its cable-projected lessons is significantly curtailed. A feel-good show in its truest sense, On the Road in America appeals most to those who need to hear its message the least... On the Road projects its predetermined and predictable outcome to those most likely to agree with its conclusions—while maintaining the suspicious classification of reality television. Sundance’s affluent suburban/urban viewers no doubt interact quite regularly with a diversity of individuals—in the office, at their alumni meetings, in urban cultural centers. To them, the idea that outside of culture, politics, and religion, we’re all the same comes as little surprise. Limited to an audience the network deems “independent-minded viewers seeking something different,” the show no doubt falls short of a goal to introduce previously unexposed individuals to a new way of thinking because it fails to reach the proper targets.

And yet, slews of international exchange programs (including the Fulbright and Truman programs) are based on the idea that if you can influence elites within a society, you can impact society as a whole. Hmmm...