American Culture



MONDAY, January 16, 1995.

At MIT, I XXX a course XXX "American Culture". It was a XXX class XXX to XXX a XXX XXX. I sat in class and XXX to a professor XXX about Disneyland, McDonald's, and Andy Warhol. I XXX XXX the class was very well thought or XXX, and I XXX XXX XXX from it. However, after two months in Europe, it XXX XXX on me that there XXX is XXX a XXX as "American Culture" and that I am XXX a XXX of it.

The above should give you a feeling for what Italian sounds like to me. Even when it is spoken to me on a basic level, I am able to pick up only bits-and-pieces and (sometimes) the main idea. Details are completely lost.

At MIT, I took a course entitled "American Culture". It was a blow-off class used to fulfill a humanities requirement. I sat in class and listened to a professor mumble about Disneyland, McDonald's, and Andy Warhol. I don't think the class was very well-thought out or organized, and I didn't learn much from it. However, after two months in Europe, it has dawned on me that there really is such a thing as "American Culture" and that I am indisputedly a product of it.

The cumulative effect of little differences becomes not so much annoying (although that, too) but alienating after a while. It's not so much that any one thing is so bad (or even bad at all). It's simply that it's different. It is simply that there are so many differences. Examples abound.

Yesterday, I went to an office supply store to buy some index cards because I wanted to make flash cards to study Italian vocabulary. After about half-an-hour of fumbling with my Italian dictionary, drawing pictures, and describing them in broken Italian, I discovered that index cards do not exist in Italy. Today, I asked one of the German students in my class if there were index cards in Germany - apparently not. Perhaps index cards do exist in these countries, but the simple fact that both a student and a office supply shopkeeper both had never heard of them is shocking to me. Why? Because in my (American) culture, everyone (or so it seems to me) has heard of index cards.

Because there are no other Americans at my school, there was no one to turn to for confirmation, no one to help me establish that I haven't gone crazy, that index cards aren't a figment of my imagination. This need to have others like myself around to confirm my beliefs is interesting. In the past, when I have thought about the balance between conformity and individuality, I have tended to focus on establishing my individuality. What I am discovering now is that part of myself which has conformed to American culture. Suddenly, I am out of balance, I have too much individuality.

How about shower curtains? What's the big deal here? In my opinion, Europeans don't know what they're missing. Apparently, taking a nice, hot, water-on-full-blast, water-flying-everywhere shower is not something that they do. Is this bad? Of course not, but it seems ridiculous that I paid $60 to join a fitness club only partially because I wanted to use the exercise equipment; I also wanted access to an American style shower.

In Italy, shops (not restaurants) are closed from about 12:30 to about 3:30. I suppose I can accept this, although it is awfully inconvenient that all the shops are closed when school lets out at 1:30. Say for example that I wanted to buy some food at the grocery store and have lunch at home. No deal. I'd need to have decided this in advance. At 4 o'clock this afternoon, I went out to buy some orange juice. The first two grocery stores I went to were closed. Now I'm sure that somewhere in Siena I could've bought some orange juice, but as a product of American culture, I do not expect to have to try so hard just to get some darn OJ at 4 pm on Wednesday. Am I spoiled? In the wrong? In the right? I think the answer is none-of-the-above. I am different.

For dinner tonight, the school organized an outing to a local pizza place. It was a special deal for large parties. We each got to try a slice of every pizza on the menu - great fun and very tasty! I got to talking with a Swiss woman who was able to keep up with my English (actually, American English - I am acutely aware that I sound nothing like the two English women at the school - both in terms of pronunciation, and word selection). I talked to her about how stifled I feel because of the language barriers. I cannot express myself in Italian and I have trouble finding capable listeners in English. She listened (quite well) to me ramble on about much of the same stuff that I am rambling on about here. I was in for another shock. Because she could understand my words, I was lulled into a false sense of security - a feeling that she would understand my feelings as well. But of course, she is European, or should I say, she is not American. For example, when I was complaining about the orange juice, she was disapproving. I found her logic intriguing. She asked, "How can you expect to have 24-hour service in Siena when the United States is as big as all of Europe?" This reasoning feels faulty to me. How does the size of a country affect the ability of a particular town to provide convenient shopping hours? I think that the implications here are actually quite deep and that our discussion skirted the real issue. However, I am not sure what is at the heart of the matter.

Small jabs at American culture hit me harder than I would have thought. For example, when my Italian teacher was making fun of NY Pizza (which, by the way, regardless of what she says, is good), I countered by asking what she thought of Chicago style pizza. She slammed that too. Ouch! Now, she's probably never had real Chicago style pizza, or NY style pizza for that matter, but the fact that I felt threatened is interesting. Another example: we learned the word for jealousy in Italian (which I've already forgotten). The teacher went around the room asking everyone if they were jealous of anything. When it was my turn, I said yes. She was surprised. How could an American be jealous? They have everything. I told her that I was jealous of people who can speak multiple languages. She corrected me and said that's called envy. Do Americans really have everything? No. But they have an awful lot and Europeans are jealous. Still the proverb holds... the grass is always greener.

Even if I spoke Italian (or should I say when...), I believe I would have trouble expressing myself. Think of all the years of accumulated references to songs, movies, television, and popular culture that I've accumulated. Among my Seinfeld watching friends, simply uttering the word "Glamour?" with Jerry Seinfeld's intonation carries with it an entire story and a flurry of connotations. How would I translate this? The Swiss woman I spoke with at dinner had never heard of Jerry Seinfeld.

I think that this on-going experience with large cultural differences will help me to better understand and cope with the smaller-scale cultural differences that exist in all my relationships. Everyone grows up as part of a different family with different customs. The million dollar question is what cultural differences (if any) are so great that they cannot be overlooked? These cultural differences are what help divide the world and set man-against-man. They create social cliques and they create wars. On the flip side, cultural similarities help create friendships. Hmmm. Getting too philosophical...

In other news, I had a dream last night about a hallway conversation at Taligent - funny thing was, everyone was speaking Italian... perhaps more Italian has gotten into my head than I think...



Copyright 1997 by Bradley Edelman
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