America the Beautiful

So I hate to admit this, but after spending time away from home, it is easy to develop a negative view of the U.S. Mostly in the sense that if you have spent anytime in a foreign country it is easy to see how others view the United States because, as sad as it is, there is some validity to it; America is viewed as ignorant, over consuming, violent, lazy, unnecessary in starting the war in Iraq… Granted these are gross generalizations, and while you readers as my friends and most of the other people we know don’t really fit this bill, but face it we do kind of, there are many others out there who do fulfill this image.

But recently, I have had a change of heart. Aside from the negative imaging of the U.S., we have a great diversity that you can´t really find anywhere else. All these thoughts started running through my head when I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my family over here. I tried to explain that that is really the only one holiday in the U.S. where basically all the foods are the same, being that there are tons to twists and variations to some core things: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry… I then followed this up with the fact that at Christmas everyone does something different. I couldn’t really explain it at the time other than that there were no ‘rules’ for Christmas food. Then I came home for Christmas and was watching the Food Network (shocking I know, haha) special on an Italian Christmas, and it struck me that the difference at Christmas time is culture. There are so many different people celebrating it the way their families did back in a country of origin, that there is no way to generalize the foods at Christmas. Thanksgiving being a strictly American holiday doesn’t have any other cultures to draw from for the menu.

So this whole idea I was having about culture in America was reinforced when I was reading my Lonely Planet ‘Germany’ book the other day. I had finished the history and moved on to the culture chapter, and began to realize that all the things I was reading were true. It’s one thing to read these details before you come, when you have no idea how things really are; but to have lived here for a bit and then go back to it, it is astonishing how they have summed up one culture in these pages, and it is pretty much what everyone here does. They eat the same things for breakfast, they all have hot lunches and cold dinners, people are very punctual, they religiously recycle and separate their trash, they have special shoes to wear in the house (stores actually sell ‘house shoes’ that’s just what they are called), they eat strictly three meals a day which they sit down for and eat formally, they bring their own bags/baskets to the grocery store, the list goes on. It wasn’t just reading the book that made me realize these German customs, but also going to other people’s houses and seeing that their families do the same things as mine were quite shocking. I feel like in the states we are blessed with variety and that you could walk into anybody’s home and there is a very strong chance that they will do things differently than how you do them. These strict German rituals have made it hard for me to do things as I like them, which is a bit challenging. The kids question why I ate a salad for lunch and not dinner, the dad tells me that I need to put the small cake forks out to eat cake with, they told me I can’t just throw away or recycle the coke bottle, I have to take it back for the pfand (deposit for the bottle)…

All in all it is a very enlightening experience being here, not only to learn about German culture, but also to reflect on American culture. I think for the first time I am truly seeing how great America is in the sense that there is so much cultural diversity; there is no one way of doing things. People are open to just about anything, and everyone is welcome. Now maybe I feel most of this applies because I come from good ol’ liberal California, and the S.F. Bay Area at that, but even if you don’t get the warm fuzzy feeling of all cultures living in harmony with one another, there is no denying that we have a great diversity in the U.S., and I think this is a great thing. There is also something to be said for having a strong cultural identity as people do here, but to be open to experiencing many, I feel is much better, and something maybe these countries are lacking. I am sure I am overlooking some things and oversimplifying a bit; I would think there are some general cultural generalizations one can make about America, and there are immigrants in Germany, Italy, France, Spain with their own customs and identities, but there is no doubt that America probably has the greatest diversity of them all.