The Christmas Season is upon us. Generally speaking I claim to dislike the Christmas season because of what it means along the lines of consumerism. Just over a week ago I was watching people trample each other in attempt to get the new PS3. Thinking about it now it reminds me of images I’ve seen coming from countries that are suffering from famine, as people press toward supply trucks. Friday of course was ‘Black Friday’ or as I prefer ‘Buy Nothing Day.’ I bought some cheese, whipping cream, chocolate truffles, bananas, and a shopping bag. I had completely forgotten about Buy Nothing Day until I got home and listened to an NPR story in which a man had waited outside of a Best Buy starting at 8 PM the night before to buy at computer monitor. My intro paragraph is getting away from my point so I am going to leave it there.
“This year instead of drawing names and exchanging presents we are going to buy presents for children of a nearby community.” This announcement was made by one of the supervisors of La Maison Hereuse, the residence for developmentally disabled individuals, where I live. To this the more vocal residents cheered. “We will still draw each other’s names but we’ll only exchange cards with nice messages. We will not exchange gifts. The gifts will be for the children.” Then there was more cheering and excitement at the prospect of giving gifts to the children.
I don’t have a cohesive response to this event so I will simply note some thoughts.
What have we done to America?
Consumerism is as bad here, so, what have we done to ourselves?
Giving is good. Receiving is good.
What happens though when giving gifts encourages the development of greed?
I have already received an advance on Christmas presents (a milk frother) this year.
Frothy orange juice tastes really light and airy and good.
I bet fresh squeezed frothed orange juice would be amazing.
29.11.06
27.11.06
An International Community
Saturday night I went to a birthday party for an Italian friend of an Italian friend. The emphasis on the Italian is a result of a running joke about Italians being crazy between myself and a Spanish classmate. At this point I have had an Italian in at least one of the two classes that I take each week. Part of the reason that Italians are crazy is the fact that even when they speak French they sing it like it is Italian. The cool thing about them though is they tend to be socially uninhibited.
Back to the party. In this city when you are invited to a party you are given a time, an address and apartment number along with the necessary pass codes to the building. The Italian apartment is on the 5th floor of building on a bit of hill in the 18th. That part of the 18th seemed to have a larger African immigrant community as evidence of the ethnic restaurants and publicities that I saw. The apartment opened into a large living room/dining room/kitchen area that is on a rounded corner of the building. One bedroom went off to the side and stairs went up to another bedroom on the floor above. The big room at the party’s height held about thirty. Over the course of the night the musical variety went from beetles to elvis to radiohead to Andre 3000 and a similarly varied Italian Selection. As the music changed different people would start dancing where ever they were maintaining a minimum of five or six dancing to any given song. Again the dancing offered a spectrum from the twist to something else that made me think it was Israeli. The people who were at the party were also of a spectrum: an Italian crashing somebody’s couch who implored me to visit his beautiful town of Venice; a German who has a girlfriend living in Paris who he met in Poland; A Parisian who works with developing artists; A couple Italian students; A Czech visiting for a friend for a week; And 4 American college girls that showed up near the end. I didn’t talk with the Americans, I guess because they made themselves into a little group.
I am continually amazed by the diversity of nationalities that I come across. Last week I had gone to a party at some Finnish people’s apartment and there was a similar diversity of nationalities. Maybe it is just that I am a part of a loosely organized international community.
Back to the party. In this city when you are invited to a party you are given a time, an address and apartment number along with the necessary pass codes to the building. The Italian apartment is on the 5th floor of building on a bit of hill in the 18th. That part of the 18th seemed to have a larger African immigrant community as evidence of the ethnic restaurants and publicities that I saw. The apartment opened into a large living room/dining room/kitchen area that is on a rounded corner of the building. One bedroom went off to the side and stairs went up to another bedroom on the floor above. The big room at the party’s height held about thirty. Over the course of the night the musical variety went from beetles to elvis to radiohead to Andre 3000 and a similarly varied Italian Selection. As the music changed different people would start dancing where ever they were maintaining a minimum of five or six dancing to any given song. Again the dancing offered a spectrum from the twist to something else that made me think it was Israeli. The people who were at the party were also of a spectrum: an Italian crashing somebody’s couch who implored me to visit his beautiful town of Venice; a German who has a girlfriend living in Paris who he met in Poland; A Parisian who works with developing artists; A couple Italian students; A Czech visiting for a friend for a week; And 4 American college girls that showed up near the end. I didn’t talk with the Americans, I guess because they made themselves into a little group.
I am continually amazed by the diversity of nationalities that I come across. Last week I had gone to a party at some Finnish people’s apartment and there was a similar diversity of nationalities. Maybe it is just that I am a part of a loosely organized international community.
16.11.06
Violence and Cultural Misunderstanding
Last year at the end of October violent protests rocked the suburbs of Paris as hundreds of cars were burned. This was the manifestation primarily of immigrants frustrated with life in Paris. Two weeks ago, a bus was burned in Marseilles a southern coastal city of France.
There a man desiring to gain entry to a bus between stops was not let on. Angered, the man threw a molotov cocktail at the bus causing it to erupt in flames badly burning one passenger. One might surmise that this man was looking for a reason to torch the bus. Protesting for their security mass transit workers held a 30 hours strike closing down over a hundred and fifty bus and metro lines last week. Another strike is planned for the end of this week.
This evening on my way home I experienced a similar though less destructive rage. The bus I was on had left its first stop having gone perhaps ten feet when a man ran up and pounded on the bus signaling the driver that he wanted the back door opened. The bus stopped at the red light another twenty feet later. The man ran to catch up and again pounded on the bus signaling the driver that he wanted to enter the bus through the back door which was in front of me. When the light turned green the bus slowly turned the corner. The man ran yelling into the road in front and to the side of the bus. He had the look of an immigrant. As the bus passed him he reached into his shopping bag and hurled a liter and a half bottle of water at the side of the bus. It bounced off the bus and down the road forty or fifty feet. Everyone was thinking of the bus in Marseilles.
The heart of this issue is cultural. In Bolivia there are no bus stops and to catch a bus one simply signals the bus driver. In Guatemala one can enter the bus from any door and the driver's mate will collect the tariff. This evening the man assumed he was target of racial prejudice. However it is law that a passenger must enter through the front door of the bus so as to pay and the non-white bus driver felt no need to stop until the next bus stop. The man would have to wait six minutes for the next bus.
There a man desiring to gain entry to a bus between stops was not let on. Angered, the man threw a molotov cocktail at the bus causing it to erupt in flames badly burning one passenger. One might surmise that this man was looking for a reason to torch the bus. Protesting for their security mass transit workers held a 30 hours strike closing down over a hundred and fifty bus and metro lines last week. Another strike is planned for the end of this week.
This evening on my way home I experienced a similar though less destructive rage. The bus I was on had left its first stop having gone perhaps ten feet when a man ran up and pounded on the bus signaling the driver that he wanted the back door opened. The bus stopped at the red light another twenty feet later. The man ran to catch up and again pounded on the bus signaling the driver that he wanted to enter the bus through the back door which was in front of me. When the light turned green the bus slowly turned the corner. The man ran yelling into the road in front and to the side of the bus. He had the look of an immigrant. As the bus passed him he reached into his shopping bag and hurled a liter and a half bottle of water at the side of the bus. It bounced off the bus and down the road forty or fifty feet. Everyone was thinking of the bus in Marseilles.
The heart of this issue is cultural. In Bolivia there are no bus stops and to catch a bus one simply signals the bus driver. In Guatemala one can enter the bus from any door and the driver's mate will collect the tariff. This evening the man assumed he was target of racial prejudice. However it is law that a passenger must enter through the front door of the bus so as to pay and the non-white bus driver felt no need to stop until the next bus stop. The man would have to wait six minutes for the next bus.
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