Criss-Crossing Cultures

Yesterday I did a kinda peculiar thing. I went to lunch at this place that was recommended to me by my Lonely Planet Buenos Aires' guide. I ended up reading a book about Afghanistan while eating in a French restaurant. In Argentina. Quite a mix. It actually confused me a bit because it's an intense, enveloping story, so when I left the restaurant I started equating Buenos Aires with Afghanistan. And although this city has its problems, it's nowhere near anything like Afghanistan.

But the activity itself got me thinking about my multi-cultural/cross-cultural experience here. Back in Mississauga, things are multi-cultural, I have friends from places all over Asia and went to high school with a lot of kids who were first-generation Canadians. But here I feel like I get a much more intense multi-cultural experience because everyone here is first-generation from a place that is not Canada. True, the residence has a couple Americans, there's another one in my class, and a few others at the school, but mostly people are here from all over Europe and Brazil. In my two weeks here, I have met people at the school here from Brazil, England, Ireland, Germany, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Trinidad, Israel, and the US. And I also met a backpacker from Australia. And most of all, Holland. So many Dutch people. Like maybe... half the people in the residence. I love it.

And it's really interesting because in Canada, although I get to see people expressing their own customs, like going to mosque and wearing hijabs and stuff, I still get the feeling they all interact in a Canadian way. We all adopt the same sort of Canadian/North American way of interacting and appreciation of culture (both pop and regular kind), whereas here we I feel we really share & mix our different ways and cultures. Whenever a Canadian pop icon comes on TV or on a radio, I point it out. And other people introduce to each other their favourite movies, stories, and sayings from their country. It was interesting just to make note of the differences in culture between England and North America by arguing which version of The Office is better. I did not argue in favour of the French-Canadian one.

One thing that does seem to unite everyone is the influence of American culture (again, both pop and regular). Everyone here has seen the major American movies, listens to American music (and sometimes Canadian music - I had a cab driver last night who said one of his favourites is Neil Young), and followed, to some extent, the American election. I'll just give a brief "WOOO! OBAMA!" and say little more. I'm glad he won, as is everyone here, except maybe Hadar, my Israeli friend. She said she wasn't sure because she feels like McCain will be more supportive of Israel. But the point remains that even in Argentina the election was a big deal. TV channels followed how Latin Americans in the US were voting, what the trends were, and what it would mean for Argentina. And the Latin American channels all have American shows & movies with Spanish subtitles or dubbed over. It's funny seeing Will Smith talk with a distinct Argentine accent. When I was in line at the bank waiting to pay for my Brazil tourist visa (which I think is a big enough tale to save for a post on its own), I was talking to this guy from Miami who was saying that he had learned in his Latin American culture class here about all the influence that the US has had on Argentine politics. The American influence both overpowers and unites people here, at the same time.

It's also fun to see how people of all different cultures here are united by their own hopes and aspirations and anxieties. Just this afternoon I was talking to my Swedish friend (of Iranian heritage) Sadaf and my French friend Rafaele about our interests and career aspirations. And I like that the whole "quarter-life crisis" (a term coined, yo creo, by Tomas Hachard) is universal across all cultures. A lot of people here, the ones who are staying for two months or more (some people are gonna be here for almost a year!), are taking a break from university, are here for a university course, have just graduated university (me!), or are here in lieu of university. So we share being in the same boat and going through the same things and making the same jokes.

We are all so diverse and similar at the same time. And that's my public message for the day.

P.S. A conversation I had on the way to the computer with my friend Peter from Denmark, who has a thick Danish accent:
Me: I had to take a freezing cold shower just to cool off.
Peter: Because you are so hot?
Me: Yeah exactly. So hot.
(Pause.)
Peter: I hope you noticed I was kidding.

Even wit travels across cultures.