I've been spending some quality time with a coffee shop I love on Mass. Street today. Today is one of those absolutely peaceful days - my halls are closed, I have two big papers and a final project to make headway on, and in the past week I have celebrated Thanksgiving properly with wonderful gatherings of people. I feel blessed, and even though I will not be spending Thanksgiving Day with my parents or sisters or boyfriend or friends, I know that I have a lot to be thankful for and it makes me all the more excited about Christmas break.
But, I did get the chance to listen to a British faculty member talk to a young couple at the coffee shop. I don't pride myself on eavesdropping, but when a group talks loudly and it's a small coffee shop, it happens. I believe I've heard this conversation before that goes something like this..
American Couple: "We have been to Europe and love it, Americans are clueless."
British Man: "Oh yes, it's a beautiful place, people are not afraid to be themselves there."
American Couple: "Exactly! America is all about conformity, conformity, conformity..."
British Man: Insert comment about the age of buildings, the pace of life
American Couple: Insert redundant affirmation
British Man: Insert praise and approval of Europen culture
American Couple: Insert comment about Farmer's Market / Organic Store
British Man: Insert moderate approval and suggestion "If you every go back to England, you should go..."
Yes, I've heard this before. Maybe you've heard it before. The affirmation that other cultures "have it right" or that they "have it figured out." I understand that people love other places. And that the romanticism of visiting those places and being different than the way we were raised is heady. But sometimes, I feel like what you look for is what you see.
There are individuals here in Lawrence, Kansas. People are not afraid to be themselves...if you look for those people. This conversation reminded that we are willing to look at other cultures as individuals and see the beauty of their distinctiveness, but we are very quick to make assumptions about "American Society." We have to look for the individuals here the same way we do when we take a month or a semester to travel abroad.
I've never studied abroad, and so I do not know first-hand these differences, but I have had a lot of conversations with folks who have and I do know that people live different everywhere and within ever culture people are living counter-culture. Please, reminisce on your good experiences, but if you love them so much, please go back and live there. Orrrrr just take the time to get to know me - sitting here writing graduate school papers, without my family on Thanksgiving, and tell me that I'm just the average lazy selfish American. Or step onto every college campus and meet a couple of students who are speaking their minds and expressing themselves uniquely, that may change your mind. I'm thankful for America, despite the cruelties spoken against it. It is where I live and where I will more than likely continue to live for the majority of my life.
Just thoughts of my day.
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