My return one week ago has offered me opportunities to make observations and to wonder how much alike and how different our American lifestyle is from what has, for many years, been referred to as "La Dolce Vita", aka, "The Sweet Life". Five weeks away, in another country, at my age, is like six months away for a younger person. Is it me, or is it everyone born before 1968, that feels as if life is being compacted, that time is moving swiftly? I understand the term "culture shock" now and understand the word "global" now, better than ever. Global is not just a term used to describe what environmentalists fear as conditions beyond our control that bring changes to the earth. To me, global signifies what's happening to the earth and to the people who inhabit it, a term that groups us into homogenicity and takes into account the fact that, probably due to social media, we are all starting to look, act, and desire the same. I am not a social media fan. I think of it as basically evil and shutter when I have to give it credit. I'm old-fashioned, yes. So, shoot me.
Shock
One of the first shockers that hit me between the eyes in new ways came with the first grocery shopping trips after my arrival. No, actually, the first was the tab for the pizza and wine that we had on my first night home. Pizza in Umbria, eaten at a restaurant is under ten dollars for a whole pie and you don't want to know the price of enough wine to get through the meal and then some. I did lots of grocery shopping during five weeks. Each trip, which got myself and guests through a few meals, snacks and my backpack filled with wine, cost me under thirty five U.S. dollars. That put a shopping bag in each hand. Lunches away from my apartment never meant expenses of more than fifteen dollars, with wine. Great lunches, that might be called dinner here. Good thing I walked no less than five miles a day. My favorite Italian cocktail, the "Aperol Spritz", in a picture-postcard bar, a whopping four euros, and no pressure to have anything more - just sit for as many hours as you wish, with that big lay-out, and we don't expect a tip. Thank you. A cappuccino, and you know how long I lingered over that every morning, two dollars, including tip. I save receipts for everything and I can prove all of this.
So, what's with this global-sameness idea of mine then?
It's not so much in the food-merchandising. Food is still cheap and good but, frozen foods, ready-made and convenient, are appearing in the supermarkets. Young families are now double-income and their cost of living is soaring if not as crazy as ours. We have higher incomes and yet, our society is made up of double-incomers with the stay at home parent being a rarity. Italians are not far behind.
The Amazon delivery truck is big, blue and obvious in the small hill-towns. But, it's there. What can't be found close to home is just a few clicks away in this global market of ours. Kids want sneakers. They get them. Everyone wants a NY baseball cap. Click. Iphones. Ear buds. Ipads.
Mom works, Dad works. We all want, we all get. We're global, we basically think alike and frightfully, act alike and social media guarantees that nobody will miss out on anything, anywhere.
Okay, so all of this is a commentary so far on tiny amounts of life here, life there.....but I am left wondering about some of the findings of my "sociology field trips". My entire life, if you haven't already made that assumption, is one big trip to "What Makes People Click" Land. And, there is nothing like public transportation to transport the amature social psychologist into Fields of Happiness and wonderment.
Years ago.....(now I sound really ancient), people behaved differently when using public transportation. I can remember actually being offered a seat on the New York subway simply because of my white hair. I remember people waiting to for others to exit a train or a bus before entering. I haven't lived or worked in a city in a long time.
I'm not sure if things have changed all that much but I do know that in Italy, at least in the small town I called home for five weeks, it appears that some things certainly have. I remember being very impressed with the behavior of school children on public busses when I spent time here six years ago. They all seemed to be content with just being together at the end of the day, chatty and polite. I recall thinking to myself that maybe, just maybe, they were a bit more mature than their American counterparts. Not once, during five weeks, was I offered a seat on a bus. Not once, was I offered assistance for any reason. And not once, did I ever have the feeling that the children who entered the bus from the local high schools were anything close to mature or even vaguely polite. In fact, I felt physically threatened by the masses of teenagers who, when it was time for my exit, were entering. Instead of allowing me or others to exit,the bus, these kids just formed a wall and stampeded, forcing us to become part of a human sandwich. The thought of how we were to make our exit was apparently very far from their minds. When I asked, in the most perfect Italian that I could muster up, for them to stop for one MOMENTO!, I was actually mocked as if I were one of their classmates, not an older woman. Something in the culture of the young people has changed and not for the better.
I asked residents of Assisi about this behavior. I commented on the fact that I had not witnessed this on my last visit and wondered if perhaps, being six years older has made me a bit less tolerant. No, I was told, I was not simply being more tolerant, things have changed. Who can we blame this on? What's going on? The answer, categorically, was the same one.......parents have changed. They no longer care about values such as common courtesy. It's not taught in the homes. Parents just go to work, allow kids to come home where they are unsupervised. Poor behavior is tolerated and kids just don't have manners. No use, I was told, in making a complaint to the school head. She can't do anything about it because the kids behave this way in school too. The teachers are afraid to say or do anything. Does all this sound familiar? We're talking, let me remind you, of kids who live four thousand miles away from the U.S. Think globally. Why not, we're all alike. We've all been touched by the fairy wand of let's-not-be-different-anymore.
Shock
One of the first shockers that hit me between the eyes in new ways came with the first grocery shopping trips after my arrival. No, actually, the first was the tab for the pizza and wine that we had on my first night home. Pizza in Umbria, eaten at a restaurant is under ten dollars for a whole pie and you don't want to know the price of enough wine to get through the meal and then some. I did lots of grocery shopping during five weeks. Each trip, which got myself and guests through a few meals, snacks and my backpack filled with wine, cost me under thirty five U.S. dollars. That put a shopping bag in each hand. Lunches away from my apartment never meant expenses of more than fifteen dollars, with wine. Great lunches, that might be called dinner here. Good thing I walked no less than five miles a day. My favorite Italian cocktail, the "Aperol Spritz", in a picture-postcard bar, a whopping four euros, and no pressure to have anything more - just sit for as many hours as you wish, with that big lay-out, and we don't expect a tip. Thank you. A cappuccino, and you know how long I lingered over that every morning, two dollars, including tip. I save receipts for everything and I can prove all of this.
So, what's with this global-sameness idea of mine then?
It's not so much in the food-merchandising. Food is still cheap and good but, frozen foods, ready-made and convenient, are appearing in the supermarkets. Young families are now double-income and their cost of living is soaring if not as crazy as ours. We have higher incomes and yet, our society is made up of double-incomers with the stay at home parent being a rarity. Italians are not far behind.
The Amazon delivery truck is big, blue and obvious in the small hill-towns. But, it's there. What can't be found close to home is just a few clicks away in this global market of ours. Kids want sneakers. They get them. Everyone wants a NY baseball cap. Click. Iphones. Ear buds. Ipads.
Mom works, Dad works. We all want, we all get. We're global, we basically think alike and frightfully, act alike and social media guarantees that nobody will miss out on anything, anywhere.
Okay, so all of this is a commentary so far on tiny amounts of life here, life there.....but I am left wondering about some of the findings of my "sociology field trips". My entire life, if you haven't already made that assumption, is one big trip to "What Makes People Click" Land. And, there is nothing like public transportation to transport the amature social psychologist into Fields of Happiness and wonderment.
Years ago.....(now I sound really ancient), people behaved differently when using public transportation. I can remember actually being offered a seat on the New York subway simply because of my white hair. I remember people waiting to for others to exit a train or a bus before entering. I haven't lived or worked in a city in a long time.
I'm not sure if things have changed all that much but I do know that in Italy, at least in the small town I called home for five weeks, it appears that some things certainly have. I remember being very impressed with the behavior of school children on public busses when I spent time here six years ago. They all seemed to be content with just being together at the end of the day, chatty and polite. I recall thinking to myself that maybe, just maybe, they were a bit more mature than their American counterparts. Not once, during five weeks, was I offered a seat on a bus. Not once, was I offered assistance for any reason. And not once, did I ever have the feeling that the children who entered the bus from the local high schools were anything close to mature or even vaguely polite. In fact, I felt physically threatened by the masses of teenagers who, when it was time for my exit, were entering. Instead of allowing me or others to exit,the bus, these kids just formed a wall and stampeded, forcing us to become part of a human sandwich. The thought of how we were to make our exit was apparently very far from their minds. When I asked, in the most perfect Italian that I could muster up, for them to stop for one MOMENTO!, I was actually mocked as if I were one of their classmates, not an older woman. Something in the culture of the young people has changed and not for the better.
I asked residents of Assisi about this behavior. I commented on the fact that I had not witnessed this on my last visit and wondered if perhaps, being six years older has made me a bit less tolerant. No, I was told, I was not simply being more tolerant, things have changed. Who can we blame this on? What's going on? The answer, categorically, was the same one.......parents have changed. They no longer care about values such as common courtesy. It's not taught in the homes. Parents just go to work, allow kids to come home where they are unsupervised. Poor behavior is tolerated and kids just don't have manners. No use, I was told, in making a complaint to the school head. She can't do anything about it because the kids behave this way in school too. The teachers are afraid to say or do anything. Does all this sound familiar? We're talking, let me remind you, of kids who live four thousand miles away from the U.S. Think globally. Why not, we're all alike. We've all been touched by the fairy wand of let's-not-be-different-anymore.
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