Spring Break

My fifth meeting with Haya was the week after spring break, and therefore was primarily centered around what each of us did over the break. I spent the first half of the break camping before returning home to finish out the break working and catching up on all of my classes. She went on a trip to Los Angeles with her sister, staying there the entire break.

After exchanging pleasantries, she began showing me pictures of all of the places she visited while on vacation. The majority of the pictures were from Disneyland, which I found surprising. Out of the twenty or so pictures she cycled through, perhaps 12 of them were from Disneyland, with about 7 of those being pictures of her and her sister wearing Minnie Mouse ears. Haya was absolutely fascinated by Minnie Mouse--the ears, polka dot bow, everything. At one point she even pulled out a pencil with the eraser in the shape of Minnie Mouse ears.

I probably shouldn't be surprised at this, but her fascination with Minnie Mouse seemed totally American in nature. It completely caught me off-guard. For whatever reason, I never would have considered a foreigner being so enthralled with a character that seemed (at the time) purely American. I guess I thought that because Haya grew up thousands of miles away from America and spoke a language that wasn't just unfamiliar to me, but that didn't even use the Latin alphabet, she would have no notion of Disney characters.

Disneyland seems so quintessentially American, yet she liked Disneyland and Minnie Mouse just as much, if not more, than many Americans I've met. I'm sure thousands of college kids have travelled to Los Angeles for spring break, visiting Disneyland along the way, but Haya's enthusiasm reminded me that even with all of the cultural differences between us, we really are the same at some basic level.

If anything, there might be an argument that Haya is more American than I am in at least one way: I haven't been to Disneyland.

Now that is somewhat of a fallacious argument, as there is more to life than going to Disneyland, but it's an interesting thought. I think it shows how pervasive American culture is throughout the rest of the world. For example, I lived in England for 5 years, and the depth of knowledge about American culture was quite powerful. (Please excuse my gross generalization following.) Yet we, as Americans, don't seem to have much knowledge about other cultures. And to the extent that we do is superficial at best, constructed from stereotypes and movies.

With so many countries looking at us, learning our culture, and visiting our attractions, shouldn't we make an attempt to do the same in return? Most foreigners I've met have already had a pretty accurate picture of what life in America was like (excluding the usual "do Texans ride horses to school?" question that crops up), but I doubt the same could be said the other way. I certainly don't have a detailed knowledge of culture outside of America and England, and even then I only know about England because I lived there for 5 years.

Maybe we should put more focus on learning about other cultures.