Category — Cultural Encounters

As teenagers, we are supposed to be the ones in touch with technology and modern culture. We all want the newest phones and ipods so that we are up to date with what is “In.” That is a cultural aspect of being young. We know the latest technology more than adults because we are growing up with this. Most adults weren’t presented these options at a young age. However, young age may not be a barrier to these new trends.

My mom, who has four kids and in her mid fifties has recently crossed the generation gap from adult to teenager in how she uses technology. A few years ago she was introduced to texting, which she can now stop doing. She will literally text me if I’m in another room of the house if she wants me to go to her, or walk the dog. If she wants to know where I am, she texts me. In just a couple of years she went from talking on a house phone to texting on a cell phone.

Another way she has joined modern culture is that she now has a facebook and is attached to it. Other classmates of mine notice how she’ll comment on a few status’s, or leave a wall post on my page. I don’t mind because it’s my mom, but I just find it funny how she’s become so socially and technology advanced over the past few years. Many adults say how “us kids” are spoiled with our new technology, but my mom doesn’t. She uses it as a way to join this new wave of technology and be socially and culturally connected with people.

I feel many of the cultural differences between age groups have been getting smaller as technology has grown. This modernized way of life has brought generations closer together, whether it’s good or bad. The most recent thing my mom has gotten is a kindle, something that would be unheard of and unimaginable thirty years ago. Now it is what is expected.

When my boss first told me that I was going to be working at Citi Field, I did not know what to think. I had never had an interest in sports and had never even seen the inside of a stadium. My coworkers who had worked the stand there before warned me that it was pretty boring. However, as the start of the season approached, I felt myself growing more and more excited. I started tuning in to all the talk of baseball, whether in school or on the news, and wanted to experience this sport that so many people seemed so passionate about.

The first few days at the stadium were a blur to me. I was introduced to many new people, intimidating men dressed in suits and my supervisors in their green uniforms. There were complicated cash registers to get used to and long forms to fill out at the end of every game and food prices to remember. However, after the first home stand, I had really settled in and started to feel comfortable in my new job. The most interesting part of working at Citi Field was the customers. I would see the same faces all the time. There was the young guy who would come every Tuesday and Thursday, grinning as I would go prepare his usual turkey sandwich exactly the way he liked it. There was another man who would be there every Wednesday and announce his presence each time by shouting to me, “Let me see the brightest smile in the stadium!” There was the elderly woman I would see almost everyday, buying a salad and going off to sit on a bench alone. What all these people had in common was their intense love for baseball. One of my teachers once told me that sports are like a religion, and that is the way that many people seemed to treat the Mets games, something sacred reserved for a certain day of the week.

To be honest, I still don’t have a great interest in sports. I still do not know any baseball terms or players, despite having watched the games a countless number of times. However, I do have a greater respect for sports fans and their passion. Though I no longer work at Citi Field, I have returned a few times, just for that uplifting atmosphere of excitement that you cannot find anywhere but at a sports stadium.

It was a Friday night and I was returning home from my weekly model UN meeting with my friend Kevin. As we boarded the 6 train, he turned to me and asked if I knew how to play Mahjong. I had seen relatives playing Jewish Mahjong, and I had seen yakuza play it in old Japanese mafia films, but I had a feeling that wasn’t going to cut it, so I told him that I didn’t really know, but that I would love to learn.

We got back to the dorm, and two of our friends were sitting in the community room, eyes glazing over as they stared at their laptop screens. They were more than willing to play with us.

The game started off a little rocky. Each of us knew a different version of Mahjong; Jewish/Japanese, Shanghainese, Hong Kong, and a Toisan/Canton mixture. By the end of the fifth round, however, everyone started to get into their own groove. We were able to mix and match our different Mahjong styles and it made for quite an interesting game.

“Rokuman!” I cried out, putting down the tile with the Chinese characters for “six” and “ten thousand” on them.

“Samton!”

“Pon!”

“Window!”

Because we could all read the Chinese characters and recognize the pictures, we could cry out the name of the tile in whatever language we so pleased. As the game progressed, five languages (Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghainese, and English) were being combined, giving way to quite an amusing game and learning experience.

The game lasted from 8:30 PM until 3:00 AM, us laughing and shouting the whole time. The later it got, the more ridiculous our combinations became, until no one could understand what anyone was saying, nut we didn’t need to. We all found ourselves on the same page, connected through our extremely fun multi-cultural game of Mahjong.

Although I lost all of my chips and ended up owing some to everyone, I won a few games and greatly broadened my cultural horizons while deepening my friendships. I cannot wait to play again.

After a long, exhausting week, I decided to treat myself to a manicure. I was nearly falling asleep in the chair as Julie, the Korean woman at Benny’s Salon, painted my nails. We did some innocent chitchatting and we each tried to make small talk. It was smooth sailing, so I decided to mention that I have a Korean friend in college.  Julie’s eyes immediately lit up; she was practically glowing.  I was struck by the pride she felt for her heritage, her native language, and the intrinsic culture inherent in the two. Julie spent the next few minutes telling me all about the origins and the deeper meanings many Korean names. I doubt she was just doing that because she loves the sound of her own voice. I think I was just the first person to allow her to open up and share something personal.

As a customer, I felt much more comfortable once we had established some sort of interpersonal connection. Julie was not just the manicurist; she was a wholesome person with a passion for her background. Soon after our little chat came Julie’s offer to fix my nails if I ever I needed. She was careful to add, “for honesty—not for business.” I guess being nice comes with an added bonus.

Living in New York City, I never realized just how culturally diverse it is compared to other parts of America.  I grew up with it, and it was never a big deal or something I actively noticed.  Last weekend, my friend who emigrated from Korea to America, starting in California then moving to New York, visited me because she was on break from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

She didn’t fit in with the Korean club because they claimed she was Korean-American, and not “Korean” enough.  She was telling me about a girl from Kansas who had never met an Asian before she met my friend.  She explained that it was like moving from one bubble to another, where there are different norms and stereotypes associated by race and cultural identity.

When I was eight, I went with my family a Chinatown bus tour that ended in Tennessee.  The restaurant complex we stopped at included a large Chinese restaurant where everyone on the bus flocked.  However, my Americanized family, who didn’t want to wait in long lines went to a local diner, where we were stared by the other customers and the waitress.  The waitress was polite enough, but they stared as we ordered and ate our home fries and pancakes.  My brother and I were young and didn’t realize it, but our parents rushed us in eating our food.

My friend’s visit reminded me of the one time I went to the “South” and it made me wonder people’s perspectives from middle America or anywhere away from cities and ports.  It interests me to hear how their perceptions are formed because now I feel like I’ve taken for granted the immigrant culture of New York.

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Today is a Monday. It’s the first time I’m sitting in my Business 1000 Honors class and I’m nervous and anxious. I decide to take a seat in the second row of the lecture room, and to my great surprise my new friends decide to come and join me. After a few words were exchanged between my friends and I, the aged professor of the course decides to approach us because we were making such a loud ruckus. Attempting to join our conversation, the professor takes a moment to take in what everyone was talking about. Since it took us awhile to realize the professor was eavesdropping, we continue our conservation about what type of music we liked to listen to. Just when I was about to share my musical tastes, the professor decides to jump in at that exact moment.

“So you’re talking about music ey? What about that rapper 50 cents?”

I began to cackle at my professor’s “cultural” mistake even though my friends had more control of their actions. My professor immediately gave me a malicious look and left to start the lecture. My laughter quickly faded as I realized that I’ve gotten on the professor’s bad side. However, I still thought it was funny he said 50 cents instead of 50 Cent when mentioning the rapper. This was due to the huge gap in age and “culture” between the professor and me. I brushed off the whole incident and went along with my day, but I couldn’t help to giggle every time my friends would mention this encounter.

This past Friday I was part of different cultures coming together to discuss something we all had in common. As I was riding the Queen seven train to school two cops and a man walked onto the train. The cops were minding their own business and doing routine sweeps of the neighborhood. The other man who walked on the train seemed to be in an intense conversation regarding murder and cops. His style was unique and appeared as if he came from an urban area. He walked with swag and talked with words that I only heard in certain areas of New York. He finished his conversation on the phone by saying that the cops shot the girl. He talked with no regard to whom he was around and everyone heard his conversation. The cops engaged the man. I thought something serious was going to unfold because of the details of the man’s conversation; however, something out of the blue happened instead. The cop gave the man a quizzical look and laughed at his phone call. The man said he was talking about the movie Paranormal Activity; it turned out he was in an intense conversation discussing the ending of the movie. The man thought the movie ended in one way, while his friend thought the movie ended in another way. Thus, a discussion of the movies began. I could not help but to join in the conversation because I was sitting very close to them. A heated discussion ensued, which ended up with everyone coming to the conclusion that there were alternate endings. On the train three different cultures collided, the culture of law enforcement, the urban culture, and the rural Chinese culture. We all came together and discussed something we had in common.

There are two types of people in the world, people that work for companies and people who work for nonprofit agencies and the government. Basically everyone in my family started out their careers with a government job  and I plan to follow suit. Most people in the U.S. end up working for corporations or small businesses. Demographically speaking, the poorest, richest, least educated, and the smartest people end up working in a for profit industry. On the other hand, government jobs are jobs for the middle class, while people that work in the nonprofit agencies usually don’t stay there for long. Take for example Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, and the Salvation Army. What makes people decide between nonprofit agencies, a government job, or working in the private sector? I think it has something to do with money, job security, and persons’ choices. Obviously someone who loves political science would want some experience in government, and someone who is interested in finance would probably want to work for a large corporation. But what motivates lawyers, doctors, teachers, accountants, mangers, and everyone else to choose between the two?

I used to know someone who joked around with a mischievous smile that “Everybody loves you when you’re six foot in the ground.” He was the godfather of hippies who used to sing “All you need is love!” with his old guitar. The sincere philanthropist, environmentalist, and musician, John Lennon has been under the ground for few decades now. However, his songs are still echoing in people’s mind in the name of peace and love. I visited Strawberry Fields, the heart of the culture that John Lennon created, on the day after his seventieth birthday.

At first, my day started out as an ordinary Sunday evening. After coming back from church, my cousin’s family and I sat in front of the dinner table, casually joking around whose life was more miserable. This typical dinner conversation was dramatically changed when my cousin-in-law brought John Lennon to our table. My cousin-in-law, who has been playing guitar for more than 30 years, told us that yesterday was John Lennon’s birthday. John Lennon from the Beatles, of course I knew him. Once the main singer-songwriter for the world’s famous band the Beatles, met Yoko Ono, fell madly in love with her, abandoned everything that appeared profitable in his life, ditched the Beatles, and decided to live his remaining life as a happy hippie in Manhattan instead. Or at least, that was all what I knew about him.

I always had a tendency of separating music from art. I often introduced myself as an artist, but music was something totally outside of my sphere of interest. Furthermore, I had a cheesy taste as a listener. I was born and raised in the 90s, growing up listening to all that “pop-sick-cle” music featured by the Backstreet boys and Britney Spears.  Then, there came the 21^st century and I danced to the “Boom Boom Pow” flow with obnoxiously loud bass sound and incomprehensible rap.  When my cousin-in-law asked me if I want to visit Strawberry Fields, I thought why not- I love strawberries. He kindly informed me that we’re going to Strawberry Fields not strawberry picking. It was the little portion of Central Park that was dedicated to the memories of John Lennon. Oh, okay, I thought, still why not. At least, there should be one strawberry if they named after it like that.

When we finally arrived at the 72^nd street, west side of Central Park, we could hear a band playing Lennon’s song “Imagine” from a distance. My family and I walked faster and faster as if we are drawn to a magnetic field. In the middle everyone -hippies, non-hippies, musicians, and non-musicians- we finally stopped. I had no idea how that happened, but I started to sing along with them. I didn’t even know that I knew the lyrics. We sang and sang in complete circles, looking and smiling at each other and the strangers, as if we’ve known each other for a long time.

As to what my kindly cousin-in-law said, there was not even a single strawberry at Strawberry Fields. However, I was able to pick something sweeter than strawberries. It was the seed of culture that John Lennon strived to cultivate throughout his life that eventually grew up into a fruit and ripened in the people’s mind. It was also the power of his culture that made me start imagining a world without religion, possession, greed, and hunger, but only filled with peace and love. Everyone thought he was a dreamer, but he was not the only one. And today, I’m joining this circle of life because I am simply curious- what color is the sky in his heaven?

The image was taken from <http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_about/parks_history/strawberry_field_images/large/Strawberry_Fields_Forever.jpg>

As I boarded the E train, heading back home from school on Wednesday, little did I know I was going to have the most entertaining train ride of my life.   “Are you scared of sitting next to me, because I’m black?” a young black woman asked an old Asian woman who had just gotten out of her seat. “Why would you think that? It’s because I have to get off in a few stops,” replied the Asian woman in her accented English.  The situation began to heat up, as both women began to yell back and forth.  “People in New York are so racist, thank god I’m moving back to Philadelphia,” the black woman hollered.   “You’ve got to be kidding me! I’m a minority also, and I’m not racist against anybody, whether they are black, white or yellow,” the Asian woman responded.   Soon, things became physical, as they began pushing and shoving each other.  At this point, everyone on the train cart had their eyes glued on these two women and the show they were putting up.  Luckily, not only did I get to watch the show, I had front row seats! “America is a diverse country.  For goodness sakes, our President is black. Your color is not the reason why I got up.  I got up because I have to get off soon,” the old Asian woman reasonably explained.  However, the younger woman wouldn’t give up, saying, “You think you are better than me?”  The older woman’s stop had arrived, and she peacefully walked out while the other woman continued to yell at her.  “Only in New York” one of the passengers said, making everyone laugh.  The New York subway is truly an interesting place.