Culture Shock

A couple of weeks ago, after a friend of mine and I were trying really hard to find time between school and work we finally set a date for me to come over to her parents house. She told me how much her mother likes to have people over and cook Persian food for her guests. I had never had Persian food in my life. I was scared to be honest, because I would have felt really embarrassed if I didn’t like the food for some reason. On the other hand, I couldn’t wait to come to someone else’s house and see what they do when the have guests over. Every culture has a different way of treating guests and I wanted to experience this one.

The food was served, and on my table set I had a fork and a spoon. The food included chicken (delicious chicken I must add) and rice with raisins and lentils and plain yogurt with other herbs. Without waiting too much time I started to eat, with the fork. My friend had her sister and her daughter over as well. They were visiting from Iran. The daughter a nine year old was sitting on the table as well and I noticed that she whispered something in Farsi. I couldn’t understand a word yet with her eyes she was telling me that she was talking about me.

Suddenly, my friend started to laugh and I asked her what was so funny. She said, “Oh nothing is just that she was asking why you are eating your rice with the fork. She is wondering if you don’t know how to use spoons.” Well, the thing is that spoons and forks are for Iranians (I’m not sure if this is true for all Persian culture, that is why I’m saying Iranians) what forks and knives are for us westerns.

I like finding little facts like this one. I’m sure that if I ever run into another group of Persian people and I have the opportunity to eat with them, they will appreciate me remembering that little fact.

What is the Media Doing?

I was browsing through one of my favorite websites Kevin Sites Hot Zone I like this website because it is not what a regular newscast would show on TV. I’ve seen newscast give more coverage to elephants being born at the local zoo and make contests to pick the name for it than showing news that matter. At Kevin Sites’ page I looked at an interview. He interviewed a man named Josh Rushing a former marine captain who is now a correspondent for Al Jazeera International. Al Jazeera is a news channel headquartered in Doha, Qatar. The interview was about how Rushing got a whole new perspective on the war in Iraq (and Arab culture) through his living there experience. His misconception was probably due to the misinformation given by the American media about what truly happens in other parts of the world. I thought this would be a perfect example of why I chose to write about things that happen in other parts of the world; and at the same time it worries me that the journalists out there are not doing their part to inform the truth. Rushing talked about how he heard Donald Rumsfeld say that Al Jazeera showed beheadings and that this network was a terrorist TV and connected to al-Qaida.

“…It was completely wrong the way they’re portrayed by the U.S. government. And I’m not sure why they portray it that way. When (former Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld would go out in the press and say they show beheadings, I’m not sure if he was misinformed or he was lying…”

That is what he knew about this news organization, what he had heard from the American media. Is American media focusing on the wrong issues or people? Or is it focusing too much on itself? Have we created a tinted bubble where we cannot look outside but everyone else sees right through us? The media seems to be accustoming audiences to meaningless issues. I’m sure we know more about Britney Spears’ performance fiasco instead of knowing details about the war, or even what countries actually form the continent of America.