Shlicha Corner
America through My Eyes
By Revital Yona
Coming here from a tiny country on the other side of the world, many people ask me what America is like for me, how it looks through my foreigner’s eyes. Throughout my time here I have absorbed lots of impressions and accumulated lots of instances I’ve been trying to remember to be able to share with others, and I think now is the time to write it all down and share it with you, before it becomes too familiar, too “normal”, to be registered as uniquely American in my mind.
What did I know about this country before coming here? Not much, and yet quite a lot. I’ve never been here before, but even before coming here I felt like I knew what America is all about. American movies and sitcoms are constantly shown on our TV sets and on our big screens alongside Israeli ones. American rock music, pop music, hip-hop, trance, etc., infiltrate our radio stations and music stores and are presented side by side with Israeli music. American chain stores and diners like McDonald’s, KFC, Office Depot, Toys”R”Us, Best Buy, you name it, all have branches in Israel (for some reason Starbucks tried but failed, but that’s a rare example). American sports – the NBA craze draws lots of Israeli fans to the screens in impossible nightly-hours just to be able to watch the games in real time. Many of us speak English very well thanks to this immense representation of American culture in our small land.
Also, being the only democracy in the Middle East and a close ally to the US, for many of us America is a synonym for a good and cherished friend, a friend that even when it does mistakes, still means well and tries to do well (even if we don’t necessarily agree with some of the means to the end; most Israelis I know will tell you that the Iraq War, among other things, was a big mistake). For us, America is like a big friendly uncle that means well, even though it is fallible. It is not rare to see American flags hanged side by side with Israeli flags on our Independence Day – you see it on people’s balconies, on people’s cars, etc., and for many of us it is a heart warming sight. We often tell this very sad joke that our only friends in the UN (and by extension in the world) are the US and Micronesia, we can always rely on their support.
So this is the luggage I came with to this great country, and now that I’m here how has my image of this place changed, if at all? It did, in a good way, but also in a not so good way. My first impression when I just got here was from New Ark airport – and I’m not sure how good a representation of any country an airport is, because this is like an Island with mixed influences from different cultures and places and I often feel that all airports look and feel the same, but when I think of that – each airport I’ve been to (and I’ve been to many), has something different about it that reflects the country in which it is situated (my best example is the airport in Uzbekistan, but this is a story for another time). Anyhow, at that airport I encountered the American courtesy for the first time – the airport clerks (I bet they’re called something else, but I’m not sure what) were very strict and professional looking, but also courteous – distant, but also present, and very polite. Other friends on my mission had a totally different impression, they were helpless trying to explain to their clerks what they came here for, and got annoyed with their strictness, but my experience was different – I got lucky getting the nice, human ones, and it colored my perception of what Americans are like.
This courtesy is something that I kept on encountering during my time here – everyone seem to be so nice, so polite, so friendly and smiley. I feel almost as if Americans are round, with no edges, no thorns, nothing harsh to hurt their neighbors with. Compared to us, overconfident Israelis with a lot of mischievous Hutzpah (which we’re proud of – that’s why we call ourselves Sabra, thorny on the outside but sweet on the inside), Americans seem to be so soft, tactful, almost diplomatic, always mindful of the feelings of their fellows and I like it. I also like Israeli directness and I feel comfortable in both environments.
Back to the airport. Another thing that impressed me as odd/foreign there and then in every other place I’ve gone to was the tipping custom here. You tip the person that helps you with the luggage, you tip the taxi driver, you tip waiters/waitresses almost double the tip you give in Israel, you tip the person that serves you coffee at a coffee shop counter, you tip the wine-tasting expert at the local winery, you just tip, tip and tip.
This encounter with American largesse is just one example out of many: I was astonished the first few times I went to restaurants here to get dishes triple the size I can even dream to eat up by myself, I’d just never seen dishes so large before designed for one diner. I was astonished even more to realize a few weeks later that I actually grew to be able to finish these dishes by myself, till the last bit of them. I know you won’t believe this, but I did actually put on some weight during my time here to judge by the way my cloths hardly fit on me anymore (and this is my response to those of you who keep telling me you got to fatten me up – don’t worry, this is taken care of by itself).
Other instances of American largesse are the fact that whenever you ask for coffee in a restaurant, you hardly have the chance of drinking up your cup of coffee when your server comes and fills it up again. Back home you would need to buy another cup if you wanted a second, it’s just unthinkable that they’ll serve more and more coffee without any limit. I often find myself finishing a whole pot of coffee during a meal, something I wouldn’t do back home, something I couldn’t even think of doing back home. I think it has directly to do with another kind of largesse you sometimes see here – physical largesse, big people that are probably the product of a society that consumes oversized dishes in restaurants (mostly fried food, tons of cheese, not enough vegetables, lots of very fatty gravies), with limitless refills of coffee (and some, like myself, drink it with lots of cream and sugar), with not much chance to do physical exercise. You see these people everywhere and even the normal slim/fit person is somewhat heavier than the average person back home.
I was also shocked to realize that on most streets you don’t have sidewalks! This is just unthinkable! How can you walk without having sidewalks on the streets (well, most streets)? It just refuses to sink in – this country (at least the parts of it that I know) is literally not meant for walking! If you want to walk, you have to risk your life and you’re being perceived as a lunatic. During my first few months here (until it started to be too cold for that) I insisted on going for a daily walk somewhere outside and felt like I was putting my life on the line walking on road shoulders with running cars beside me and with hills that block the view and increase the risk of me not being seen. So no sidewalks (still, when I think about it it’s just unfathomable) and no night-lights on most streets! Even if you do risk your life to take an evening walk – you find yourself doing it in very dark neighborhoods, and it makes you feel like going straight back home! During the autumn months when I was still going for my daily walks, I often saw drivers looking at me as if I fell straight from the moon. I couldn’t understand their reaction – what’s so odd about a human being jogging on a road side? I was appalled to notice the same reaction in myself a few months later whenever I saw joggers or bike riders (Toni!) on the street – they’re literally putting their lives on the line! I don’t think I’ll be able to go for walks again as long as I live here. This place is made for wheels, for cars, not for feet, not for walking.
One of the outcomes of this system is that you hardly see people on the streets (and again, the few that you do see once in a while look as if they’re out of their minds), you don’t really get to know your neighbors, you’re totally dependent on your car and if there’s a problem with your car (or if it’s stuck in the ice somewhere) you’re in trouble as there’s hardly any public transportation in small towns like the ones in this area. You hardly see any taxis running on the streets, because everybody drives their own cars and it just feels estranged, less alive.
And that’s true about life in small town America until you get to the mall – there everything returns to life again: you see people walking, you can look at strangers and get to feel the human atmosphere in the place where you live, you get to have some human touch. No wonder the malls here are such a big attraction, they’re just a warmer place to be in. Of course, that’s not the only reason for their popularity.
One more thing that adds to the attraction of malls and that struck me as just unbelievable during my first few weeks in this country (while I was still living in St. Louis) is the shopping craze. I felt like EVERYTHING revolves around shopping. You go to dinners in peoples’ houses, and the main topic for conversation is what you can find in different shops, what deals and sales this or that chain offers, when the prices are going to change, etc. Around Thanksgiving and Christmas time all you hear of is how anxiously people wait for the after-holiday sales. Even the Israelis I met in this country, those that have lived here for a while now, were infected with this shopping virus. I must admit – I’m thankful this virus hasn’t got me yet. I hope it never will.
Another virus that did seem to get me is something that many people find hard to believe – Country Music. I love it. During my first month or so here I couldn’t listen to anything else but Country. This is the one type of music we don’t hear back home, so after being exposed to all the plastic-like aspects of America, finally getting to know a genuine, authentic genre of music here, that you can find only here and no where else, really made me fascinated by it. It took a while to realize that people here don’t think highly of this type of music and many people find it hard to believe that I should like it at all, but I do. I’m kind of saturated with it by now so I listen to other stuff, but I still like this real-people, real-life kind of music, something that is uniquely American and hasn’t spread to the rest of the world.
I’ve been told much before coming here that in this area of the US there is an especially large concentration of a type of person (that shares my liking of country music) called rednecks. This is the American version of what we call back home Arsim. Of course, here in America a Jewish Redneck is almost an oxymoron, but back home you find many of them. Well, I think I’ve seen this special species – their necks are by no means red and they’re just lovely, smiley, good natured people, simple, real people that I can relate to easily, people without any trace of exaggerated self-importance or hypocrite pretentiousness, people that look you straight in the eyes and let you see through them and find warmth and kindness there. I got a chance to chat with some people that I think fall under this category and it was a heart warming experience.
Other things that impressed me here in the US were the big size of everything here – big people, big cars, big houses, big towns (even if they’re considered small – Carbondale’s area size is more than half the area size of Tel Aviv and Jaffa combined!), big malls and shopping centers, huge distances from one place to the next, etc. Surprisingly enough, things you expect to be big enough to be functional are rather small – street name signs (the green ones with the white, hardly visible fonts) are so small that if you’re looking for an unfamiliar address when it’s dark outside you can hardly find it because the street names are almost invisible at night. Same with house numbers – what’s the logic behind having house numbers written so small or hidden in really invisible locations? It just makes your first-time guests burn more and more gas patrolling your neighborhood in search of your house.
So house numbers are hidden, but another kind of numbers just can’t be – the magical five digit number. It’s of vital importance. You can’t live here without knowing your zip code by heart. Back home people hardly care about their zip codes. You really don’t have to write the addressee’s zip code for the letter to get to its destination and if you remember your zip code when you fill out different application forms you’re being cheered on by the clerks saying ‘kol ha-kavod, bravo!’. Here you have to provide your zip code number whenever you use your credit card, apply to different programs, register in different places, etc. Even in Google maps your zip code is enough to find directions from your place to other destinations. America is so big, so I guess it just makes things simpler.
One of the things I find hardest to get used to is the local restaurant/café’ scene. When I travel from place to place here I sometime stop in small towns along the way, trying to find locally owned restaurants/café’s to eat in and feel the unique local atmosphere and culture. I’m constantly amazed that whenever I ask the locals where I can eat, they unfailingly refer me to gas stations or Pizza chains or McDonald’s or Dairy Queen or KFC, etc. I stopped telling them that pizza is no food because most people here don’t agree with me, but when I insist on locally owned places, I rarely get lucky to be able to find one, and that’s a pity. In Israel we have the chains too, but we also have an immense variety of beautiful locally owned places, with unique design that the owners invested time and energy in, with their own unique menu that you can find more than just salad/chicken/pizza/baked potato in, with its own atmosphere and energy that you can absorb and enjoy while here I rarely come across such places and even when I do they usually look just like any other diner, maybe with different lighting, but that’s all. I feel that everything here is one big McDonald’s – you travel to far away states in this country, and they still have the same chains with the same kinds of food and design and hardly anything else and I just wish that American restaurants/café’s would have more diversity and authenticity to them and serve a much healthier variety of foods, like we do back home.
All in all, I love this country. I’ve traveled the world and never felt so much at home anywhere else except in Israel. People here are warm and welcoming. I get the feeling that if I wanted to, I could make America my home without feeling that I don’t belong here. You don’t get this feeling of potential belongingness in other countries. Israel is the home of the Israelis, Japan of the Japanese, Italy belongs to the Italians, Norway to the Norwegians – whenever you travel in such places, you always feel like a guest in someone’s home, not making you feel that you want to stay there for life. Here you could say that America belongs to the Americans, but who are the Americans? Where do they come from? What do they share in common that distinguishes them ethnically from other nations? It feels like America belongs to everyone and everyone is welcome to be here, which is a unique case among the nations and a blessed one at that. It might also be the reason behind the success of this country – such an immense diversity of people that share the desire to prosper and lead a decent life together while bringing their uniqueness to the larger picture – this is a truly impressive phenomenon that has few parallels in the world. I’m happy that from all places in the world I was sent here for this year, it helps me fathom some of the ways of the most influential world power. And, of course, it gives me the chance to be here with you and bring Israel to you.
Thanks for staying with me until now – it is a long article and yet I feel that I haven’t said it all. I might write a second one about the topic closer to the end of my stay here in a few months.
With love,
Revital
(Feb. 29th, 2008)