A light slap...in the face

The next few nights are spent relishing my television. I have more than a slight crush on it. I have never been a couch potato but now? Well, the diet starts tomorrow. From my now experienced observations, I have come to several conclusions about the world without ever having to leave my own home. Most are positive and refreshing. Others, not so much. In the mix of thoughts, I realize the depths of my own ignorance. Here I thought I had it all figured out—the world, how it functioned and where I fit in it. Now, I was taking a crash course in culture supplied by none other than France Telecom. As I am flipping through my uncountable channels, I stumble upon some similarities between what’s going on here in France, and simultaneously in China, Algeria, Russia and Cambodia: Game shows. Here I thought everyone was obsessed with America: our culture, our clothes, our way of life. Turns out, no one gives a crap. On every channel I turn to, it’s exactly the same stuff. Talk shows, cartoons, old movies, the news. And of course, those pesky game shows. Sure, each country seems to specialize in one: In France, they love the round table discussions, at each other’s throats for hours until everyone is yelling so loudly that you can’t hear anything. In India, they will play those Bollywood previews until you’ve memorized the songs even before the movie has come out. Japan loves its game shows, a world of slapstick where the goal is always to show the most ridiculous—like human tetris, human bowling, or dressing up as aliens for a rhyming game—and garner the loudest cocked-head “eehhhhhhh?” of disbelief from the studio audience. In America, of course, it’s our trashy talk shows about whose mama slept with whose cousin’s sister’s son’s mother-in-law.

But there is a common thread amongst them all, a sense that we’re not all so different in the end. Each country has their own entertainment system that fortifies their respective cultures so much that they would never have to look anywhere else, just like I, the stupid American, never had to do unless I wanted to. Had I really been so out of it to think that the only thing going on in China was repression and Tibetan protesters? Wasn’t Algeria scary and dangerous? And women walk around at markets and shop in Iraq? Although I have known for quite some time that all of the above are either untrue or only part of the story, you wouldn’t know it from American television. We are privy to certain images and those images only. In America, we are shown scenes of rubble and bomb sites from Isreal. In Iraq and North Africa, it’s the same stuff. Fighting, wars, crying children and repressed women in their black scarves, made to look miserable because of it. In France, the news paints a completely different picture of those same places—the rubble is replaced with intelligent, middle-class people sitting at cafes and shopping. The headscarves thrown away in place of classy women in clean white suits hosting the nightly news or sitting in university classes. It reminds me of when I was in Beijing a few months ago. Sitting in my hostel, I was chatting with a Thai man who was also staying there.

In the mix of thoughts, I realize the depths of my own ignorance.

“I’m shocked that the Olympics are going to be held here,” I spouted, innocently enough at first, “in a city with so much poverty and pollution.” Dust and car exhaust was as common as homeless children begging on the side of the road. Was the international community ready for this, I wondered? “You have to remember that more than half of the world is from places like this,” he said simply. He didn’t sound angry, but I felt incredibly stupid. I had apparently learned nothing in my years of travel. “Oh yea,” I said, forcing a laugh, “I guess you’re right.” I was not proud in this moment. I quickly made an excuse to leave and went out for a walk on the streets of Beijing. Of course, I thought. These degraded streets will be shocking for me, the American, and maybe for those from other wealthy countries, but how many hands do you need to count the wealthy countries in the world? So here I sit with the world thrown virtually in my face. I am loving it. But I wonder how I could have missed all the obvious signs. If I’ve traveled almost all the way around the globe and have missed all of this, what does it say about the average American?