Italians in our midst: melting vs. mosaic vs. “international”

Yesterday I accompanied The Big O to a birthday party at a house (which is called a “villa” here) in Thao Dien, the next neighborhood over.  The birthday girl is Italian; mom is from Milan and dad is from outside Venice.  But he spent most of his childhood in South Africa and thus spoke English as much as Italian during his formative years.  Another mom I met at the party is Dutch, her husband is from the Dutch Caribbean.  I asked them if they care about their children being able to read and write in their native languages, given that they currently go to our school which of course is completely in English.  The general consensus was “eh, whatever.”  Since they were mostly parents of younger elementary age kids their primary goal was for them to learn to read and write in English and perhaps later they’d add their native languages to the mix.  One of the Italian kids didn’t speak much English at all before arriving here in August but she’s coming along nicely, similar to one of The Little Lady’s friends who is from Japan.  I gave my standard schpiel of Americans being in awe that the rest of the world is able to switch between languages  so much; something that English-speaking Americans generally can’t fathom.  And then we of course discussed Americans’ lack of knowledge of the world, with the Dutch mom telling a story of when she visited Boston and spoke with a woman about living in Vietnam and the American mixed up Vietnam and Israel.  Israel!  I can see mixing up lots of places, but that’s a tough one of figure out how those two countries could be confused for one another.  The Italian dad noted the oft-repeated idea that the American media doesn’t really acknowledge the existence of the rest of the world.  And when it does its tone is not the most flattering.  (Here’s a fun quick read which describes how the U.S. media would cover Thanksgiving if it were in another country.)  It’s a sad state of affairs, folks.  Study some geography tonight.

But back to the pseudo-sociology.  A long time ago, when speaking with an American friend who’d married a Canadian, I heard the comparison between the American melting pot and the Canadian mosaic.  In America, the story goes, people come from everywhere and melt, i.e. assimilate, into the culture.  The American culture may absorb some of their culture (many times in the form of a few items of their native food which is then distorted, and sometimes improved), but the immigrants will absorb, and be changed more, by the dominant culture of their new homeland.  The Canadian mosaic, on the other hand, supposedly allows for people to retain more of their native culture, i.e. allows for the French-speakers to keep speaking French in a country which mostly talks like you and me.

Except for how they say “about” and “sorry”.

Anyway, yesterday and for the past few months I have been confronted with another cultural mishmash: the culture of “internationalism.”  People that really do have a complicated answer to “where are you from?”  The Dutch kid has always lived in Vietnam.  His parents moved here from Indonesia before he was born, but they had lived in China and the U.S. as well.  A couple months ago in Nha Trang I chatted with a (Caucasian) boy in the airport.  I would guess he was seven.  I asked where he was from.  He responded Scotland.  I said what part of Scotland.  This stumped him.  He had absolutely no idea.  His mother explained that they were on holiday but they actually lived in Dubai.

I have many students who have never lived where they are supposedly “from.”  Yet even if they are not from Western country the “international” culture to which they now belong is, by definition, Eurocentric, if for no other reason (though there certainly are other reasons) because their classes are in English.  Their teachers are almost uniformly from English-speaking countries.  And, frankly, the American skepticism of emphasizing standard Western/Christian traditions at the expense of those from elsewhere is not really heard here.  The school is holding contests for different teams to decorate their locker areas for Christmas and the last day before what I called Winter Break back home but is called Christmas Break here is “red and green” day.  I wonder how the students who wear hijabs feel about all of this?

Moving on…The Big O saw perhaps his first magician/clown act, incidentally performing to a loop of Gangham Style repeated over and over and over and over and over. 

(Note The Big O waiting patiently for a turn to pet the {actual, real live}white dove which magically appeared in a plastic cylinder only moments before.)

All the other kids laughed and were seemingly mesmerized.  While The Big O did not adhere to the Standard American Reaction To Clowns (Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  Scary!), he did have a dubious and analytical glint in his eye most of the time (in between laughing and being seemingly mesmerized).  I certainly remember watching things and trying intensely to figure out how they work.  (This morning’s interaction with traffic being the most recent example.)  I’m sure other parents know the feeling, when watching their offspring, of trying to figure out to what degree their kiddo is doing or thinking something that they once did.  I played tennis today with The Eldest’s music teacher and at some point she said that my mannerisms were eerily like his.  It’s like they’re just little copies of us!  Right?!?

Or is that just an ego trip?  They have their own thoughts and feelings, strengths and weaknesses, preferences and experiences.  They’re their own people, right?!?

Truthfully I do see a lot of myself in the boys, in how they interact with the world around them, their fascination of how things work and why they are the way they are, and their (often naive) assumptions about how people do and should interact with each other.

The Little Lady, on the other hand, is just weird.

– Warren