“I take the best of both cultures”, you will hear the child of an immigrant say when talking about integrating two cultures. Implying that they can pick and choose the most desirable elements of each culture, the way you select apples in a supermarket, discarding the undesirable refuse in a cultural garbage bin somewhere. But, I have found that culture is like air, you breath it in involuntarily only to read about pollution and toxins later in the news. Distinguishing the good from the bad happens in retrospect and far too late. At rare moments of clarity I find myself saying and doing things whose national origin I can clearly identify, but I find myself wondering how it crawled under my skin to find habitation in the mosaic of my personality.
“I take the worst of all cultures”, I found myself wondering a few days ago. “Take” being the wrong verb preceded by the wrong pronoun. The demons of the east wage war with demons of the west vying for territory inside a tired spirit. I don’t take anything, it devours me, spits me out only to sculpt a yet another effigy with the remains. How crafty is he, the god of multiculturalism, how creative. His concoctions never seize to amaze me.
“The worst of all cultures misappropriates me”, would be a more appropriate statement.
But, let’s assume that I am able to pick and choose from my varied backgrounds the influences that I desire. Let’s also assume that just to be different from all the “I take the best of both cultures” people that I instead decide to choose the worst of all cultures, just because I am evil. What would I be like?
If I could do that, I would be able to have so much fun.
I love living in Canada, but a few things I can’t get used to regardless of how long I live here. One these irksome cultural thingies is the lack of the concept of hospitality from the Canadian lexicon. Take the idea of potlatch dinners. ``Hey! I am having a party at my house, please bring your own food otherwise you will starve`` … What? Where I come from if you bring your own food to a party it means that you are insulting the hostess and accusing her of being a bad cook. How hard is it to put together a simple meal? To Canadians it must a major ordeal. Because a Canadian would rather endure having four different varieties of potato salad with a side of potato chips at his party than make the effort to figure out how to use the stove in his own kitchen. Nowadays I always carry a steel water bottle in my bag, because in Canada you will be sitting with your tongue hanging out before anybody offers you a glass of water. My favourite story of Canadian hospitality was a BBQ party held at somebody’s backyard, where the instructions asked people to bring their own lawn chair to sit on. When it started raining people began huddling together under umbrellas. The hostess didn’t want guests in her house, but went inside herself to keep herself dry, while her guests stayed outside under the rain. Canadian hospitality at its best.
From my Czech background, I would choose the relish with which people like to describe how miserable they are. I remember the nausea I felt one day when I asked an older woman in the Czech republic how she was. She spent half an hour describing a list of physical ailments body organ, by body organ and ended by describing the different secretions that come out of her vagina at different times and proceeded to describe how these different secretions smell …. I kid you not. After listening to her for half an hour I thought I was going to faint. A party in the Czech republic will always end with people discussing how difficult their life has been with each person trying to prove that his life is more difficult than the rest. Then everybody gets drunk and starts singing. Happiness in looked at with suspicion. Don’t ever show that you are happy or having a great time in the Czech republic, people will very quickly set you straight by reminding you about all the things that could go wrong.
From my Arabic background I would choose pretending that you adore people that you hate. In the Middle East, you will go to a wedding party and invariably bump into somebody you haven’t seen in ages for a very good reason. The two of you can’t stand each other, but for some reason that person feels the necessity to feign affection. They will tell you how much they miss you and proceed to pour words of saccharine fondness over your head that you will feel sticky in the aftermath. “O you look so beautiful, you haven’t changed one bit in the last 15 years” … yeah right! “Are these your children? They must be as smart as their mom” … leave my children out of this. “How is your mom and dad, I miss them so much, please say hello to them on my behalf” … you can call them yourself if you want to talk to them. “I was thinking about you the other day, and thinking what a wonderful person you are” … that is strange since you don’t answer my emails. “Your eyes have the beautiful color of hazelnuts and your hair is smooth as silk” … O God when will this end.
To celebrate the worst of all cultures I will organize a multicultural party. Where no food is served and nobody is allowed to bring any food at all. That way we don’t gain weight. We will sit in my backyard in the Vancouver rain and compete in telling stories about how sad and pathetic our lives are. Words like bile, body secretions, depression and dark clouds are encouraged. If you have a happy life then please have the courtesy towards other people by making up distressing events about yourself so that the gloomy mood of the party is not disturbed. The person with the most pitiable life story will receive a card with syrupy compliments that are completely untrue and utterly unrelated to the receiver.
