2004-12-07 - 5:04 p.m.
Today I was invited to a special presentation that one of the English teachers, one of the counterparts I teach with, was giving on America. Being that this is always a treat, being told by Turkmens what America is like, I gladly threw out the class I needed to teach and instead sat in the presence a group of 6th form students ready to dramatize the holiday of Thanksigiving. Things that I, living in a free, civilized society with constant access to information, never knew about my own country and my favorite holiday but somehow a Turkmen teacher knows:
1) When getting to Plymouth Rock, the pilgrims found maize just sitting in the sandy beaches, ready to eat.
2) One day, the pilgrims saw a tall Indian walking through the town with a spear. Though immediately frightened, the Indian approached them and said, "Hallo, Yankee! Hallo, Yankee!"
3) After a day of rest on Sunday, all of the Pilgrims' wives washed closed on the following Monday, beginning the American national tradition of calling Monday, "Washing Day", and always doing your laundry on that day.
Following the stunningly accurate portrayal of American lives (but really, who can blame them with the incredible lack of resources they have about their own country), a "pumpkin pie" was passed around so all could taste some genuine American cuisine. This kind of parrying of American culture, history, and cuisine wouldn't be offensive if I wasn't always dragged into it to verify it's authenticity. But as this "typical American treat" is being handed out to the slack-jawed masses, the teacher asks, "Steve, this is just like the pumpkin pie in America, yes?" What am I supposed to say? "Actually, no. While our pumpkin pie actually has pumpkins in it and looks like someone might want to eat it, this looks more like 2 foot thick bread with orange shit burnt on top. Any questions about the greatest nation ever?"
I would be honest with these people and set the record straight with the 8 billion misnomers they have about the U.S. if it were actually worth it. I mean, does it really matter that they think Native Americans spoke English when the pilgrims arrived? Do they really need to know that food exists out there that tastes good? Not particularly.
The greatest thing that this teacher had, which I had no idea she was in possession of, was a home video that some Turkmen men shot while in the Los Angeles area this past summer. I almost wet myself when she first pressed play and footage started showing on the t.v. screen (where did she get the t.v.? no one knows.) of Los Angeles. This is, of course, the worst and best thing that these kids could ever see.
We first start out with the cameraman sitting in the passenger seat of a car while the driver goes through the commerical area of a suburb of Los Angeles. Taco Bells fly by each minute, empty Long John Silvers and "Ricky's Liquor Store" fill the screen. Countless empty strip malls sit in the frames. Just as I'm about to cry foul, that the videographer is painting America all wrong, we hit money.
The video immediately cuts to inside a supermarket. That's right, folks. A real, fucking supermarket. Immediately I notice the gigantic melons, grapes, fruit, real food, and tasty food that the camera is sopping up. But even better is the kind of overweight lady wearing the short shorts pushing her cart as slowly as humanly possible. This is America and I could not be happier to see it. I wanted to stand up and shout, "That's right, T-stan. Real big fucking food, real big fucking asses. That's my nation and I'm a citizen 4 life. Bill of Rights, motherfuckers." It was hard to translate into Turkmen, so I just stayed seated.
The third portion of the tape was the Turkmen tourists inside of Universal Studios, which the teacher never explained to the students because she wasn't aware herself. Instead, she kept saying it was a park, which is a gross misnomer. I wanted to explain the term "amusement park" but realized that the conglomeration of the translations into Turkmen of "amusement" ("trying as hard as possible not to beat my breast in extreme grief") and "park" ("that pile of dirt and shit behind our house where everyone burns their garbage") just didn't cut it.
So the Turkmen are just watching this ridiculously strange footage of an animatronic King Kong shaking a car full of Japanese people, thinking, "This is America? Dude, America is fucking weird. They put mechanical gorrilas in the middle of their parks just to scare people and shit." The footage from Jurassic Park: The Ride I'm sure was also a tailspin in more than one way for those children. The teacher explained that the houses "were all made of paper, right Steve?" What? Paper? Where did you hear that? Instead, I nodded my head and dreamed about the day when my roommate, friend, and I snuck into a "park" with "paper houses" and watched bronosauruses rock our little cart. Those were the days.
