Hello Everyone!
It’s past Saturday midnight here in Lawrence and KU students are availing themselves of a lovely and much-awaited Fall break here or somewhere else. The surroundings have swiftly assumed a more peaceful and quiet atmosphere as soon as the break kicked off; no more fast cars or diehard bikers and the bus stops look painfully lonely around my neighborhood – let alone on campus! I did not wake up this morning to the loud music emanating from a certain angle typical of every Saturday morning here in my apartment complex. The party moved somewhere else, I suupose!
The Fall break took me by surprise. I did not know about it until quite lately, and I am still not my calender’s best friend as my eyes are always more attentive to how everything is looking on my weekly or daily schedules. And now it’s three days since the break started and today was another comfy day for a homey girl!
Earlier today, I was reading a fascinating essay by a notable American Studies scholar, K. Scott Wong, called “The Transformation of Culture: Three Chinese Views of America”. It was an unbelievably good read and one reason behind its appeal to me is that the writer discusses the lives and views of two notable Chinese scholars who wanted to study and understand both American life and culture as well as Chinese-Americans, and who were courageous enough to write profoundly insightful and objective accounts of not only what they saw and experienced, but also of qualities and “cultural deficiencies” in the national character of their own people. It is always admirable to me that a scholar, a writer or even a casual observer is able to trasncend fanatic loyalties based on racial, religious or family ties and be able to see thoroughly, judge objectively and open-mindedly. I was so able to identify with much of what these scholars were investigating that I found myself thinking about the time when I started a blog to talk about what I thought were “cultural deficiencies” in my society and which I believed were responsible for the chaos that keeps ripping the country apart. Liang Qichao is one of the scholars Wong discusses in his essay. He has written a rivetting account of his travels in North America, but most of what he included in his final work called “Selected Memoir of Travels in the New World”, is based on his study of Chinese-Americans in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Simply put, the study led Liang to conclude that “the Chinese did not possess the qualities required of citizens in a democrcy!” I read that line and was thinking to myself “when will an Iraqi scholar be bold enough as to strip himself or herself of arrogant centrism and be wiling to highlight what’s culturally, mentally and emotionally wrong?!?! Liang discusses everything from the way his compatriots walk, talk, eat, work to the way they make life-determining decision and every word he writes seems to be striking at a very sensitive string within me “Yes! Exactly! I have always believed that!” But unlike Liang when I wanted to give an outlet to my views I had to remain disguised under “D” – otherwise I would be wounding the pride of my fellow fervently patriot anti-American, anti-Irish, anti-Italian, anti-anything-outside-the-Iraqi-borders and be conceived of the Do~na Marina of Iraq!!!
But, anyway, back to our Fall break! I put down Wong’s essay with a deep sense of gratitude to my professor having made a wise choice of reading material this week. No more whining about definitions of American Studies as an Academic field, I hope! Or about Weeds being the proudest and sturdiest American West objects since they esxpress raging defiance against white colonization and exploitation of land!
It was time for a snack. It is really amazing how food became such a comfort zone for me as soon as I started living on my own. I don’t know whether it’s missing my mom’s dishes or the Food Network here in the States! My mother still has a hard time believeing that I actually cook – and that I actually enjoy it!
And then it was time for TV. Isn’t this the way most hard-working students reward themselves after a serious study session!?! The thing with television is that it either has absolutely nothing interesting on or, otherwise, every single channel collaborate against you and all together bombard you with lots of all-time favorites that you end up clueless which to pick. It wasn’t too hard for me this evening, though.
“Father of the Bride” – one of my favorite American classic masterpieces of all time. I am not sure if the movie has ever been reviewd as a “classic” or a “masterpiece” before, but there’s a first time for everything, right!? When it comes to art, objectivity is necessary but very hard to abide by and; therefore, we grow attached only to what has a personal impact on us, to the things that touch us deeply and permanently and with which we easily identify. Timeless works of art, including cinematic works, are those which simply act as mirrors into which we look and see not only ourselves as we know it, but also what’s missing and what we crave to have. As such, love stories are always amazing but they enjoy a special appeal to those who would like to see the stories reenacted in their own life…Stories set at a particular hitorical setting often impress a historian or a film critic, but they deeply gratify a nostalgic history enthusiast and in completely diferent ways. In “Father of the Bride” the missing central element in me as a viewer is the Father Figure. I have always thought of the father-daughter relationship as the noblest, most sublime of all human relationships within the family. It has a different feel and a special humanistic quality. My attachment to my father and having been “daddy’s little girl” for all the time he was alive definitely make my emotional response to this particular movie a lot more different than other categories of audiences. Besides, the movie is another example to illustrate what Hollywood is capable of; on the one hand we get heart-warming, tear-jerking movie as “Father of the Bride”, on the other there’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Natural Born Killers” and “American History X”! And in between you get a fond, adorable compromise in “The Wedding Singer” and “Shakespeare in Love”. Would it still be difficult to realize the global impact of American popular culture once we examine such remarkable diversity in artistic production?!?
So down to the end of the day i reclined on my sofa like a proud peacock wondering whether there should have been ways to spend the Fall break in less traditional ways. After all, tonight was probably the 500th time I watched that movie…I enjoyed it as did for the first time…I cried “Yes I cry while watching intense movies!” – though my boyfriend think I am a cry-er anyway! But seriously, what about less traditional, more adveturous ways?!?
Lawrence is a nice little collge town. I findit to be typically American only in the eyes of Americans themselves and not for an outsider. There’s nothing American about it for me as much as there’s nothing Italian about China!!! I am just like any other non-American who when asked about the United States the answers would be based on New York City and Washington D.C. America for us is skyscrappers, sleepless big cities and constant rush hours. Some of us don’t even mind slums and underworlds only to apply and match the preconceived notion of this nation with what’s there in reality. My boyfriend lives in a big city on the East Coast and the more he complains about Boston, NYC and D.C. the more agitated my curiosity gets and my imagination is reset aflame. It simply feels at time that it’s hard to inhale, digest and comprehend all that this country has to offer without breaking free from the confines of a small peaceful town. There are mornings when I would be still lying in bed making a pledge to myself I know I am not likely to keep, though I don’t know why…I tell myself I would check my schedule, find free time, get on a plane, and set out to explore a new American territory. My argument is that “This is the States! What’s the worst that can happen!? You have to do something that was simply unthinkable in your home country!” A persistent voice inside my head keeps pushing “just do it! You already survived major airports and it was only a first time!” I don’t know why I haven’t yet gathered courage sufficient to unleash a certain amount of wildness in me…I know it’s lurking somewhere…I sense it whenever I look back fondly on memories of the Chicago skyline becoming faintly visible from the plane’s window…of the look on the check-in officer’s page once he reads “Iraq” on my passport…of not knowing how to get a hotel for a one night in the O’Hare surrounding area…of not knowing which terminal to head to…of not knowing where to get the Shuttle from Phoenix to Tucson…of not having coins to call from the airport…of enjoying a short stop at Dallas on the way to Kansas City and sensing something different about Texas…Of me and my notebook jotting down unsorted observations of men, women, children; businessmen and cowboys, kids with I-pods and children with books on pirates, sleepy old couples and young kissing ones very much in love…Airports were for me the official department of American studies! Here volumes could be writtern and lifelong national experiences occur within minutes – why can’t I go back?!!?
