Melting Pot

Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains
Shenandoah River -
Life is old there
Older than the trees
Younger than the mountains
Growin like a breeze

Country Roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads

This weekend, I was getting my haircut, at the local Hair Cuttery. Most of the stylists who work there are Vietnamese, including the guy I usually get my haircut from. He's been cutting my hair for probably 8 years now. I end up getting the same haircut I've always gotten, which is perhaps ten years past its fashion.

As we were finishing up, they were playing Country Roads on the radio. This song is perhaps Jon Denver's most famous song, and is known the world over. Even fans who don't know where West Virginia is are often quiet familiar with the tune.

One of the Vietnamese stylists was sitting by the cash register, singing the song, and from what I could tell, she knew most all the words. I found that quite intriguing, at that moment. There is something fascinating about the biggest American export--its culture. Music, film, clothing, sports, are sent the world around, so that fans in India, the Middle East, the former Soviet Republics are all familiar with Michael Jordan, Coca-Cola, blue jeans, and, yes, John Denver.

A few years ago, I saw a film "Pretty Village, Pretty Flame", on the recommendation of Internet critic, Mike D'Angelo. The film chronicles the civil war in former Yugoslavia, by telling the story of two childhood friends: one Christian, one Muslim. Following four different timelines, the two are shown in childhood, as adults prior to the war, as participants in the war, and finally as two patients in the hospital.

As much as this film comments on war, it is also a commentary on how pervasive Western culture is. When the average American thinks of the ongoings in Europe and the Middle East, there's a tendency to think of things happening "over there", and that over there is not terribly important to over here. Over there is strange. Over there, they wear turbans, worship a different kind of deity. It's the NBA playoffs, and a few more suicide bombings are the stuff of strange places.

Pretty Vilage, Pretty Flame opens with these two friends playing pickup basketball, one asking the other if there's going to be war. There's mention of Michael Jordan, they drink sodas from the West, there's even a Canadian reporter who gets caught in the middle of this. Underlying this message of a country split by religious differences is the fact that it's still European, and it's not disconnected from the world.

It's been said that the US is melting pot where citizens of different nationalities have emigrated to create a whole. I suspect this was said of the Italians and Irish. But these days, it's even more the case, as Indians, Vietnamese, in fact, Asians of all sorts, now make a more visible part of American culture, but in fact, this culture now far surpasses national boundaries, and perhaps like anything that's taken across borders, there's something lost in translation.

What results is something familiar yet something different. American culture viewed through the lens of a different culture. I used to listen to a fair amount of world music from Ali Farka Toure to Hedningarna. The one thing in common with much of world music, to me, was that I knew none of the lyrics. The human voice became another musical instrument. I have no idea of its cultural significance. Am I listening to a religious hymn, or a headbanging screed screaming bloody revenge in some Nordic tongue?

The thought of a melting pot also made me think of melting pots. I doubt the average American even knows what a melting pot is. Until recently, I hadn't really know either, until I went to a restaurant called, well, you guessed it--The Melting Pot. They serve fondue, which is basically a heated pot where either cheese or chocolate is melted. When cheese is used, then wine or broth is also mixed in the pot. Vegetables and meats are dipped in using skewers, and then after suitable heating, it's eaten.

That such an uncommon form of cooking would achieve the cultural significance it has is fascinating.

Having said that American culture can be found the world 'round, I'm not trying to argue for its superiority. Politicians like to say that everyone wants to be American because we're the best country in the world. This sounds like so much collective insecurity, and that reassurance is needed to make ourselves happy in who we are. Garry Trudeau once wrote a Doonesbury that said as much. He wondered if the Vietnamese said "Hey, Vietnam, feel good about yourself!", and how ludicrous this seemed to him.

Even as American culture permeates other cultures, so too, do other cultures affect the US. At one point in time, Chinese food was about the only kind of cuisine people tried. Now, there are opportunities to have hummus, baklava, kebabs, pad thai, pho, jerk chicken, sushi and sashimi, injera, dosas and pakoras, kimchi. Foods from dozens of countries. We can watch films from Taiwan, Iran, China, France, Thailand, Korea, Hong Kong, India.

Maybe we're not yet singing ghazals or reciting Farsi poetry. But perhaps one day, John Denver may be a diminuitive Thai woman, and the country roads are in Koh Samui or Chiang Mai, and an elderly American woman will sing these words in a country she has never been to.