Opposition or adaptation?

Anonymous One of the aspects to linking places in favor of trade; which is why much of the world is connected now, is becoming acculturated and starting to share, adopt, or reject parts of the culture that you are sharing this route of travel and communication with. Now the world has definitely moved into the era of a Global culture and communication network. Places that took months, even years to get to by boat now take a matter of hours to reach via air travel. We had a total of around fourteen hours of flights between the long transatlantic flight as well as the flight from Amsterdam to Athens, Greece. With the world being so small there comes a fine line of how to assert your identity. In many places of the world now a days you can pick and choose what you want to drop from your culture and what you'd like to keep. Unfortunately there are other places that are not so lucky, but that is best saved for another course description.

There are parts of the culture here in Athens that I observed that I would not want to assimilate to or would not be happy with if I were forced to assimilate. Like I have said before not necessarily bad things about the culture, but just things that did not appeal to me when I think my identity and what I want my culture/city/residence to be like. In Athens, like any other industrialized city there is plumbing. However, in Athens their plumbing is not strong enough to handle toilet paper. This means that every bathroom or stall has a trash can similar to those back home in women's bathrooms for feminine napkins, and they are very adamant about you not throwing toilet paper into the toilet because there are signs above every toilet as well. Many people in Athens make a lively hood off of getting people's attention and getting them to sit at a restaurant or buy something they have to sell. These people would be referred to in the US as "hustling" people into doing things they would not usually do unless hounded until they just say yes. This is very annoying and did start to wear on me after awhile. The stereotype joke would be they would make great used car salesmen in America. Walking the streets in Athens you find that you are literally a speck in the world, and those in the group who have traveled to other cities have said that we aren't even in that big of a city compared to those in Africa, India and other parts of Asia. The result is a lack of personal space and no real rules among touching other people when you are casually walking the street. Now add the idea that Greek and Mediterranean culture that is: BAM! right in your face, in certain situations you may feel uncomfortable about your violated bubble. Coming from the new world of the far west there are not much ancient civilization spots aside from ancient Native American culture that is prevalent in the US like there is in Greece. This being said you would think that the city of Athens that is home to some of the oldest modern marvels in the world would go to great lengths to keep their city clean, and you would be wrong because the city is very dirty. This could be due to lack of government efforts and the possibility that the people take for granted what they have in their own back yard. Robert compared it to us in Seattle with the Space Needle and the world's fair attractions. They are cool a couple times, but you don't notice or really even care sometimes that you have history right there.

Now that we have dealt with my not so favorite parts of the culture we can move onto the positives from my point of view. Even though the culture of contact here is very in your face and personal it also just that: personal. It seems that a lot of people choose to get along rather than make enemies. I am not founded in that at all it is only my observation. I do love the hoot-owl culture that exists here in Greece. The people are late to go to bed, and will stay out when the opportunity arises; after dinner going to a Kafe and sitting for hours until around midnight when the locale switches to the bars and clubs til the wee hours of the morning. Even though there still is a party lifestyle excess is not a mainstay like here in the US. Many people choose to drink to feel good; not to not feel anything at all. This is something I like because this means that the culture being this way taboos and enforcement of alcohol is much less than the battling of drunk driving and underage drinking back in the US. As we were reminded today in orientation when you sit down anywhere to enjoy a meal, snack, coffee, beverage, etc. you are welcomed to stay for however long you please. Hours can be spent sipping on a bottle of wine or drinking a long been cold cup of joe. This means that you never feel rushed to exit an establishment. If people are waiting it's just too bad that they couldn't get a spot and next time they'll show up earlier. I believe that is all I have and I would like to save some of my original thoughts for my paper at the end of the course. You can bet that some of these topics will pop up in a thesis coming up sooner than we think.