City on a Hill

My friends say I live in a cat house. This isn’t because it’s in a slum. Cats like to be up high; its the two story living room you can look down on the activity.

Fog shrouds the valley

My family moved to the Walnut-South Hills area 5 ½ years ago. I spent many of my teenage years and early adulthood in this Asian suburb of Los Angeles. I’ve written about cultural experiences around the world. It seems only fair that I reflect on my own community.  

Every morning, from high school onwards, the first thing I’d do was open the shutters on one of my bedroom windows. Los Angeles expanded before me.  From the hills on which our house sat, it stretched through flats of tract housing towards distant freeways. The Sierra Nevada rose from the field below.

In many ways, the place I lived wasn’t anything like LA. It’s a mix of bareness and bounty. Paying an extra dollar for a premium blend at a pricy tea shop is a big decision. Many of my friends and I have traveled internationally, but never have been to Beverly Hills. This dichotomy of wealth and frugality can be shocking. It’s not uncommon to see a local washing his Mercedes in the driveway while gardeners mow a front lawn. We eat in crowded strip shopping center Korean restaurants for the best deals. We could easily go further afield.

And eventually we have to. The verity seen in more urban parts of LA isn’t available here. For culture, western food, and even education one must descend from the hills.  I got my undergraduate degree from USC in down town LA. Upon arrival, the culture I saw was different. Completely concerned with popular whims, it lacked the detachment I’d come to appreciate in my hilltop community.  I elected to remain in South Hills while studying at USC. 

One morning, I awoke, opened my shutters and looked down. Sunlight reflected off the cap of fog that settled over the LA basin.  Only the hills and mountains remained. I felt pride in having chosen to remain.

But my generation can’t remain forever.  A suburb isn’t the best place to launch a career.  Almost everyone in my closest group of friends is moving this month. One is possibly going to Britain, one to Germany, and one to that ‘other country’ called UCLA.

The field in Psie Pole

 I recently got on a plane, headed for Poland and graduate school. My route took me through Germany, the first European country I visited.   I boarded my trans-Atlantic flight in the first class cabin. One of its passengers was a 10-year old boy. He was likely on his first trip to Europe. I trudged into economy as he  played excitedly with his seat controls. That boy used to be me.  

The name of my Wroclaw neighborhood translates as Dog Field. It is also on the outskirts of the city. It’s flat as the name suggests. But, I’m still up high.  I stand on the balcony of my 4^th floor apartment as the sun sets. A field still expands before me. Light reflects on its trees, stretching toward distant houses.  A blok rises from the meadow below.

 I’d like to think that these similarities are encouraging.  A sign that the life we’ve known still exists. That we will always carry it with us. No matter where we are.

The Party That Never Ends

Roughly a week after the start of my arrival in Poland, the organizers of our language program announced that there would be a tour of of the city's old town. While I have been to Krakow many times I decided that this would be a good way to meet some new people, so I signed up. Instead of information about the old town's history, I had a discussion which I found to be somewhat shocking.
While on the tour I met a girl from Madrid, who eagerly asked me about the portrayals of American high school, which she had seen in Hollywood movies. According to her sources, the main goal of everyone in everyone in high school was to become either "a football player or a cheerleader." When I informed her that I and most students at my high school were much more concerned with getting a prefect score on the SAT and gaining admittance to a good university, she seemed almost to blame me for not living up to the unrealistic stereotypes set by popular western culture.
This experience highlights two negative ways in which exported American popular culture may influence those who consume it without any knowledge of actual life in the U.S. First: the obvious misrepresentation of real America. Second: the increasing tendency of a few Europeans to criticize Americans, for not living up to these same expectations.
While most Europeans I have met are honored by my goals of a career in eastern Europe, I have also met my share of those who respond by questioning why I would want to leave a country which in their view is free of problems and consequences. This in not their fault. Even in the smallest Polish towns the inhabitants are bombarded with a near-constant stream of media with such a theme. On the radio most American songs are about parties that never end in various American cities, while the most popular Polish one is about calling off a wedding at the last minute. Many Americans who come to Europe are on vacation and do party every night. It is only logical that some are going to draw the conclusion that this is an accurate representation of life in America.
As an American overseas, this can sometimes be frustrating. It is all I can do to say that America is a country with it's share of problems - like any other. It is up to the representatives of America abroad to set the record straight by providing a dignified, but accurate portrayal of life in their country.