A Trip to the States

Today I think I traveled to America with my family. My little brother brought along his friend and played at the arcade while my sister, Mama, and I browsed through overpriced stores in the attached mall. Rocket Dog shoes. L’Oreal make-up. An Apple computer store. Baskin Robbins ice cream. And back at the arcade… if I didn’t know better, I’d think I really was at Dave & Buster’s as I battled my sister at air hockey and stumbled through a couple DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) songs. I’m confident the Kazakh boy who was shooting rams (and occasionally ewes) in Dubois, WY, could find an exact replica of that game in the US. And of course, even though we were in Karaganda, KAZAKHSTAN, the shopping trip and dinner afterwards (pizza and Coca-Cola – and a shared hamburger) sure transported me to a land far away.

I don’t quite know what to make of it all, though. Does this mean people on both sides of the globe really do want to eat hamburgers and spend money on video games? Or does this come from an affinity for all things American? I think back to the short time I spent in Oman in December 2006. We wanted to eat authentic Omani food, and our restaurant choices were really limited. With sizeable ex-pat populations, apparently Omanis think it’s better to build up restaurants serving other nationalities’ cuisines. In my book, that’s unsettling. Even though I’m teaching English, I’m all for people maintaining their own cultural identity. The vital question, then, is how development can fit in with that. Looks like I’ve got a couple years to mull it over…