July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Some concepts are tough to explain (8/6/03)
Dear Reader
America can be tough to explain.
Trust me, I’ve been in the position of having to explain our country and our culture hundreds of times in the past few years.
American foreign policy can be tough enough; there are plenty of Americans who would be hard pressed to say they understand it. And there are plenty of times we disagree with it.
But American culture — day-to-day aspects of American life — can be even tougher.
It doesn’t help that, thanks to satellite TV transmission, we’re sending everything from the Cartoon Channel to Fox News around the globe.
Even folks who want to understand have a hard time grasping what we’re all about over here.
Take a guy like Denis, for example. Den translated for me this spring in Kyrgyzstan, and he’s interested in virtually everything having to do with America.
His English is great, he’s a graduate of the American University of Central Asia, and he’s hoping for a teaching assistantship at Indiana University next year.
Yet when I mentioned in an e-mail how busy things were in the newsroom during the county fair, I threw him a curve.
He’d seen a program involving a county fair on TV in Kyrgyzstan, so he had some idea what it was about.
He’d even seen tractor pulls on TV, thanks to the vagaries of satellite transmission.
But, he wondered, what was this thing I referred to as a “demolition derby”?
What, indeed.
Den has a motorcycle, and his father — once an engineer — is working as a driver.
But the number of cars per capita in his country is lower than in other parts of Central Asia.
And if a car runs, you keep it running, even if you have to use the seat belts to tie the doors shut.
Given that reality, it may be tough for him to grasp the concept.
Here’s how it works, I’ll tell him. You find a car that’s in awful shape, and you get it running again, not running so well that you’d head-off on a coast-to-coast trip but well enough that it will hold together during some brutal punishment.
And, I’ll tell him, it’s particularly important that it runs well in reverse, because the best strategies in demolition derby driving center on protecting your radiator while doing as much damage to the other guy’s radiator as possible.
And if you want to do this, I’ll tell him, you’ll need several cans of spray paint, because the best demo derby entries are the ones with the most creative, graffiti-laden paint jobs.
Then, when you’re all set, you strap yourself in, fire up the engine, and hold on for a wild ride.
I can almost hear him scratching his head right now, muttering (as I suspect he often does), “Those crazy Americans.”[[In-content Ad]]
Trust me, I’ve been in the position of having to explain our country and our culture hundreds of times in the past few years.
American foreign policy can be tough enough; there are plenty of Americans who would be hard pressed to say they understand it. And there are plenty of times we disagree with it.
But American culture — day-to-day aspects of American life — can be even tougher.
It doesn’t help that, thanks to satellite TV transmission, we’re sending everything from the Cartoon Channel to Fox News around the globe.
Even folks who want to understand have a hard time grasping what we’re all about over here.
Take a guy like Denis, for example. Den translated for me this spring in Kyrgyzstan, and he’s interested in virtually everything having to do with America.
His English is great, he’s a graduate of the American University of Central Asia, and he’s hoping for a teaching assistantship at Indiana University next year.
Yet when I mentioned in an e-mail how busy things were in the newsroom during the county fair, I threw him a curve.
He’d seen a program involving a county fair on TV in Kyrgyzstan, so he had some idea what it was about.
He’d even seen tractor pulls on TV, thanks to the vagaries of satellite transmission.
But, he wondered, what was this thing I referred to as a “demolition derby”?
What, indeed.
Den has a motorcycle, and his father — once an engineer — is working as a driver.
But the number of cars per capita in his country is lower than in other parts of Central Asia.
And if a car runs, you keep it running, even if you have to use the seat belts to tie the doors shut.
Given that reality, it may be tough for him to grasp the concept.
Here’s how it works, I’ll tell him. You find a car that’s in awful shape, and you get it running again, not running so well that you’d head-off on a coast-to-coast trip but well enough that it will hold together during some brutal punishment.
And, I’ll tell him, it’s particularly important that it runs well in reverse, because the best strategies in demolition derby driving center on protecting your radiator while doing as much damage to the other guy’s radiator as possible.
And if you want to do this, I’ll tell him, you’ll need several cans of spray paint, because the best demo derby entries are the ones with the most creative, graffiti-laden paint jobs.
Then, when you’re all set, you strap yourself in, fire up the engine, and hold on for a wild ride.
I can almost hear him scratching his head right now, muttering (as I suspect he often does), “Those crazy Americans.”[[In-content Ad]]
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