evidence against the global melting pot

sometimes it feels to me like the world is getting smaller and cultures are sliding together into one unified mass, where countries are indistinguishable from one another and the mystery and thrill of travel to unknown lands is disappearing. i arrive in greece to the familiar sounds of english. i recognize the brands on the barcelona high streets, and know the bands that are playing on the radio in italy. i hear the familiar ring tones of mobile phones in every airport. and when i wake in the hilton just outside of paris, it takes a few minutes for me to remember what country i'm in.

last year, i took my second trip to china, and i wrote about my eight days there. i still find china to be a country like no other, and a place where i can be amazed at the cultural differences apparent in every day experiences. in my notes to my team at work, i also included these additional observations on my trip:

• in chinese restaurants, if you hang your coat on the back of your chair, they come around with coat covers and cover the chair with a fitted cloth to keep your coat clean and make sure it doesn’t fall on the floor.
• at the airport in shanghai, there was a mobile phone charging station that allowed you to charge many different models of phones. it cost 10 yuan (approximately $1) for 5 minutes of charging time.
• in the elevators in large office and government buildings, rugs on the floor indicate what day of the week it is. these rugs (obviously!) are changed every day.
• 14 and 4 are unlucky numbers because the number 4 in chinese is similar to the word for death. as a result, many buildings don’t have either of these floors. we also saw some that didn’t have a 13^th floor either.
• bicycles are everywhere in china and people can carry anything while riding one!
• there is a large and apparent delta in china between the wealthy and non wealthy—and room to grow a middle class.
• while in the old hutong district in beijing, we saw used goods salesmen on bikes, collecting and re-selling junk. they called out as they rode around to let people know they were around. one of them had a used computer piled on top of his load.
• many people being their day with morning exercise. usually it is a form of martial art, performed in a public space. often it involves swords or other weapons.
• i saw a number of employees with their heads on their desks in the mid afternoon, taking short naps.
• if you are at a meeting in china, the most senior/important person in the meeting sits in the middle seat, with his second-in-command (right-hand man) at his right.

i was reminded of these thoughts when reading an article on chinese cultural innovation, which lists ten things the chinese "do better" than we do them in the west. if you ever feel like me that the world is becoming one large global melting pot, this is good (and refreshing) evidence to the contrary.

Comments

[Eric]

You might be interested in this: http://www.manning.com/about/covers.html

It talks (quite breifly) about the covers of the "In Action" series of computer programming books which have some strange cover art. The images come from the 1805 edition of Sylvain Mar?chal's four-volume compendium of regional dress customs. It might be an interesting book to find.

The short explanation for this selection of cover art directly addresses the global melting pot, and provides a little food for thought.

[Mike]

There are hotels in the US that also don't have the 13th floor. I was staying in LA once (I don't remember the name of the hotel, but it was several blocks away from the Kodak theatre) and none of the elevators had a button that would take you to the 13th floor ;)