Cultural contact

by Julie Salvato

Walking alone in downtown Portland, Maine?  I’m found speed walking and checking my touchscreen phone countless times in a few minute period.  I have one eye on the cobble stones ahead of me and one eye on my facebook’s notification icon.  I cringe when I am behind a slow going pedestrian.  I hustle.  I wonder who would have the biggest culture shock: myself in their village, or a Cagliese in my town?  It’s the frightening digital clock that forces Americans to fight through the day.  This change in mindset is almost engrained in Cagliese newborns as they are brought up in a community that to play is to live.  I often feel that I have an unhealthy engrained feeling that I need to be better, or more successful, than those before me.  

What moved me is a conversation I had with a few locals one evening.  I got the notion that it is more important to talk about the memories of those who have passed than to talk about success.  It only takes a few moments in the Piazza to appreciate this attitude.  You will see natives of all ages; infants sleeping, toddlers waddling, teens gossiping, and dapper elders discussing politics and, of course, women.  I love watching their soft eyes slowly follow each person, car, or scooter that passes by.  The old men that consume the step wall are the most inspiring, because they know their city and the past sins of their neighbors.  There are no schedules, no deadlines, and no life coaches. 

It's not only eye opening, but it is scary.  I’m scared because I know myself all too well.  I already have a plan as to what I will do as soon as I arrive back home.  How can I take the Italian's approach to life and remind myself that I just need to be myself and be happy about it?  Besides the classroom education that I have received in the Cagli program, the informal education through cultural contact with foreigners is crucial in helping me remember my experience.  The American way of thinking involves a conceptualization of the self as an aware, choice-making, unified, and independent agent (Interpersonal communication in the global village, p. 290).