Monday, June 29, 2009

A Daily Dose of Culture

As I've mentioned before, this summer has been quite a multicultural experience for me. I've met Jamaicans, Moldovans, Ghanans (?), and a South African. Well add another to the list: meet Kathy, a new worker from Beijing, China. Kathy is one of the most friendly girls here. She is always smiling and always waving. She actually reminds me a lot of Kathy Raphelt from back at school.

While cleaning Saturday afternoon I got the opportunity to have a nice convo with Kathy about life in China. She had plenty to say. For starters, she worked at the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a translator. She worked directly with athletes making sure they got to where they were supposed to be. She said she primarily worked with triathlon athletes. She made sure to tell me that there weren't many Americans in that event because "they no good at triathlon", as she put it. Please, don't sugarcoat it for my sake Kathy. She also told me that 5,000 people volunteered to help with the opening ceremony, which required over two years of rehearsal...that's quite a commitment. Most of you probably remember it...it was a pretty impressive opening.

Interestingly enough, another worker here has ties to the Olympics. Katanya has a friend named Rosemarie White who competed in the 2008 Olympics on the Jamaican team in the 100m dash...or some type of sprinting event. Katanya said she was actually competing at a some sort of time trial meet this weekend.

Anyways, back to China. Kathy also made sure to tell me just how much China hates Japan. She kept rattling off names of battles between the two nations and even had the death tolls memorized. Then she asked me if Americans were still mad at Japan over Pearl Harbor. When I told her that relations had been repaired she seemed appalled and disappointed. Lesson learned...if I want to make a good impression with Kathy I should simply make an anti-Japanese joke to win her over.

She also told me about the one child law in China. Kathy is an only child like most people in China. She said that if a couple has more than one child they must pay a fine to the government because of the overpopulation there. She said that in farming communities if a couple has a girl they will often throw the baby away or abort the fetus. They want to have a boy so he can take over the farm. It made me kind of sad. I guess I've heard about all this before, but just hearing about it from someone who actually lives in that type of culture makes it all the more real.

Anyways, it's nice having Kathy's smiling face here. She's a nice addition to the KOA family.

Oh, one last little bit of culture. I met a girl named Megan from Alaska at church yesterday. She lives in Dutch Harbor which is a fishing community on one of the Alaskan islands. She actually knows the captains from the Discovery Channel show "Deadliest Catch" and has appeared in the background in one of the episodes. She said that wages are much higher in Alaska, but so is the cost of living. She's just working in West Yellowstone for the summer like me.

More good news...I found out last night that Mom, Carly, and Cameo are coming to visit me in a few weeks. I can't wait!

2 comments:

  1. I'm jealous that they get to visit you! :) have fun!:)

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  2. PS. the word I had to type to enter that last comment was "Strip" and it made me giggle. :)

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