I met two friends for dinner the other day. We met at a Starbucks to decide where we wanted to eat and I arrived late. My friends were sitting at a table with two chairs so I sat at the table next to them. It wasn’t until I was getting up to leave a few minutes later that I noticed a teenage girl sitting at the table. Her boyfriend was walking up at the same time, gave me a disgusted look and said “That’s my chair!”
I walked away, amused that I never even thought it strange to sit at someone else’s table. My friends laughed and told me she was “starring daggers” at my back the entire time. First of all, everyone in America needs to calm down. I was almost assaulted at a grocery store last month for suggesting to the man in front of me in the checkout that life isn’t so difficult. He had exclaimed loudly that someone should put a bullet in his head because the cashier was a bit slow and having trouble with her scanner. Of course, irritable short men have never reacted well to my advice and even less so to smiles and suggestions that they recognize the important things in life. They also don’t like being told that you feel sorry for them.
My point is, America has become an increasingly hostile place. Maybe it’s just the area I live in, but everyone seems to take themselves way too seriously. The longer I travel the more I realize how distanced we’ve become from the basics of humanity. I suppose I should have asked the girl to sit at her table, but as long as the seat wasn’t being used I didn’t see the harm. Can we no longer share even what is not ours? Maybe I’ve changed too much over the years to relate to how people live their daily lives around me. Maybe I am the only person left in America who believes in helping the less fortunate and the concept of compromise. We have become so rich and isolated that we no longer relate to strangers and always think of ourselves and our own needs first. When you don’t have money or belongings, like many people in the countries I’ve visited, you share. Strangers eat side by side at roadside stalls and neighbors and shop owners look after the children of the neighborhood. A woman on a train in China once sat down next to me, handed me a rotten egg (quite tasty for the Chinese) and insisted that I eat it with my ramen as she was doing.
Maybe I’m finally turning into my dad, a man who enjoyed talking to the workers at Sam’s Club so much that he went every Sunday. I’d like to think that the ability to talk to strangers is not a quirk or a custom held over from the last century and the Americans are still the compassionate and interested people that fought in WWII and protested in the 1960’s. I love technology but let’s not lose our basic humanity as we rush toward the future.
8 responses to “Angry America”
Never fear, you can sit at my table any time.
word
Well said! I didn’t read anything after this entry, so you may have talked about your plans further down, but when are you taking off to continue your worldwide tour?
Hi Megan. The USA is such a big place, so you are placed in the context of so much space. People are so used to having so much (space and all else), it’s not uppermost in their mind to share. In Asia and where I am from, we are so used to crowded spaces (and having little) that the way to survive, basically is to share what little is there to go around. The US always amazes me, how everything is so vast and so plentiful, but people seem to be operating more and more in their own limited spaces.
i think that part of it is because life here is just so rushed. people dont have time to sit back and relax; instead they are always rushing around so they can make as much money as possible or whatnot. since people’s lives become so hectic and move at such a frantic pace, they just dont have the time to stop and talk to the millions of people that they see each day. as they slowly become more and more isolated and removed from others, they start getting used to it. soon enough, they actually like the little isolated bubble that they have carved out for themselves, and any infringement on that bubble pisses them off to no end. they want to be able to pick and choose who they interact with and on what grounds, and end up keeping any strangers at a distance. anyone who invades their personal space (or time, as in your grocery store story) immideately becomes an enemy…
*v
Sometimes I find myself acting selfish. Who doesn’t? But never like this. There are many Americans that feel/think this way, but there are so many more that don’t.
Thanks, Han. Just don’t shoot me under the table!
Nice of you to stop by! You should read down more, because I do have more plans. I leave for Seoul June 8th and Mongolia June 16th.