Fast Society, Fast Time, Fast Food

I was on Google Images today because sometimes I get really bored and look up random things. The first thing that I looked up was American fast food. This is the picture that I got.

I then looked up Indian fast food. This is the picture that I got. 

And finally, I looked up Chinese fast food. This is what I got. 

I can't speak for the Chinese, but the picture that comes up for Indian fast food, really isn't fast food in the American context. They're not full meals, they're more like snacks. You usually get these dishes on the streets, like how you get hot dogs in New York City or cheese steaks in Philadelphia  But I don't think that cheese steaks and hot dogs are classified as fast food. So what exactly is that?!?!

I think the "westernized" countries are the only ones that have this "fast food." The fact that Americans even have fast food may be a linked to how we are obsessed with time. Need to eat fast? Why don't you have some fast food? When I walk into chains like Burger King of McDonald's, I don't see people taking their time and savoring their food like they would in a classy restaurant  They're eating very quickly so they can get out and do what they need to. Most of the time, these people just pick up their food from the drive through and eat in the car. Maximum efficiency right?

That's not the case in India. People will stop by the street vendors and sit there (sometimes these guys have chairs) and eat forever. These foods are usually snack items so it's not like they're having dinner there, but you can tell that these people are really enjoying their food. The dishes may be called "fast food" but there's certainly no one in a hurry to eat. I would bet that this may be the same deal in China. 

In the United States, people are so rushed that they even have a food that they call fast food. In India, the foods that are in the pictures above are not called fast food at all. Indians don't call them fast food. They're simply snack items. I can really see how the thought of time has really become embedded into American society and culture. It's a little sad that Americans have a food that's literally named fast. That may be India's future. Maybe in the next twenty years, when I google Indian fast food again I'll get the same picture that I got for American fast food. And that thought is pretty depressing. 

Arranged Marriages: Why They (Used To) Work

My mom talks about getting an arranged marriage all the time. It's different. I've asked her why arranged marriages seem to work so well. Her answer was actually really simple. There's stablility in an arranged marriage that love marriages do not have. Think about it. If your marriage has been arranged, you can't break the engagement without bringing disgrace on your family. Once you're married, unless the guy is really bad, then you can't divorce him and he can't divorce you because it brings disgrace on your family. When you have that stability that "he will always be there," then you can fall in love. Love after marriage. That love can blossom because of the trust that grows between man and wife. You learn to work out problems because if you can't you'll be misrible You learn to love someone who you previously never did, and you learn to live your life with someone fully. There is no need for divorce. Learning to love isn't a fairytale notion. It sounds kind of realistic and boring but I don't think falling in love can ever be boring. Arranged marriages work because people are at first forced to work out their problems and work together. They are almost forced to be together in the beginning, and then later, they fall in love and it's not forced anymore. Also, arranged marriages are arranged by elders. The people in India are brought up learning that the elders are always right. My mom trusted her parents in their decision to marry her to my dad. That trust also played a very big part in their marriage. Maybe not the most romantic notion in the world, but it's one that has kept marriages working for a very long time.

Of course, arranged marriages don't always work out. It used to be in India that you had to whether through the storm and stay married if you didn't want disgrace to fall on your family, no matter how horrible your marriage was. Now a days, its not like that. Divorce is more common than ever in India, and though the divorce rate is not nearly as high as in America, it still shows that Indian culture is slowly changing. Arranged marriages are not as common anymore either. More and more people are having love marriages, and sometimes these marriages work out. Sometimes these don't.

I think the Bollywood movies have a lot to do with the changes in culture. They show a lot of a girl having an arranged marriage and then running away with her sweetheart right before she is to be married. They show a lot of falling in love and then fighting to be together. And a recent occurance in movies is the kiss. I had never seen any couple kiss in an Indian movie until maybe last year or the year before. It just didn't happen. Now, there has to be at least one kiss in any famous movie. Another thing that has brought about the change in Indian culture.

The younger generation in India just don't accept the arranged marriage custom anymore. They believe in falling in love before you get married instead of falling in love with your husband. Arranged marriages aren't too common anymore. In my mom's time, everyone got an arranged marriage. It was unheard of to get a love marriage. Now, more and more youngsters are dating and "falling in love." It's certainly a difference. I sometimes wonder if this is what happened to American culture. Arranged marriages were, at one point, existent in American culture. What happened? What made them die out? And what part of American culture today makes the divorce rate so high???

The word divorce in hindi does not even exist, not really. Indians commonly use the word "talaq" to refer to divorce, but this is an arabic word. This tells so much about what Indians believe about divorce, but now that is all changing. Their culture is changing slowly day by day, just as American culture changed slowly all those years ago.

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

I've noticed that whenever I am in the vicinity of people who are my parents age, they will all ask me what I want to be when I grow up. I usually just go "ahhh", and "umm", and then I finally end up saying "I have no idea what to do with my life." At this point, I kind of feel a little ashamed that I don't know where I want to go. It feels like so many kids have their lives planned out from right now. It makes me feel like I am behind in the race that is life.

Of course, I have time to figure things out. I don't really have to know what I want to do for a very long time. So why are people here so obsessed with what the future is supposed to be? If they are not asking me about my future potential job, they're asking me where I want to go to college (to which I reply "I have no idea"), or what I plan on doing in order to study for the SATs. The kids here at school are starting classes this summer to study for the SATs. We don't really have to take the stupid test until April of next year! That's a lot of future planning. If the adults aren't asking me about the SATs, they're asking about what classes I am going to take next year. It's a constant interrogation about my future. I'm not even sure about my present.

Usually I have no problem with people asking about what I am going to do with my life. Recently though, all I can think about is how many different people have asked me this same exact question. Now that I'm in the tenth grade, there are even more people asking me so many questions about the future. Why can I not focus on the present and enjoy what I have today before it is gone tomorrow? I think that future planning is a good thing. But people are asking what I plan to do with my entire life when I am on the brink of turning sixteen. What do I know about life?

I've really come to see how people are so preoccupied with what is going to happen later. We're all so fixated on accomplishing things now so that tomorrow is "better." I don't want to be asked what college I am going to go to. I don't want to be asked what I want to do with my life. I just want to live my life and enjoy every day as it comes.

Facebook, Twitter, and other useless things.

Let me just start out by saying that I do have a facebook. I love it. But it's entirely useless.
I do not have a Twitter, nor will I ever have one. This too is entirely useless.

America may be a "private" kind of country, but we sure to do like to broadcast our problems. Every single time I get on facebook, at least one teenage girl is on there complaining about how people don't like her, how people are so stupid, how people need to get over themselves and that they are just perfect the way they are.

Great.

Why do I care really? Why are you telling everyone what your problems are and what you feel?

As I've mentioned before that I love my facebook. It's a good way to keep in touch with old friends, and to talk with family that live in India (who are on facebook more than I am). But there is one thing that makes facebook really special. I like to tell my mom that the only thing Facebook is good for, is to creep on other people and their lives. Kind of stalkerish to say, but hey, if its on your page, you want people to see it right?

So the two things people do on facebook are complain and stalk. Considering how popular facebook is, that's a whole lot of people complaining and stalking.
Oh, what a culture we live in!

Now Twitter. Twitter is just stupid. Americans like to spend their time "tweeting" about what their doing. I don't understand. My friends have twitters and they're all crazy over how many followers you have. I thought it was just a little weird that you have people you don't even know following you and pretty much knowing every single thing you are doing.

Great.

Twitter is pretty much broadcasting your life to a bunch of unknown people. So people will complain, they'll "intercry" and express how happy they are through empty smiley faces over the web.

The only thing that twitter is good for? The same reason that facebook is good. To creep.

So many adults, teenagers, and even children spend the majority of their time on some kind of social networking site. People will post pictures, upload video, and write status' all in the name of keeping in touch with their friends and family. Keeping in touch is great, but putting your whole private life on the internet? That's a bit too much. And it's not just Americans who will waste time on these social sites. The Arab Spring began because of facebook. My cousins in India will be on facebook at 3 o'clock in the morning. My friend has tweeted more than 1000 times since she got her twitter 5 months ago.

If there's such a thing as a universal culture, social networking sites have to be a part of it. They're so big everywhere and for all of the same reasons.

So people can complain and stalk, and I feel like Americans do it more than anyone.

For a private country, we sure do like our networking sites.

Khanna Kazana (Treasure of Food)

I'm Indian.

We use turmeric in our food. It might stain your fingers yellow for an hour. It will definitely stain your clothes if you drop food on them. I don't think it smells. Why do you? 

Being a foreigner might be one the hardest things to do in life. I wouldn't really know. I practically grew up in this country, but I still understand some of the things that foreigners go through. When my parents got to this country, it was like they were on a whole new planet. The clothes were shorter, the hair was longer, and men didn't have mustaches! They adjusted. They live in this country now, as if they have lived in this country forever. My parent's accents aren't as strong anymore, and I don't even have one. If there is anything that makes me different from others, it's probably my food.

I remember when I was younger, my mom would give me Indian food rolled up in some chapati which is pretty much like a Mexican tortilla. Indian food has a different smell and some people don't like it at all. Kids at that age can be pretty vicious. They hated the smell of my food and they wouldn't be shy about telling me about it. For the first time, I felt like I was different from my peers. I became self-conscious about what I ate at school. I went to my mother about what they said and she told me that she had no problem in giving me peanut butter and jelly everyday, but was that what I really wanted? She knew how much I liked eating our native food and she knew that I wouldn't enjoy eating a sandwich every single day. She asked me if the food in the cafeteria sometimes made my nose wrinkle. I told her that the smell of bacon and beef sometimes made me feel nauseous. She just gave me a pointed look and said "If their food can smell, why can't ours?" From that day on, I didn't care that kids made fun of me for the way that my food smelled. As I got older, the less people there were to call me out on it. Now, my friends will eat my own food and leave theirs alone. My sister is different. Like me, she got made fun of for her Indian food and though my mother told her the same thing she told me, my sister decided to bring sandwiches to school instead. 

The smell of some meats still makes me feel like puking my guts up. I don't like it. I probably won't ever eat it, but I wouldn't tell someone that their food stunk any day. It's their food. If they enjoy it, let them. Indian food does have a strong scent but I didn't understand then, and even now, why people would comment on something that didn't really concern them. Food is universal. But food is different in every culture and that can cause some serious divides. 

The Super Massive Black Hole that is Costco

Today, my family and I went to Costco after I came home from Kumon. For the first time, I realized just how much Americans bulk buy. Costco is a wholesale store. Obviously they sell everything in bigger amounts. But how many bags of chips does one person need! I saw a woman with three boxes of the little bags of chips. It was sort of ridiculous.

Don't even get me started on my family. We'll go into Costco for some milk and bananas, and we'll come with milk, bananas, fruits, taquitos, pizzas that no one will eat for about 6 months, cookies, chairs, a couple of books, and sometimes, when we're being really rebellious, movie tickets. When you go into Costco, you never spend any less than 50 bucks. It's unheard of. I don't think that in other countries, stores like Costco exist. Usually the quantity in foreign countries is pretty small. So why in the world do Americans buy SO. MUCH. STUFF?

I think one part of it is the samples that Costco gives out. Who can resist free food?!?! So then, you'll go and  try out this free food and realize you like whatever it is their selling and you'll ending up buying the heart attack in box. Then you'll go home, eat it for a day, and then realize that you never really liked the food in the first place. So, it'll sit in your fridge for six months until your mom forces you to eat it, or she just gives up and throws all of it out, promising to never buy you anything again.
Moral of the story? Food samples are nicely wrapped packages that taste divine sent from the devil himself. Never have them.

Anyways, food sampling is probably one of the reasons that people spend so much money at Costco. Another reason? The fact that Americans eat a lot of food. My family is Indian. We have small stomachs and this is a fact. We'll go to an Italian restaurant  order two dishes for the four of us, and we'll still have leftovers. If you look at what others eat, they'll order three appetizers, then one dish per family member, and then they'll clean everything off with dessert. And no leftovers. Now I'm not saying that every American eats a lot, or that every Indian eats so little, I'm just stating what I've seen. So maybe that's a reason why Americans bulk buy. But that doesn't explain why my family (who we've already established doesn't each much of anything)  still buys over 100 dollars worth of food when we only really need maybe 45.

The answer may be laziness. Don't want to go to the grocery story every single week? Just buy a whole bunch at once and you're set for the rest of the month! My family definitely does this and I have a feeling that many Americans probably do too. Costco (and Walmart, but that's a different story) is a godsend for those lazy people who just hate going to the grocery store. Bulk buying to the rescue!

So we have food samples, big eating and laziness all as factors to why Americans buy so much in bulk. Who knows why we really do. It's the way of life here, but it's certainly a strange sort of thing to do. 

The Evil Clutches of Kumon

I work at Kumon on Sundays from  11 to 1. It's a tedious job (all I do is grade worksheets. It's taught me to never become a teacher), but at least I get something out of it right? I remember as a kid, never, ever wanting to do Kumon. It sounded like torture to a 5th grader (actually it still sounds like torture.) Kumon is pretty much doing math and reading worksheets under a time limit. There is also a whole lot of repetition involved, and being taught what you're learning? Forget it. My mom's friend owns the Kumon place where I work and when I explained to her why most kids hate Kumon and refuse to do it, she said that people in other countries have very different views on the Kumon work.

Kumon originated in Japan. It was made for Japanese kids, and somehow, the business worked its way to America. The point of Kumon is to have the math or reading skills programmed into your mind, so most of the time, kids will be doing the same worksheet five or six times over just to make sure the material sticks. The worksheets have to be done under a certain time, otherwise the child is not allowed to pass to the next level. Kumon is also a sort of self study. When a new concept is introduced, a small part of the worksheet is designated to teach the child what to do. But the method absolutely sucks. I did Kumon for a while right before I started high school. It helped at first. I knew what I was doing in the beginning and it really made me faster at the math. However, when the new concepts were introduced, I was totally and utterly lost. I spent more of my time looking in the answer book than actually trying to work out the answer. And this made me feel dumb and incompetent  So, I quit. There was no need for Kumon anyway. I was doing great in school, what was the point of the extra "tutoring"?

A lot of American kids feel this way. As soon as it gets tough, we start quitting. The kids in Japan, they will sit there and do the worksheets diligently for six hours if they have to. We don't have that patience to learn. We are a mostly hands on country. Looking at a worksheet and trying to figure out how to solve the problem just doesn't work for most of us. We need to be taught. Kids in Japan don't need that. So Kumon works for them. Most of the kids who come into Kumon are Asian  Every now and then, there will be an American child, but they don't last long. Usually they'll transfer to another agency like Sylvan. Kumon is torture to American kids. But to those kids in Japan? It's like homework. You have to be the best of the best, otherwise in the race of life, you'll fall behind.

This doesn't mean that the average American  doesn't work. It just means we don't work the same way as others in different countries. I want to know how that even happened. How did we as a country, become so addicted to being taught?