African culture? You think of masks and tribal dances.South American culture? Incan temples and Spanish explorers.Asian? Gongs and dragons.But no one associates stereotypical American culture with pilgrims and Indians.Ask 10 people and I bet you get 10 different definitions, and I bet not one mentions the forefathers or immigrants or anything more than 50 years old.American culture is contemporary, and who can blame us? For a country with just over 200 years of history under its belt, it's no wonder pop culture has replaced rituals and traditions of days of yore.Besides, Americans come from such diverse backgrounds that celebrities, fast food and television commercials are sometimes the only things that Americans of vastly different heritage, class or race can all relate to.Although on the surface we are all stewing in the melting pot in the midst of an obesity epidemic, idolizing rock stars and pop princesses while talking on cell phones, Americans tend to identify with their place of origin as well as the country of their citizenship. The Irish go nuts on St. Patty's Day, the Italian grandmothers are always trying to shove food down everyone's throat. We say that characteristics are in our blood. We preserve what boils down to imitations of parts of our ancestors' daily lives to pay tribute to our personal history.And so we create false culture to fill in what we think we're lacking. Think about Disney's Epcot, or other smaller tourist ventures that seek to deliver genuine imitation experiences of other cultures. We watch the Travel Channel, we see the movies, and then if we get the chance to see other cultures first hand for real, sometimes we're disappointed.Sometimes the real deal is inferior to our decked-out, made-up imitation.Let's take African culture for example. I'll use it because I spent time in Tanzania over the summer.Side note: Tanzania is just south of Kenya on the east coast of Africa. Don't worry, when I first found out about it, I didn't know where it was either.Anyway, Tanzania is pretty poor (understatement) and tourism is one of the biggest industries generating income for the people. Westerners come to go on safari and experience the unadulterated primitive culture they expect from a Third World nation.The funny thing is, Tanzanians are striving to industrialize and westernize. Their impressions of American culture are filled with misinformation and glorified views in much the same way many Americans misunderstand African culture.The effect is startling. Now, not only do we have culture being imitated in our own country, but our desire for perceived authenticity is changing they way other cultures present themselves to Americans.In Tanzania, I visited a Masaii village. The women in the tribe dressed in their traditional formal dress, danced and sang in their native language. Then men sacrificed a goat while we watched, thunderstruck by the primitive tools they used and clothes they wore.Later, our guide told us that they only dressed that way and cut open an animal because we were there. It's not actually a part of their daily lives.I have to admit I felt a little cheated.I mean, it was really cool to see and just what I would have expected, but finding out that my version of what African tribes actually do was inaccurate, and then finding out that they catered to my fantastic ideas made me wonder how exactly culture gets preserved.I felt the same way about the traditional African dancers I saw. The dancers weren't all from the same tribe that created the dance being performed and the costumes came from all different regions' and groups' traditional clothing. The performance was obviously geared toward its American audience ' the best little pieces from a bunch of different places put together to make a final product that hardly resembles any of the original parts.Consumers of culture, who keep the interesting parts and disregard the pedestrian, are deciding what gets preserved and what gets discarded. We stay interested as long as it stays interesting.And maybe our perceptions don't equate to the reality, but then we just have to ask ourselves, is this a bad thing?Is it better to have a skewed view of what a culture is, or ignore it completely and risk losing culture all together?
17 Archives
Gina Beach
