Thursday, August 14, 2008

Façade in America OR Back to the Future

Bright light - jump to the past.

6/24/1990. Going through the eventual descent into the United States for the first time was one of the more exciting moments in my life. And not just because it felt nice to be on a Sabena flight that was landing not in the People’s Republic of Congo and by the original pilots. I could see the American land far away, which already looked different than everything I knew. I took a big breath, eased my head backwards as I drank the scenery coming closer and close at me, only to have my head jolted by a strong kick from the back – a lot of Israelis on that flight.

We just entered the 90s, and one of the movies that were supposed to come out that summer was the third in the Back To The Future film series. I didn’t get to see the first back to the future in the theatre, but caught it, oh – I don’t know, a few hundred times in the holy land’s local pirate cable channel. And I loved it in the 157th time as if it was the 73rd. If nothing else, the music in the climax of the film, when Marty goes back, was my favorite music (grunge was not big yet). And as we were landing, that music went through my mind – the trumpets, the violins, the entire orchestra harmonizing together just in the second (oh yes, I timed it) the wheels touched the ground.

Bright light - jump to the future.

10/15/2004. In some complex twist of faith, and mostly because I pushed for it like a hungry tiger, after going to grad school, I got a job in Universal Studios Hollywood. In about October 2004 I was able to take walks from time to time in the Universal lot, and low and behold, one of the main points in the studio tour is of the Hill Valley clock tower from Back to the Future.
There it was standing larger than life, with some old-town stores and roads around it, where Michael J. Fox was chased by some small-minded idiots, but not Rush Limbaugh yet. This is something that millions of people can see every year and I did myself – only usually you are crammed in the studio tour tram with hundreds of other people. Standing up from your chair would include a nasty scream by the actor-wannabe-studio guide. Leaning forward from the tram, would stop the tram to get reprimanded by both the guide and the driver in front of the other tourists while being filmed by the Japanese ones. Trying to actually leave the tram would release every Universal monster to eat your flesh alive. But this was different. While every 10-15 minutes a tram would pass by, I and some other friends had a chance to walk around, walk up close to the tower and so on. Now, wouldn’t the best ride in Universal be zooming down the zip line like Doc Brown did? So of course I tried to get into the building. Only there was nothing there.

I walked around, and there was indeed a building this façade was attached to. Only it was a dirty old storage for props, with teamsters laying around the back competing who can do the least work for the longest. A sign over them was saying – ‘ 147 days without an accident’. Another one – ‘231 days without working’, which is surprising when you think about it.
I wasn’t really surprised. I loved the film, but I wasn’t that naïve. I knew that it’s all make-belief. I wasn’t really expecting seeing Doc Brown and Marty McFly waiting for me behind the wall. But come on… would have been nice to have a poster of them or something, right?
And I guess that this is the problem that I, and I know many visitors in America have – beautiful façade, while behind it may lie ill-content and people who don’t really want anything to do with you. There are different names for that – politically correct, courtesy, fake , phony.
One of the most surprising and repeatable encounters I have with visitors to the U.S. is going to any retail store. When leaving, the store employees generally greet the shoppers with the ever-green ‘have a nice day’. Instead of absorbing this random act of kindness and going about one’s day, visitors usually see this as some aggressive behavior equivalent only to that person giving them the finger and spitting in their eye. My mother was on the mild side saying ‘like she cares at all how my day goes!’
What I usually try to explain to visitors is that – ‘right, but why not hear it anyway?’ The problem is when it has to do with personal relationships. And many foreigners say the same thing – ‘you can’t really tell what the Americans really mean’. They say ‘let’s do lunch’ but mean ‘let’s do lunch. But not together”; they say “I love you” and they mean “please go away and die”.
So yes – there’s quite some façade in American relationships. But what I have also witnessed is much generosity that is pretty rare around the world.

Bright light - jump to the past.

8/1/2002. Maya and I drove cross-country from Boston to Los Angeles. We were now in a new city – we knew no one. We had 4 very small eyes in a massively large new city. At the very end of August 2002 I started commuting to University of Southern California with another classmate – Katherine. Less than 2 months later, Katherine and her family invited both myself and Maya to spend the Thanksgiving day and meal with their family and closest friends. This was the first Thanksgiving they have invited us over for every year since. Including when we grew 100% year over year by bringing both our new daughter and my father that they specifically invited.
So yes, foreigners see Americans as unauthentic, with much façade without knowing what’s really behind it. This may be true sometimes. Other people around the world don’t have such façade usually – what you see is what you get. I learned that what's really behind the clock tower in the studio is not a props building - it's that great story and characters of that film.

So if you’re lucky enough to be able to truly go through that front, there’s actually much substance behind it, and usually it is kinder and more generous than most places in the world.

Bright light. Back to the future – To be Continued.