Political Correctness

Had my two sets of grandparents met (besides the fact that they spoke different languages), they would have had almost nothing in common to talk about. Besides the introductory “hello, nice to meet you” and “how was your trip?”, it would have been an awkward encounter … which leads me to some of the random differences that I have noticed between Spain and the United States.
In Spain, apparently they haven’t gotten the memo on political correctness that has not only become the order of the day in the US, it has become in many cases, the law. And unfortunately, it seems that Americans have lost some of courtesies and decorum which used to be part of our culture.

Something that I had forgotten all about is cigarette vending machines. They’re all over the place here. However one-half of the front of all cigarette packages says in huge letters: “FUMA MATA” (smoking kills), and the reverse side has a photo of a healthy lung and a cancerous lung. Apparently Big Tobacco didn’t have the clout to keep those messages off the packages, but the vending machines flew under the radar.

Older ladies here LOVE their fur coats! You see them everywhere. Real fur, fake fur; it’s all over the place. Hector tells me that there is also awareness of the animal cruelty issue here, but these ladies apparently didn’t get the memo, because it sure ain’t gotten much traction in Madrid.

People in Madrid just enjoy strolling around town (“paseo”) and the little old ladies like to show off their fur coats. And when you get right down to it, isn’t it the little old ladies who make this world a more tolerable place for the rest of us? If they want their coats, it’s okay by me.

Apparently KFC has managed to brand Kentucky as the state from which all fried chicken comes, because, as I saw on a lunch menu recently, they have a chicken sandwich “in the style of Kentucky”. American culture has permeated every facet of Spanish culture … sigh. However, my teacher in the “Spanish Culture” lecture class, referred to Kentucky as an example of a regressively traditional part of the US. Needless to say, I had to tell him that my father was from Kentucky and that I went to college there. Isn’t that the benefit of doing this study abroad at an older age? You just don’t give a shit what they think ….

However, the same teacher in a class on the culture of religion in Spain, stopped to ask the Korean students if they came from the Buddhist tradition or the Christian tradition in Korean. I almost dropped my teeth. Apparently this was not covered by the Civil Rights Amendment in Spain. The poor Korean girls were trying to dodge the question, but the teacher was not taking the hint. Finally they said that they didn’t have a religion. He was perfectly satisfied with that answer and moved on, but it made me wonder what other social differences are out there …

One thing that Spain still seems to have that most of the US seems to have lost, is decorum. People in the streets are courteous to each other, waiters have a certain demeanor and style that America has forgotten in ordinary situations. I think that it is eroding here as well and that’s really a shame. Maybe it’s my age, but I really take offense in the US when a sales clerk is talking on the phone while checking me out, or talking to a co-worker about what Jeremy said to Tiffany last night. So far, that seems to have eluded Spain, but maybe not for long …