SAINT PATRICK'S DAY
Chicago is a very Irish city. Therefore, St Patrick's Day is a sort of civic holiday here out of all proportion to the celebrations that happen in cities with fewer Irish. That being said, the most interesting thing I have seen so far was getting lunch. We went to a take-out Chinese place. The people working there are—Chinese. They have a few paper shamrocks up in the windows, but you get the distinct sense that the meaning of the shamrocks is lost.
Then the television behind the counter started showing a bunch of step-dancing girls. They were pretty good, getting good air, and being pretty synchronized. The Chinese were fascinated. They stopped working and watched, wide-eyed and slack jawed.
It suddenly struck me that no matter where these people came from, whether it be the PRC, the ROC, HK, or any other place, Ireland was almost certainly a distant, little known and little cared about corner of the world. For us, with the huge Irish population, Ireland seems immediate and important. How surreal must it be for these Chinese people to watch step dancers in Chicago?
SPAIN
A few days ago I wrote a little about Spain. The Spaniards have since elected a government that is pulling them back from what they perceive to be the front lines of terrorism. I fear that the Spanish have miscalculated that front line and they are just bringing the fight home. An hour or so ago a car bomb destroyed a hotel in Baghdad. Not New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. Baghdad. Maybe that was the point of invading Iraq (after almost a year we're still trying to figure out why). It reminds me of the old NATO saying about short range nuclear missiles during the Cold War, "the shorter the range, the deader the Germans."
Chicago is a very Irish city. Therefore, St Patrick's Day is a sort of civic holiday here out of all proportion to the celebrations that happen in cities with fewer Irish. That being said, the most interesting thing I have seen so far was getting lunch. We went to a take-out Chinese place. The people working there are—Chinese. They have a few paper shamrocks up in the windows, but you get the distinct sense that the meaning of the shamrocks is lost.
Then the television behind the counter started showing a bunch of step-dancing girls. They were pretty good, getting good air, and being pretty synchronized. The Chinese were fascinated. They stopped working and watched, wide-eyed and slack jawed.
It suddenly struck me that no matter where these people came from, whether it be the PRC, the ROC, HK, or any other place, Ireland was almost certainly a distant, little known and little cared about corner of the world. For us, with the huge Irish population, Ireland seems immediate and important. How surreal must it be for these Chinese people to watch step dancers in Chicago?
SPAIN
A few days ago I wrote a little about Spain. The Spaniards have since elected a government that is pulling them back from what they perceive to be the front lines of terrorism. I fear that the Spanish have miscalculated that front line and they are just bringing the fight home. An hour or so ago a car bomb destroyed a hotel in Baghdad. Not New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. Baghdad. Maybe that was the point of invading Iraq (after almost a year we're still trying to figure out why). It reminds me of the old NATO saying about short range nuclear missiles during the Cold War, "the shorter the range, the deader the Germans."
posted by David at 12:50 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home