{"id":196,"date":"2010-10-29T11:02:44","date_gmt":"2010-10-29T15:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/studying-abroad\/?p=196"},"modified":"2010-10-29T11:02:44","modified_gmt":"2010-10-29T15:02:44","slug":"just-another-vegetable-in-bowl-of-thin-soup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/2010\/10\/29\/just-another-vegetable-in-bowl-of-thin-soup\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Another Vegetable in Bowl of Thin Soup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reed Hepburn \u201912<\/em> – I don\u2019t mind, I\u2019ve realized, being a vegetable in a gumbo, as opposed to another spoonful of the broth in a thin soup. I may be a potato in Paris\u2019s demographic stew, but if my analogy is applicable on any sous-facie level, at least that means I represent a distinct entity to be recognized individually.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Hepburn has been contemplating life as a Parisian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a fair-skinned, fair-haired WASP, I\u2019m somewhat of a rare find in non-tourist areas here, and so far I\u2019ve appreciated that. As I write this I realize that I really have no concrete evidence for the applicability of my analogy. Aside from the objective and undeniable contrast between Paris\u2019s ethno-cultural heterogeneity and Crawfordsville\u2019s lack thereof, I may be, quite frankly, full of it.<\/p>\n

It is true, after all, that Paris seems to be an exceptionally tolerant city, exhibiting a laudable degree of color blindness and universal acceptance. Today, however, I met in my French class a student from Stratford-upon-Avon, and during our 15-minute break we had a thoroughly refreshing and comforting English conversation.<\/p>\n

As I said good-bye to her after class, I marveled at how profoundly affected I\u2019d been by such a seemingly mundane interaction, and at how quickly someone could metamorphosis from a complete stranger into a comrade, with whom I immediately felt an almost familial bond. The primary impetus for this connection was our shared mother tongue.<\/p>\n

As fellow Anglophones (that is, potatoes), we quickly felt a kinship that in a homogenous society would never have developed, a solidarity that in many ways can only germinate in a demographically diverse environment. Of course, this observation on its own was unsatisfying \u2014 I don\u2019t want to surround myself this semester with a bubble of American or even Anglo-Saxon culture, as I now began to realize would be extremely easy.<\/p>\n

Digging a little deeper, I found an interpretation of this phenomenon that was, while less certainly proven, much more encouraging. If my British friend and I could reach such a level of solidarity so quickly over a relatively superficial connection, what\u2019s to say this is unique? It only makes sense that every other stranger whom I silently, fumingly resent as they push their way onto MY already-crowded metro car, possesses some characteristic over which I could bond with him or her, if only we took the (sometimes immense) effort to peel back linguistic and cultural veils.<\/p>\n

Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I\u2019m going to stick to it and search out some okra or peppers or maybe frog legs. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reed Hepburn \u201912 – I don\u2019t mind, I\u2019ve realized, being a vegetable in a gumbo, as opposed to another spoonful of the broth in a thin soup. I may be a potato […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-study-abroad"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2010\/10\/Reed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}