Chatting, laughing, discussing

Last week I missed the Skype exchange because I had to take an exam, so this time I was eager to talk with Leah again! My friend Marta joined us as well: she is in the group that has been doing an exchange with Polish students from Poznan, but since many of my classmates were absent last Wednesday she offered to help us.
At the beginning we had some problems with the programme: Marta seemed not to be able to join the conversation and when she finally did I couldn’t hear her and Leah any longer! What a mess!!! Thanks to Sarah’s help, at last we managed to start our chat, which was even more pleasant than the first one: Marta and Leah introduced themselves to each other and then we talked about our Easter holidays and Leah’s spring break. We found out that Marta travelled to America a couple of weeks ago and visited New York and Philadelphia. This was a useful springboard to begin a discussion on national stereotypes that basically confirmed what had already emerged from the Cultura questionnaire: we said that when we think about the United States images of endless, wide roads, huge skyscrapers and beautiful top models immediately come to our minds; Leah, on the other hand, usually associates our country with breathtaking landscapes, Milan fashion shows and food! We ended up by comparing our alimentary habits: what we eat for breakfast; if we usually eat out or at home; whether in the USA people who are allergic to gluten can count on the State paying for the gluten-free products they need (like in Italy); if the general assumption that Americans only eat junk food while Italians stuff them with tons of pizza and spaghetti everyday is well-founded or not…
We would have gone on for hours if Leah hadn’t remembered us that the topic of our conversation was supposed to be politics! She completely wrongfooted us with a very simple question: “Girls, could you please explain me the political situation of your country?” Oh, my gosh!!! Mart and I look at each other, speechless: where could we start from? First of all, we tried to explain that Romano Prodi’s government collapsed because it failed to obtain the trust by both the Camera and the Senato and this opened the way to a new electoral campaign. Leah asked us what we knew about Berlusconi (Sarah was right, he is famous all over the world!) and we gave a very neutral answer in order not to influence her opinion: we said that he is a clever self-made man, who managed to become a very successful executive and then to enter politics; many people appreciate this qualities of his, but others think that he hasn’t always been completely honest and that he must have many skeletons in his cupboard. We also added, however, that this time making up our minds and decide who to vote for will be very hard: left wing and right wing governments continue to succeed each other, but none of them seems to be able to effect important changes in the situation of our country and therefore people is very disillusioned by politics.
Leah is going to vote as well (and for the first time in her life!). She was very critical about the usefulness of the media struggle between Hillary and Obhama: she explained us that while at the beginning the two leaders’ supporters respected each other recognizing that they were all on the same side, now each faction overtly hates the other and it is entirely possible that in November the supporters of the loser will prefer to vote for Mc Cain rather than giving their vote to the winner. America has its own problems as well, therefore!
As I said, the chat was really amusing and involving: in three it was easier to keep the conversation going and to confront our different points of view, so I hope to have another Italian “Skype-mate” the next time as well!

photos from flickr

Beyond television

image from notna

This week our American partners are enjoying their spring-break so there was no Skype exchange last Wednesday :( By the way, we can use the time at our disposal to discuss on the wiki and to find an interesting question about America and the way of living of its inhabitants. It seems a very easy task, but I'm pretty confused: there is so much I would like to know about a country that I started dreaming of when I was just a child and watched Superman’s unbelievable adventures on the TV. Yes, the TV. In spite of the coming of the Internet, a very powerful technology that has revolutionized the whole concept of “communication” by providing a way to know everything happening in the world, I think that television still remains the most influential of all the tools of knowledge. Why? Because it is something that everybody can use easily, whenever they want, without the need to read the directions; something that posses an infinite range of strategies to let a message pass and spread; most of all, something that has become part of our own culture and has accompanied us everyday since we were babies. For those of us who don’t have the chance to spend part of their time travelling around the world, television is also their eye on reality: using a remote control, you can dive in the depth of the ocean to discover beautiful submarine landscape and just a moment later you are walking in a fashion house in Los Angeles, wondering whether Brooke and Ridge will get married for the third time or not. TV series and films offer us portrays of American life, but is this reality? Are American men as lazy and slovenly as Homer Simpson? Are all Californian girls blonde, rich and spoilt? Is life in a university campus all about parties, brotherhoods and initiation rites? I don’t think so, yet I have to recognize that my idea of America is partially influenced by the stereotypes I learn from television. Reading my friends’ answers to the questionnaires on the Cultura website, I could observe that many of them share the same idea of what life is like in the USA and this is another proof of the way in which TV programmes are able to handle our opinions and expectations about the other. Therefore, I think it could be interesting to ask Dickinson students if they watch the same programmes and if TV really reflects their own life. As one of the members of my group pointed out, it would be interesting to know if shows and films influence the way in which Americans view Italians as well and, if so, what aspects of Italian culture are emphasized. I’m sure that both of us, our American colleagues and we Italian students, would discover to look at each other through glasses made of prejudices and commonplaces that this exchange can help us to remove. The meeting with Chiara Olivi is a clear example of what I’m talking about: in my opinion, she’s a very nice and outgoing girl, devoted to her studies and eager to know everything she can about the world, just like anyone of us. We have to abandon old preconceptions and be ready to recognize that reality has many more shades and facets than what TV let us perceive.