thisweekinitaly.com

Cash Machine in Gettysburg

In Italy the cash machines offer instructions in Italian (of course), English, German, and French. This is primarily to accommodate tourists.  I was surprised to see on the cash machine at my bank in Gettysburg that instructions are now available in English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, and Polish.  Although Gettysburg is a tourist town, I don’t think that this machine had more languages to accommodate visitors to Gettysburg.  My guess is that this is one of a new generation of multi-language cash machines.  The selection of languages is interesting because it has the major European languages (maybe to serve tourists to USA) plus Polish, Spanish, and Portuguese. Of all these, only Spanish serves a large group of non English speakers in the USA.

How My Mother Raised Ten Children on 25 Words or Less

This is the title of a book I read recently about a woman who lived in Ohio in the 1950s.  Her husband was an alcoholic, and the large family was always in financial trouble.  Fortunately an aunt gave them money to help pay for groceries.  Also the mother was very skilled at winning contests (common in the 1950s) in which you completed an advertising jingle in 25 words or less.  On the back of the book was a statement that the book showed how initiative and self-confidence can always overcome poverty.

This statement caught my eye.  They were able to overcome poverty not simply because the mother had self-confidence and initiative.  She also had great skill in winning the contests – not every person could have won such contests simply by trying.  Also the aunt was helping with money for groceries.  Not every poor family has such a relative.  This statement illustrates a difference between Italy (and I think Europe in general) and the USA. In America there is a greater sense of optimism.  You can overcome anything if you try. In Europe there is a greater sense of pessimism. Some people are victims of systematic problems, and they cannot overcome them by optimistic striving.  The American view is at times unrealistic, but it can lead to a more positive attitude. The European view is I think more realistic, but it can lead to defeatism.

I was most interested to discover in reading a book review that this observance of mine is reflected in a new book “Poverty in the US and Europe: A world of Difference by Alberto Alesina (sounds like he is of Italian ancestry). In this book he says “Either the Americans overestimate how difficult it is for the poor to get rich…or the Europeans overestimate how difficult it is for the poor to get out of poverty.” He discusses how poverty is defined differently in the USA and Europe and provides a theory (based primarily on the greater racial diversity in the USA and the decentralized governmental structure in the USA) of why the American and European attitudes differ. The book review can be found at http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/010528.html

Corrections

A friend who has lived in Italy pointed out that Italian bars and cafeteria style restaurants do offer a “hot table” of precooked food.  I rarely visit such places.  I don’t recall if the cold precooked food is heated in an oven before being served or kept in warming trays. I don’t recall seeing such trays.  What Italy does not have is buffet restaurants (All You Can Eat for $9.99).  My friend also pointed out that post-war apartment buildings in Italy are often ugly. You can see these in Italian films of the 1950s and 1960s.  My comment upon ugly many American subdivisions seem was really a comment upon land use, not the architectural merit or not of the individual buildings.  You don’t see subdivisions of cookie cutter houses plopped down in a field in the middle of a rural landscape in Italy. In general land use is much more closely regulated in Italy.

No Child Left Behind

This is the name of the initiative of the Bush Administration to require that students be tested in all public schools to determine that they are meeting specified goals in reading and mathematics.  It is an initiative on the European (and Italian) model of education in which there are national standards.  In Italy schools are not funded by the local government and the curriculum is national in scope.  In the United States the major goal of a Superintendent of Schools is to keep local parents and taxpayers happy.  One can argue which model is better, but clearly academic standards are higher in Italy at the elementary and secondary levels.

What Italians Think of the USA

I am often asked two questions (1) what do Italians think of the USA and (2) do I experience anti-American attitudes towards me?  Current American foreign policy has caused a higher rate of disapproval of the United States, but this disapproval is not a majority opinion in Italy or in any European country.  Furthermore, Italians draw a strong distinction between a nation’s government and its people.  They have a low opinion of their own government (regardless of who is in charge), but they don’t carry over this opinion to themselves as a people.  Similarly they don’t apply to individual Americans whatever opinion they have of the government of the United States.

Radio

In Italy the national TV/Radio network RAI has two or three radio stations.  Unfortunately I cannot receive any of these in my apartment.  The radio stations I do receive are pretty bad. So it was a pleasure to again here the news on National Public Radio (NPR) in the USA.  Some stories receive comprehensive in-depth treatment (20 minutes) that you don’t see on television in the USA or on radio (perhaps on the RAI stations I don’t get) or TV in Italy.

Restaurant Menus

The menus in restaurants in the USA are generally longer than those in Italy.  They also have more variety as to types of cuisines. That’s the good news.  The food is not as good. In the USA you often receive a meal with meat, vegetables, and potato or rice all on the same plate.  In Italy these items arrive separately.  In the USA often one of these three items is not still warm when the plate arrives.  In Italy all the food arrives at proper temperature and well cooked.  The difference in restaurant food in USA and Italy is not great, but the difference in quality is noticeable.

Special Christmas Edition

This issue is primarily some of my observations upon returning to USA on life in
Italy vs. the USA

A Correction

First, a correction.  My son Chris tells me that when I compared the quick
pick-up in Pistoia of large refuse items with the slower procedures in Germany,
I erred in stating that there was a fee for such a pick-up in Germany.  It’s a
lot faster in Pistoia, but it is free in both places.

Food in Italy and in the USA

1. The Club dinner.

I went to a Christmas dinner of my bike club near Gettysburg.  It was the
typical group meal of chicken, beef, baked potatoes, corn, and a salad plus
dessert.  The food was fine, but the beef was, as typical, dry with some gravy
put over it.  You don’t get dry beef in Italy.

2. A Hot Buffet

The bike club Christmas dinner meal was served buffet style.  I also went to
another group dinner that had a buffet in which the food is kept in warming
trays.  I’ve never seen a hot buffet meal like this in Italy (although they may
exist). The reason is, I believe, that when food is put in a warming tray, it
continues to cook. So it is either a bit undercooked when originally put in the
tray or a bit overcooked when you finally take it from the tray.  In Italy, the
food is served “just right” – not undercooked or overcooked. So a hot buffet
isn’t used

3. Describing Christmas in Various Parts of Italy

I have access to Italian TV via satellite where I am staying in the USA. I
watched a show featuring Christmas traditions in various parts of Italy.  By far
the greatest emphasis was on the special Christmas foods in these various areas.
Certainly there are regional cuisines in the USA too, but they are more distinct
and important in Italy.

Article in Bicycling Magazine about Marco Pantani

Marco Pantani (Il Pirata –The Pirate) was the famous Italian bicycle racer who
died recently of a drug overdose.  The article was a discussion of his life,
including its tragic end and the Italian reaction to that end.  The author was
surprised that the Italians seemed unable to grasp and accept the simple fact
that this was a person who got into drugs, went downhill, and eventually killed
himself through his drug use.  Instead the Italians thought there was some
conspiracy; somebody was out to get Marco, etc.  Of course, I realized that this
is the typical Italian response of not believing the “official” explanation of
an event – there are always some untold facts that are the “real” explanation.

The Parking Garage at Baltimore Washington International Airport

This garage has the system I had seen in Sweden and Germany of lights over each
parking space.  At the end of each row there is a sign telling how many open
spaces are in that row.  An open space has a green light over it whereas
occupied spaces have a red light over them.  Great system except in Baltimore it
was not functioning correctly. The sign at end of row would indicate open spaces
where there were none.  I ultimately parked in an open space that had a red
light over it, not a green one.  This reinforced my general impression stated
before that in Germany things are very modern and work very well, in the USA
they are either a bit less modern or work less well, in Italy they are even less modern and work less well.

Beauty in Adams County Pennsylvania and Tuscany

The area where I lived in USA, Adams County, is an attractive area with some
lovely hill areas.  What I noticed the most upon my return are the many new
housing developments.  These have many houses (sometimes even expensive ones)
placed close together.  Usually there are no trees around the houses.  The
individual houses are not unattractive, but the overall effect of the new
development is far from pleasing for me.  Of course there is some ugly housing
in Italy, but on the whole the residential areas are better looking there than
in the USA.  I don’t think the typical American new subdivision would be
acceptable to the Italians.

Probably Last Issue for a While

I am in the USA until January 4.  I will resume issues of this newsletter upon my return to Italy.

New Photos on Web Site

On my Web site for these newsletters there is a new set of pictures (July 2004) showing Calvello, the town of my maternal grandparents. Go to www.bob.it.tt or if this does not work try http://160.45.207.38/mhoffman/pistoia04/

Seeing the USA through Italian Eyes

I watched a TV travelogue in which an Italian took a motor trip down the coast of California, north to south.  California was shown as a very expansive, very stylish, and beautiful place.  Italy too is beautiful and stylish, but it doesn’t have an expansive feel. It is this sense of freedom without limits that I think makes the USA so attractive to some Italians.

Translating Humor from One Language to Another

Humor based on situations often is easily translated from one language to another, but humor based upon niceties of language is very difficult to translate. A friend was watching the classic film Dr. Stangelove on Italian TV.  Of course it was dubbed in Italian.  One of my favorite scenes in this film is where the US President has to call the Russian premier to tell him that a rogue US general has send airplanes to bomb the Soviet Union.  Trying to play down the magnitude of what has happened, the US President says, as I recall, “Dimitri, one of our generals has done a naughty thing.”  In Italian “naughty” would translate as “cattivo” which means the bad little things kids do but also the very bad and evil things adults do – in short “cattivo” covers a lot more territory of badness than “naughty.”  So the word “cattivo” misses the subtle point of the President’s euphemistic use of “naughty.”

Talking About Comedy

I was recently watching an Italian comedy TV show with my son Chris (when we met at Brennero on the Italian/Austrian border).  As he watched, Chris noted, “Dad the guy is running around hitting people with a rubber chicken.”  Although both Italian and American TV show a range of humor, I would say that the ratio of slapstick humor is higher in Italy.

Italians and Strangers

I remember that my mother was always quick to talk to strangers on the bus or the elevated train.  I also remember that in general she was suspicious of and distrustful of people she did not know.  Sort of a paradox, but I know now she was a typical Italian.  I see strangers striking up conversations often on the train, but I have also discovered that Italians are very cautious about people whom they don’t know.

Murder of a Gas Station Owner by Two Armed Robbers

This is a not untypical crime in the USA, but it made big news in Italy.  One political party (associated with the region of the victim) put up a big reward for information leading to the capture of the killers.  Apparently in Italy the state is not allowed to put up rewards for the capture of criminals—this is considered disrespectful to the police and justice apparatus. A big debate ensued about whether the law should be changed to allow rewards by the government.  This story was of equal coverage to the story about the government’s final plan to cut taxes and also governmental expenses. My prediction is that if tax cuts are passed, the expense cuts will not in fact cover the loss of revenue and Italy will be in trouble with the group of countries using the Euro because its budget deficit will exceed the allowable limit for such nations.  Italy has the third largest public debt in the world even though it is not the third largest economy.

Using a Telephone in the District of Columbia

I was in the District for a day with some Italian friends. The daughter wanted to call a friend in Maryland. We got to a Verizon pay phone which had instructions on how to make a long distance call. But we could not make a long distance call.  I tired to charge the call to a third party, but nobody was at the home to certify the charge. My AT&T credit card no longer worked.  Finally I found a way to use my VISA card to charge the call.  Later in the day we were trying to buy a prepaid telephone card and went into a Verizon store.  I explained what happened to the clerk who told me that the phones we tried to use were only for local calls.  I suggested that it might be wise to put on the phone that it was for local calls only (rather than having useless instructions on how to make a long distance call).  The clerk at the Verizon shop did loan us his cell phone at no cost to make another call to the number in Maryland. Still this episode was like the kind of frustrations one encounters often in Italy.  When a phone doesn’t work as it is supposed to in Italy, one can take solace in the beauty of the country, the delicious food, the good wine, etc.  For all this you tolerate the frustrations of inefficiency.  When you encounter such inefficiency in the USA, there are fewer compensating virtues to make the frustration tolerable.

Foreigners in Washington, DC

The clerks doing menial jobs in the stores are almost all foreigners.  This is different than in Italy where many Italians still do the menial jobs, not the immigrants.  Of course some immigrants also do menial jobs, often in the “black” labor market at substandard wages.  But menial jobs are not the monopoly of immigrants in Italy.  One of the persons who waited on us in Washington was a man from Asia who spoke some Italian. He had lived in Milan for 18 months.  When I asked him whether he preferred the USA or Italy, he said the life was good in Italy, but he could not get a job there as he could in the USA.

Blue and Red Numbers on Buildings in Florence

Here is an explanation from an American friend (who visits Florence often) of the blue and red building numbers I wrote about last week.

Business addresses in Florence are rosso (red). However, residential addresses aren’t
followed by an “a” for azzuro (blue). It is confusing, because as you say, the numbers
are only related to one another in the sense they get bigger or smaller in the
same direction. they are also disproportionate, i.e., if there are only a few
businesses in a few blocks, each block might only have one red number and lots
of blue ones. Fortunately most streets aren’t very long so you don’t have to
walk a mile between 7r and 13r.