Predeparture: Expectations of Italy

·Your expectations of what Italian culture will be like – This is my third time in Italy and I am Italian on my mom’s side of the family. I expect food and artisanal crafts to be a focal point of the culture. I expect to see locals taking their time to sit outdoors for cocktails, coffee and/or a smoke with family and friends.

What (if any) preconceived notions do you have about Italy (and Italians), what it will be like there, what the people will be like  - My earliest preconceived notions of Italians stem from my upbringing. My grandparents lived in diaspora in an Italian American community. Every Sunday after church, my immediate and extended family and friends all would congregate at my grandmother’s lunch/dinner table, where we would proceed to eat course after course for hours. As did my mom, I learned to cook under my grandma’s apron. As a kid, the adults forced us to stay at the table until we had eaten our fill of everyone’s dish out of respect. While the adults laughed and argued vigorously, my patience with the long meals would wear thin quickly and I would scurry off with my cousins to play. We kids were told to avoid my grandfather, the patriarch of the family. He was an Italian immigrant who had endured the Great Depression and grown stern in his later years. He controlled the family with an iron fist and sexism was prevalent in many aspects of family life. Before and after dinner, the men and women self segregated: the men watched sports as the women prepared, served and cleaned up after dinner. Culinary fixation, arguing, respect, filiality and patriarchy came to represent Italian culture to me.  

      Through my travels, however, I have come to disavow the notion of stereotypes. Though elements of my upbringing may be paralleled in the lives of some Italians, the part does not represent the whole. Moreover, the culture of communities living in diaspora develops distinctly from that of the home country.

How do you think it will feel like being in another country when you do not know the customs or the language? - I am constantly traveling to new countries where I know neither the language nor the culture. Before I arrive in country, I always try to learn basic phrases to facilitate communication. And what words and phrases I don’t know, I ask in my interactions with locals and denote them in my journal. Despite the potential incoherence of thought, I unabashedly say what I can so I can learn the language and customs in the process. I believe attempting to speak in a country’s language portrays a great deal of respect to the locals and to their culture.

What will it be like to immerse yourself in another culture? I am a polyglot with strong motivation to utilize my skills to interact with and learn from people with whom I would be otherwise unable to communicate, so as to gain insight into different cultures and perspectives. In pursuit of cross-cultural understanding, I have actively sought out every available opportunity to study abroad, live with host families, travel, and speak languages. An aggregate two of the past seven years of my life have been spent abroad.  As such, I will relish in this opportunity immerse myself in another culture once more.

What will you do to learn about the other culture and experience it? – I will wander the streets and admire the architecture. I will eat local specialties and write about my experience in my food blog. Also for my food blog, I will attempt to interview local food producers. Sardinia is classified as a blue zone: a region containing some of the world’s longest living people. After this dialogue, I plan to work on an organic farm in another blue zone, Okinawa Japan. Should I have the time, I would like to examine the factors of life in Sardinia that may correlate to longevity and compare that to my findings in Japan. Finally, I will continue to study the language and practice it with whomever I can.