My Oxnardian Culture

In response some recent misconceptions of American culture, I’m going to tell you about my culture. My culture includes the ideas and influences that shape my values and every day decisions. Similar to the stereotypes that aren’t always true, I can’t guarantee that my culture describes anyone else besides myself, definitely not the average American. I would say that there is no average American culture. We’re all pretty different. Even within the U.S., there are misconceptions on California’s culture. While my city, Oxnard, is turning into a suburb of Los Angeles and some of the California stereotypes do hold true, Oxnard has an interesting history, it is a unique Southern Californian city, and it is at the root of my cultural values.

In 1974, after four generations of living in San Bernardino County, CA, my parents moved two hours northwest, to the City of Oxnard. It was a much different place back then. They lived in an apartment on the beach, which was considered a dodgy area at that time. Their groceries would get stolen if they didn’t lock the car while carrying grocery bags inside. My dad was just starting a new job as a reference librarian at the Oxnard Public Library, so they didn’t have enough money to buy a house yet. Today, beachfront property is highly coveted and very expensive. They’re old apartment was certainly taken down and replaced with a multi-million dollar home. My parents eventually bought a house, just outside of El Rio, in a neighborhood that was surrounded by farmland. There were orange trees and avocado groves, but mostly strawberries strawberries strawberries.

When I was in high school, a Wal-Mart shopping center was built about a mile from my house. In some ways, I liked it because it meant there were restaurants and things to do my neighborhood. It also made it easier to describe where I lived. Many people don’t really know where El Rio is, and the only other landmarks were fields of strawberries. “Are there houses out there?” people would ask when I tried to give them directions to my house, even though Oxnard isn’t that geographically complex. However, I was also a cross country runner in high school. I had a hard time with the new traffic problems that Wal-Mart brought with it. Where I used to run for miles without stopping is now covered with traffic signals on almost every corner. There are good sidewalks if you’re running east to west, but they aren’t so continuous in the north-south directions. Prior to the Wal-Mart shopping center, this area was occupied by strawberry fields. The strawberry fields sometimes made the neighborhood smell delightful, but it sometimes smelled like fertilizer. Where I went to middle school, in El Rio, was much worse, aroma wise. Sometimes it would smell so strongly of fertilizer that my clothes would still stink when I got home!

Oxnard is located on the Southern coast of California. The average daily high temperature is 23 degrees C (73 degrees F), and the average low temperature is 11 degrees C (51 degrees), with 37.5 cm (14.75 inches of average annual rainfall. As of 2006, the California department of Finance measured the annual median household income to be $48,600. Males had a median income of just over $30,500 versus approximately $25,000 for females. According to the 2005 American Community Survey, Oxnard is approximately 70% "Latino or Hispanic." There is really good Mexican food in Oxnard and many Spanish speakers. As a bilingual public librarian, my father often helped both English and Spanish speakers find information for school work, public services, or even obtaining citizenship. My mother teaches at the high school Adult Education Center. She teaches a variety of courses to adults who dropped out of high school and are now trying to earn their high school diplomas. She also teaches ESL (English as a Second Language) to people who are learning to speak English. My parents were pretty involved in the Hispanic community in Oxnard, which may be one reason why my sister and I also learned to speak Spanish later on.

Wikipedia has a long list of famous people from Oxnard, but I didn't recognize most of them, probably because I don't watch very much TV. The most notable was Cesar Chavez, a farm worker, political activist and union leader. He lived in the La Colonia Barrio of Oxnard during part of his childhood, and later organized boycotts and marches of farm workers and laborers to protest the lack of jobs for local Oxnardian residents (1950s). Colonia is the heart of Oxnard’s good Mexican food, which I miss a lot in Finland. I wish I could a gordita right now.

After high school I moved to California’s Bay Area for University, and later on to Seattle, but those cities are very different from Oxnard. Each time I’ve moved to a new city, it’s taken a little while to adjust to the culture. For example, in Seattle, people are very friendly on the street… but there’s not very good Mexican food. In the Bay Area, I was constantly accosted by homeless people, and it seemed very interactive, yet unfriendly at a glance. However, I formed many friendships in random places in the Bay Area, like on the bus or walking home from work.

Anyway, my city is full of culture. In spite of growing up in the States, I didn't turn out rich, spoiled, or stupid. And I don't own a gun or a car. American culture can mean many different things, most of which you just can't find in the movies!

Reality in TV?

I’m very comfortable with the fact that my country is imperfect. I may even be the one to point out its deficiencies. I feel a responsibility to do what I can to make the United States a better place, but I’m not embarrassed that we have our faults. While it’s not my favorite conversation topic with people from Europe these days, I am capable of having a factual discussion on problems in my country.

For some reason, however, I get quite irritated when people tell me about what I do in my culture, especially if they’re wrong. When the discussion starts with “you know how you guys do blank,” or “in the States, blankety blank happens,” there is a very good chance that I am going to have to spend the rest of the discussion defending myself and pointing out that all Americans (many times myself included) don’t do blankety blank. First of all, my country is big. Even within California, there are social differences between the north, south, east, and west. San Francisco, for example, has a much different feel, food, and culture than Fresno. I even feel a little bit uncomfortable making a cultural generalization about the people from Fresno because Fresno’s culture is not my culture. But I know, just from passing through, that it’s different than San Francisco’s culture.

So if you visited your brother while he was studying abroad in Virginia, or if you watch American TV shows, you still might not have as good of an understanding of my culture as you think.

I got into a discussion last night with a guy who told me that U.S. worker salaries are much higher than salaries in the EU. He thought it was really great because everything is also so much cheaper in the States. There’s a high quality of life and everyone’s rich, he told me. I’m not an economist, and income of Americans vs. EU nationals is not a topic that I’ve ever been particularly passionate about, but he was totally wrong. I wondered where in God’s name he got that idea. In Finland, I haven’t seen a lot of poverty or gangs, which were important parts of my culture back in the States. I know people who do not have healthcare, or who don’t have an income back home. I don’t have experience all over the European Union, but in Finland there’s food, shelter, and medical care for everyone. I would say there’s a whole lot more wealth here.

My conversation partner gave me an example of a salary in my country that is higher than a European salary. “OK,” he told me. “If you go to school for law, you can make $200,000 per year, right after graduating.”

I tried to explain that lawyers aren’t exactly average Americans. And, if you’re one of the 27% of the people who graduate from university, only then are you eligible to apply to spend another three years (and tens of thousands of dollars) going to law school. It’s competitive and not many people can make it through law school. “OK, I have another example: doctors,” he was very matter of fact. “They make a lot of money in the States.” I was nearly exasperated. I couldn’t believe I was participating in a) such a boring conversation topic, and b) a conversation that required me to defend our state of poverty. We're not that poor, but we're certainly not all doctors and lawyers. I think it was his complete confidence added to his complete ignorance that kept me going. The number of Americans who are doctors and lawyers in my country is practically insignificant, when compared to the Wal-Mart checkers, fast food workers, and engineers, etc.

Where did this young man get his information, you ask? He got it from the television, my friends. That is what he told me. This is not the first time this has come up. There are many people that feel that Sex and the City is a documentary on American culture, not a fictional and logistically impossible story that was created to make money. Hollywood was not created to depict American culture and values in Europe.

In my culture, I was taught that television is not real. Some of the major differences between what you may find on the average television show and real American life are:

1. We age (unlike Bart Simpson).
2. We’re not all rich. We have a distribution of wealth, just like European countries. We have poverty, homelessness, as well as wealthy people.
3. We work an awful lot (unlike the characters in Lost and Friends). If we don’t work, it’s quite hard to find food and shelter. Work is not always dramatic fun (like in West Wing), though I usually like my work (I may be a minority).
4. We’re not 99% white. There is ethnic diversity in the States that is not portrayed on TV.
5. We’re not necessarily stupid (unlike our Reality TV counterparts), though I occasionally have my “not so swift” days.
6. We have pimples, wrinkles and other physical imperfections. You know how we’re one of the most overweight countries? Well, it’s true, and it’s not portrayed on TV.
7. We’re not almost all 25 to 40 years old. We have a distribution of ages.
8. The portion of the day spent in high-speed car chases, shooting each other, and having sex, is actually quite small compared to that of our TV/movie counterparts.
9. Most importantly, the U.S. is a real country. TV is fictional; it’s an industry that makes money in a capitalist society because people enjoy watching it, not because it resembles something that is possible in the real world.

It’s just too ironic that I have to convince people that I’m not stupid by demonstrating that television is not real. If you feel like it’s a good idea to share with me how stupid, fat, rich, or spoiled my culture is, please get your information from somewhere besides the television.

The Afterlaugh!

There’s no real reason for this change of perspective that you are going to hear about… except maybe a sequence of events, that included a long winter, and a recent visit from Sarah and Kevin. When Sarah and Kevin were in Finland, we laughed a lot.

Sometimes we laughed because things were funny. For example, the time that Kevin musically accompanied the cyclist who was ringing her bike bell (at us) as she rode down the sidewalk. “Brrrring, brrrrring,” he said. It seemed like there was some scene going on in his head and he briefly forgot that he was in the real world (where it’s not very common to get “brrrringed” at). Almost in the same breath, he said “Oh yeah, they can hear me, I always forget that when everyone’s speaking Finnish.” And then he turned a little reddish and all three of us nearly fell over into the streets of Tampere because we were laughing so hard. He had just rung an imaginary bell at a real cyclist. It didn’t even cross my mind that we were laughing at Kevin. I was too busy trying to keep my balance and get enough oxygen.

But sometimes we just laughed because we wanted to laugh. We laughed out loud at things that were not funny. It was as though we (as a group) wanted to laugh first, and then we (as a group) came up with something to laugh about second, regardless of whether it was funny. It didn’t matter. My point is-- laughter: very important.

In combination with the things that I absolutely love about Finland, like the honesty, the genuine conversations, and wonderful hospitality, there are also challenges that I have to face. Some of these challenges are actually quite difficult for me. But don’t worry, today, after seven months in Finland, I have figured out how to handle them. All I need to do is laugh. And honestly, it’s easy to make me laugh, I’ve just never actively tried before.

So, if you fall down and I dramatically rush over to help, and you get embarrassed and refuse my help; I’m going to laugh at myself. I’m going to laugh because that’s not how it works here. If I ask you about your research interests with genuine curiosity, and you get visibly irritated at my numerous questions; I am going to laugh. If you plow into me with your shopping cart while I’m kneeling down to compare the prices of light bulbs; I’m going to laugh. I am going to laugh if I get to the student housing office at 3:31 after leaving work early, only to find that it closed at 3:30 and no one is in sight. I’m going to laugh because I did it again. If the buses are going to run on time, somewhere in the local system of logic, it says that the housing office also must close on time. And finally, if you are drunk to the stars and you can see the polar lights, and you feel that you need to sit next to me on the train; I’m not going to get scared. I'm not going to get angry. I’m not going to feel sorry for you. I’m going to laugh.

I’m going to laugh at myself and at my own confusion. I’m going to laugh at whatever it is that I do that invites acutely drunk people into my personal space. I’m going to laugh at the times that I’ve been clueless and didn’t realize the things that were obvious to everyone else. I’m going to laugh and have fun with our cultural differences. I’m going to laugh that some Finnish words require ten or 20 English words, simply to explain their meaning. I’m going to laugh that I get so caught up in the process and the journey that I occasionally forget about the end goal. I’m going to laugh that I, Laura McLaughlin, one of the guiltiest causes of the awkward silence, is the one who won’t stop talking. I’m going to laugh when I can tell by your response that I just said something inappropriate, but I have no idea what it was. I’m going to laugh at the KKK Supermarket. And I’m going to laugh even more at the Ass Market (written S, but pronounced Ass!). I’m going to laugh even if I am laughing and no one else is laughing! In fact, I'm going to laugh because I'm the only one laughing.

So if you’re looking for me, I’ll be the one in Tampere enjoying the daylight and LAUGHING!

Turku and Rauma, rolled into one!

Minna and Mika, some friends that I met through the microbiology channels, took all of us around Turku and Rauma. We visited not only the old downtown (Vanha Rauma), but Sammallahdenmäki, another UNESCO site that was home to... someone during the Bronze Age. Most of the remains consist of rock burial grounds. But there's also a nice little hike that was complemented with some unbeatable spring weather. My camera unfortunately ran out of batteries midway through the trip, but I'll show photos from the first part of it. The initiator of this trip was the Jr. World Championships in hockey, which were being played in Rauma. We ironically saw the U.S.-Canada game. It was my first hockey game ever, and I was impressed by the quantity of physical contact. Those guys really beat the heck out of each other! While I would be more hesitant to start playing hockey, I really enjoyed watching it.

These pictures are from the nuclear power museum in Eurajoki (right next to Rauma). It's super fancy with interactive science exhibits that appeal to a wide variety of ages. There's also a nice view out back of the area where the cooling water is extracted and expelled back into the sea. I suppose the museum was constructed along with Nuclear Power Plant Number Three in this area, to keep the community happy. The construction is huge and will bring international workers to Eurajoki for the next few years. It is projected to provide twice the power of either of the existing nuclear power plants. They will use enormous concrete-lined copper pipes that weigh something like three tons each to store the spent waste in the bottom of the sea.

On to Turku:
We went on a short walk along River Aurajoki (not to be confused with the similar sounding town that Minna and Mika live in-- Eurajoki), ate ice cream, and gave the Turku Castle a good solid run for its money.





























Thanks for the wonderful hospitality Minna and Mika!!

Back in Tampere, Sarah and Kevin were remarkably eager to put their vegetarianism on hold while they tried things like Tampere's blood sausage specialty. Good job guys!

Easter in Estonia!

I just parted ways with Sarah and Kevin after they motivated me to do some Scandinavian/Baltic traveling with them. I was sad to say good-bye to my first American visitors this year, but glad that we had so much fun! I went with them to Tallinn (Estonia), Helsinki, Turku, and Rauma (to visit Minna and Mika, some Finnish friends). They also came to Tampere for a couple of days. Most spectacularly, they got engaged when they went to Jyvaskyla (I wasn't there, but got to hear about it later), which will undoubtedly lead to generations of pronunciation difficulties, but also sounds really cool: We got engaged in Jyvaskyla. Congrats to Sarah and Kevin!

Here's the Tallin movie:

Voi Että!

Maybe it’s always been like this and it’s only in very recent times that I’ve gotten around to noticing. But it seems like the world is starting to spiral out of control around us and we’re about to be left somewhere in outer space between Pluto (whether it’s a planet or not!) and Neptune. I’m not talking about astronomy. I’m not even talking about science.

I was talking to Sarah and Kevin about this and they kept saying words like profit margin, worker productivity, and cost effectiveness. I’m not an economist, but I think we agreed with one another.

While the EU is a super nice place and has always had its beauty, life has not always been as easy as it currently is (at least in some parts). Many countries have free or very cheap (by American standards) university tuition. Many Finnish students even get paid to attend college. The medical and social security systems are typically quite a bit more available than those in the States. There’s very little homelessness. Old people who didn’t start saving when they were 20 years old don’t have to end their lives in poverty. At least four weeks of paid annual vacation is common. Mothers typically get nine months of paid maternity leave. It’s nice.

I think Finland completely deserves this high quality of life because of its weather and its darkness. They earn it and we should all pay them because they survive their winters (at least most of them do). They also earn it because they learn to speak Finnish fluently, which I’m finding impossible. My friend Sannamari has a four year old son, and even he can speak fluent Finnish in the present, past, and future tenses. He can use the prepositions and postpositions flawlessly. He deserves a free university education. And the rest of Europe deserves it as well. Shoot, we all do.

BUT, some very familiar problems are poking their way through the berry bushes in Finland. Finland’s traffic congestion is on the rise. Europe is starting to rival the States’ consumerism. To complicate things, the birth/immigration rate is lower than the death rate in some EU countries, such as Germany and Finland. The young people are going to have to start working really hard to support the older folks who used to have more children. Will the quality of life get tangled up in the economy? Is the European Union as stable and we think it is? The EU is only 15 years old. The Euro is only eight years old (in terms of physical circulation of actual paper money).

While we’re talking about stability, is the US as stable as we think it is? The National Debt is at 4.9 trillion dollars. If we didn’t have the military, why would anybody want to accept the US dollar as anything other than a little rectangular piece of paper that can survive the laundry?

Basically, this is what I’m thinking about: the developing world is about to take us over. It’ll take about 50 years. First we have to forget how to do manual labor and take care of our basic needs with our own hands. Eventually India and China will realize that not only are they producing valuable goods that everyone is buying all over the world, but no one else is capable of producing those goods because we’re all too busy analyzing our profit margins and worker productivity with our mathematical models (on computers that they mass produced in a matter of minutes, of course). Then, India will say “hey China, Mexico, and all of you guys making cheap, yet valuable, goods, I think there’s a high demand for this crap. We should really charge more for it.” And then they’ll all realize that, in fact, they’re special and have the infrastructure and technical knowledge to control the cost of the world’s valuable goods. The price of shoes will skyrocket. Then my jeans will cost a month’s salary, like they currently do in Bolivia. One thing will lead to another and someone besides newly poverty stricken Europe or the destitute States will take over the world military responsibilities to keep us all safe. They’ll probably do a much better job at it too.

Nicaragua or Bolivia will start offering red-cross health workshops for all of the carpal-tunnel-syndromed, heart-attacked Americans that are now also poor. All of the current American and European-owned companies will quickly be bought out by the rapidly developing- developing countries. In our cities that are considered stable, such as Westwood and Manhattan, they’ll answer our desperate pleas to construct sweatshops so we can have some form of income to feed our starving children. We’ll all try to sneak across the border to work in factories in Mexico. They’ll pay us extra low wages and then they’ll construct a wall to control the illegal immigration.

Just a thought. Anyway, gotta get back to my DNA replication and the statistical analysis of my data.

Russia Round

It was Friday evening when we hopped on our third train for that day. We were off to Russia in the first of two overnight trains for the six day trip. In theory, sight-seeing during the day and traveling at night sounded very efficient. In practice, I wound up getting sick. I actually had hives by the time we got to St. Petersburg. It wasn't just the ground we covered, but Russia's history has been racing through time through extreme wealth balanced out by poverty. Czars, dictators, communism, capitalism, the mysteriously absent poverty, and the KGB are all mixed together in some sort of Eurasian soup.

The Lenin statues are up. The Stalin statues are down. The streets of Moscow were full of fancy business men and women in high-class suits and stiletto high heels that would break my ankles in an instant. It wasn't until St. Petersburg, outside of the cemetery where Tchaikovsky was buried, that I saw my first homeless people in Russia. They were confined to a special area, out of sight of the main flow of traffic (which, by the way, is bad and getting worse-- we spent two hours driving to Catherine's Palace, and only a half driving back).

What I saw was Russia's wealth, though I realize there was a lot that I didn't see. I saw the elaborate cathedrals, art museums, palaces, and historical monuments. It made me wonder what I didn't see.

Here's my Moscow Movie (Moscow-- in no particular order):

After putting together the Moscow Movie, I realized that Leasa also made some GREAT movies and captured some good shots and some good times. Here's her St. Petersburg Movie: Leasa's St. P blog

It was a great trip and boy am I glad that I got to go. The four of us from Lukonmaki had a rockin time with the students from Jyvaskyla and Oulu. Especially with the Dutch guy named Bob who actually got slapped by his cab driver after a disagreement about his cab fare.