Culture Clash

This is my favorite subject to write about.

I had a plan for new year's. 1. Go to Rachel's house. 2. Get drunk. 3. Wake up with a hangover. It was a simple, foolproof plan that had plenty of room for flexibility. Due to a situation out of my control, my carefully detailed itinerary (see 1-3) was derailed. From out of the train-crash remains emerged a moderately stasifying plan devoid of alcohol. The important part (friends? LOL) remained. I suppose.

So I went over to Rachel's house after a shopping spree at Traget (bought a present for my mum). We hung around for a while and listened to Pink Floyd, went to the store and picked up our Jack.

After some camera antics, it was 10 minutes to midnight and I was getting kinda excited, you know? Generally, when you spend new years with Mexicans everyone gets excited and breathey and grabs some champagne or cider and migrates to the TV to watch the spanish-language coverage of the New Year countdown in whatever city. It's exhilirating. I'm generally a very cynical and boring person. Everything is ridiculous to me. Everything. Ever. Except new years. When the count hits zero I want to scream and jump around and hug everyone. That's what you do. You give every person in the room a hug. It's the rules. A hug. No?

Well, New Year's came and went with Jack and Rachel puzzling over the camera/computer/tv situation. (the didn't figure out... I found out that it wasn't compatible with Rachel's Mac after reading the manual)

It was awful. I felt horrible. Like something was going terribly wrong- I mean, there was a mention about no New Year's kiss (I wasn't worrying about that all) and I had a good time filming music videos for strange Swedish and German bands... but it felt wrong, in my core, to not make a big fat deal about the New Year.

I don't know if it's a Mexican thing... Every Mexican family I've spent New Year's with made a super huge deal about it. Tamales, clunking down the street with our suitcases, screaming, dancing, fireworks, crackers and poppers, booze and singing... Is it a Mexican thing?

Is it customary for white folks to just... ignore those ten seconds before the clock hits twelve and New Year begins?

It really hit home when my mom called me at 12:00. She was shouting.

"Feliz Año!!! WHOOO!!! YAHHHH!!!" I could hear my brother shouting in the background. It was so odd, so out of place, to hear those sounds. It was bloodcurdling. The horrible shame with which I'm sure many immigrant's children are acquainted bubble into my chest like bile. THe humiliation of wild, loud, uncouth family made me wince. My mom asked to talk to Jack, to wish him a Happy New Year. I tossed him the phone.

My friend's familiar cultural insesitivity proved my fears correctly. He was perturbed by my mother's insanity and was undoubtedly relieved when the call was dropped. I started to question him about his obvious disgust, but I dropped it because he was suffering from some unfortunate chemical side effects of a biological situation outside his control.

Since I had work early the next morning, I left immediately after we had some cake.

I walked home in the dark, breathing in the New air and dodging truant bullets. I hugged my mom and my brother. It felt good. So good. I was back in my element, the dark sweet sea of my own culture. There were tamales in the kitchen. Corn meal, beans, cheese and jalapeños. The vegetarian ones were tied together by corn husks. It was the progressive meeting the traditional meeting the truth. The TV flickered Latinos in NYC celebrating the dropping of the ball for the second time in the New Year.

And I ate tamales and hugged my brother, celebrating my second New Year's of the night.