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bio, Italian culture

Born into It: Why You Can’t Become Italian

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Most of the world’s major religions proselytize (for some, it’s a major facet of the faith), and eagerly accept converts. Except Hinduism. Hare Krishnas notwithstanding, you really can’t convert to Hinduism, because it is much more than a set of beliefs and practices. Hinduism is a system that you are born into, a fixed hierarchy of families and castes. You are who you are because of your birth, and nothing can change that. Therefore, logically, anyone born outside the system must forever remain outside.

A non-Hindu can’t become a Hindu.By analogy, I’ve been wondering: can a foreigner become an Italian?

I don’t think so. Not in the same way that an immigrant to America becomes American. I think this has to do with the Italian concept of paese (hometown). You’re born into a paese, you grow up in it, absorbing its cultural and linguistic nuances, its history and traditions. “Italian” isn’t enough to define you; you’ve got to have a paese (and, often, a dialect) as well.

The attachment to paese begins early. Rossella has had trouble finding kids to hang out with after school, because most of her classmates commute to Lecco from smaller towns, where they already have firmly established social circles with whom they spend any leisure time left over from school and family. The frightening part (to me and Ross, anyway) is that, at age 14, they already consider themselves set for life, and will not move outside of their established places and groups unless forced.

They don’t get out, and no outsider (estraneo) gets in. This goes for other Italians as well. Italians who leave their paese to live elsewhere in Italy don’t fit in – they are not part of their new paese of residence, and never will be. One exception is Milan. I recently met an Italian who told me that, when he wanted to return to Italy after years abroad, he deliberately chose Milan as the most welcoming city in Italy, both to foreigners and Italian strangers.

Which is not to say that people in smaller towns are cold, far from it. My experience of the Lecchesi is that they are warm and welcoming and happy to have us here. But we’ll never be Lecchesi.

That’s okay with me. As a third-culture kid, I long ago resigned myself to never fitting in anywhere (except Woodstock). We have friends in Lecco whose company I enjoy, but these days I am expanding my social circles among expatriates. Interestingly, some Italians also seek out opportunities to socialize with expats, because they have themselves lived overseas and, as often happens to travellers from any country, find that they no longer quite fit in when they return “home.”

Apr 27, 2004

This article was widely read and responded to. One interesting thread came up on eGullet (I posted the article there at the invitation of one of the moderators), where some very knowledgeable people discussed the phenomenon in terms of Italian and European history.

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bio, living in Italy

You Want Me to Put that Where?!?

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Cultural Differences in Medication Methods, US and Italy

There are cultural differences between Italy and the US even in seemingly small things, such as how medicines are administered. I got through a childhood of many, many medicines without ever using a suppository – except once. That once is still imprinted on my mind as one of the more humiliating, not to mention uncomfortable, experiences of my life. So I was unpleasantly surprised to find that suppositories were routinely prescribed for Rossella‘s childhood fevers. I guess the logic is that it’s easier to ensure that a small child gets the correct dosage that way, but it wasn’t fun for anybody.There are even adult-sized suppositories, though I’ve never heard of anyone actually using them. But then I don’t suppose that’s something you’d discuss in casual conversation…

The favored medicine format for adults is the bustina (little envelope), of a powder which is mixed with water, forming a fizzy and more or less palatable decoction. Beyond that, it’s plain old pills – none of these wimpy American capsules or gel caps, just swallow it down and quit complaining.

Then there’s my once new, now old, friend – the aerosol. This is a machine with a noisy little motor that compresses air. You attach a rubber tube to it, then a glass “nebulizer” into which you put liquid medicine. The final glass piece, connected by a rubber joining ring, can be a nasal “fork” (in two sizes), a mouthpiece, or a soft plastic mask that covers nose and mouth. The compressed air is forced through the nebulizer, where it mixes with the medicine to create an aerosol which you then breathe in – excellent for getting the medicine to where it’s actually needed for respiratory problems. A beneficial side effect, for people like me who often won’t sit still long enough to rest even when we need it, is that you are tethered to the machine for the half-hour that it takes to inhale all the medicine. But that’s a drawback when you have to treat a small child.

Because I am often clumsy and drop things, I was initially nervous of handling all that delicate-looking glass, but it turns out to be not as delicate as it looks, and in any case you can buy replacement parts at the pharmacy.

Another area of cultural difference in medicine is how you obtain it. It pays to make friends with your local pharmacist, because, once she learns to know and trust you, she will often let you have things that technically are supposed to be available only by prescription – very handy when you know exactly what you’ve got and how to treat it, but can’t get hold of your doctor to write the prescription.

You do eventually want to get the prescription so that you can get some money back. Most pharmacies will sell you something on an emergency basis, then refund your money when you come back with the official prescription form which allows them to charge it (in whole or in part) to the national health service.

Apr 27, 2004

Mike Looijmans says re. suppositories: “The Dutch words for those are many, and translate into things like “ass grenade”, “plug-in” and “stick-up”. I cannot even recall the official word for them…”

He and others rightly pointed out that they’re often used for children (and sometimes adults) when they might be expected to throw up any medicine taken orally.

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bio, Italian food

Holiday Treats – Italian Seasonal Goodies

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Any excuse is good for eating sweets, but seasonal treats that are only available during certain holidays are the best excuse of all. (No, I’m not talking about pumpkin-flavored coffee from Starbucks.)
Italy has one or more special sweets for every holiday. For Christmas, it’s panettone (a leavened cake with canditi – candied fruit – and raisins) and pandoro (a yellow cake cooked in a tall, star-shaped mold).

At Carnevale, it’s tortelli and chiacchere. Tortelli are fried, hollow balls of pastry, sometimes filled with cream, chocolate, etc. Chiacchere (literally, “chatter”) are deep-fried crackery things, liberally dusted with powdered sugar. These very fattening items were meant to be a sweet indulgence before the privations of the Lenten season, but nowadays, for the weight-conscious, oven-baked chiacchere are widely available.

My favorite seasonal sweet is coming up soon, for Easter: the colomba, a dove-shaped cake (as the name implies), similar to panettone but, instead of canditi and raisins incorporated into the batter, it features a cracked glaze topping with sugar grains and almonds.

Easter also means chocolate easter eggs. These are commonly about a foot tall and hollow, with a “treat” of some kind rattling around inside – sometimes more chocolate, but often a trinket or toy or, in the expensive versions, a piece of jewelry. There are plenty of crass commercial eggs available, themed with the latest kids’ obsession (yes, I am trying to find “Eggolas” for my daughter). But the best eggs are generally hand-made at your local pasticceria (bakery) from good-quality chocolate. Sometimes they are elaborately decorated with hard icing, but most often they are wrapped in pretty paper and decorated with frothy ribbons, flowers, etc. The bakery eggs also have treats inside but, to me, the treat is on the outside. Break off shards of a good-quality dark chocolate egg for the perfect accompaniment to a really good colomba.

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Americans Learning Languages

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“The bill, called the International Studies Higher Education Act (HR 3077), reauthorizes about $80 million in funding for international and foreign language study, but with a twist – now the government would allocate more resources to programs that emphasize national security.”

Speaking in ‘approved’ tongues, Kimberly Chase, from the March 11, 2004 edition Christian Science Monitor

Language professors are reported to be up in arms, but selective funding of language study is hardly a new phenomenon. My bachelor’s degree was partly funded by the US government, at a time when President Reagan was cutting most education funding. Apparently Casper Weinberger (Reagan’s Secretary of Defense) argued to preserve funding for certain kinds of language studies, on national security grounds; I was paid for almost every semester that I studied Hindi and Urdu, including my study abroad year in India.

What the government hoped to get out of this was obvious: On my first visit to the Department of Oriental and African Languages and Literatures (DOALL) at the University of Texas, I couldn’t help noticing the announcement of a CIA recruiting visit to campus, prominently displayed on one of the bulletin boards. Printed into the CIA letterhead were the words: “Central Intelligence Agency – Don’t You Think It’s Time We Got to Know Each Other Better?”

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Fitting Clothes

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An article in the Christian Science Monitor confirms what I have long suspected: clothing size has nothing to do with body size, and indeed is not uniform even from manufacturer to manufacturer.

I began to wonder about this years ago, when shopping for shorts in a mall. Much to my surprise, I ended up buying a pair in size 8, at a “Petites” store. I don’t think much about clothing, but I do remember clearly that, when I was in college in 1983, I had a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt designer jeans. They were, as the mode of the day demanded, skin-tight, the kind you have to lie down on the bed to slide into. And they were size 12. Ten years and a child later, how could I possibly wear a size 8?

I had also been experimenting with sewing my own clothing. I never got good at it, but it kept me amused while I was home with the infant Rossella, so, during this same trip, we went shopping for sewing patterns.

“What size do you take?” asked the clerk.

I shrugged helplessly, my usual answer to that question. “I have no idea.”

So she measured me, and announced: “Size 14.”

This sounded reasonable, but I was still puzzled about the shorts, and told her the story.

She replied: “The clothing industry keeps deflating the sizes, to make people think they’re skinnier. Pattern sizes have never changed.”

According to the article, the clothing industry now has a lot of new data about the shape of American bodies, which they will use to redesign their styles to fit people better, although it is already clear that most brands will not be altering their sizing to achieve uniformity with the others. So you’ll still need to know what size you are in a specific label in order to get a good fit, a marketing trick to ensure brand loyalty. It works, too – part of the reason I buy a lot at Lands’ End is that I already know what size will fit me.

For me, buying clothing in stores is endlessly frustrating. My basic problem – incomprehension and dislike of most clothing – is compounded by living, travelling, and shopping in so many other countries. European sizes might be uniform across brands for all I know, but I don’t shop enough for the numbers to stick in my mind, so I never know what size I’m buying. Except shoes – I know that I wear a size 39 in Italy and 8 1/2 in the US.

Shopping in Italy is difficult for me because Italian women apparently have a very different body shape than I do. Judging by what’s in the stores, Italian women when young are thin and straight – no hips, not much chest. In middle age they become barrel-shaped. Either way, the clothes don’t fit me. (Luckily for them, they also don’t have the stomach curving out in front that I have.)

The best solution to the clothing problem for me has been custom-made, in India, where wonderful fabrics and talented tailors come very cheap. I still wear a beautiful skirt and jacket of black raw silk that I had made back in 1986 – it’s almost too dressy for business occasions. Unfortunately, I haven’t had enough time on recent trips to India to pursue this solution. And people wonder why I dress like a slob.

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