the Culture of Cruising

We recently returned from a week-long Caribbean Cruise on Carnival. It was my first cruise, and I wasn't 100% excited about the idea, but I went along with it anyway. Cruising turned out to be a lot of fun! And none of the bad stuff I was worried about happened (seasickness, norovirus, shipwreck, being stranded at sea...) so that was nice.

We had 4 sea days and 3 port days. This means we had a lot of time aboard to interact with our 3,500+ fellow passengers. Some things I observed:

1. Home state pride. This cruise departed from New Orleans, so many people on board were from Louisiana. And they were proud of it! I'm glad I already had lived in the south for almost a year before taking this cruise because otherwise it would have been kind of disorienting to hear so many people talking about college football and other Southern things. The first night during the Welcome Aboard show, a raucous chant of "LSU! LSU!" broke out, and when the host said something about Auburn, there was lots of booing.

During the week, everyone kept saying "Who dat?" in response to someone asking about Louisiana and/or New Orleans. I found out that is a chant for the Saints.

2. People like to make fun of Cajuns. Cajuns are descendants of French-speaking settlers of Louisiana, and they've created their own unique subculture. Apparently they are now most famous for being on a show called "Swamp People." I really knew hardly anything about Cajuns before except that their food is usually spicy. The ship had comedy shows almost every night, and one comedian spent most of his show making fun of Cajuns. The audience was roaring! I mean, falling out of their chairs, laughing so hard some people were crying. I really didn't get what was so funny. You probably have to know some Cajuns to understand.

3. There was a lot of food available. I got the feeling that Carnival was trying to fatten us all up. There is literally some food option available 24/7 on the ship. Breakfast in various forms can be found from 6:30am - 1:00pm. There are 5 or 6 lunch options. You've got an assigned time for dinner, but you can also hit up the buffet. In between, there are numerous snack opportunities, as well as the midnight snack time. On the last day they had this lavish chocolate decadence bar that was overflowing with desserts. To be honest, I was kind of grossed out by the end of the week. And no wonder norovirus spreads quickly on ships! People are always eating, and you're serving yourself with common buffet utensils, then eating with your hands! I always used silverware on board and washed my hands frequently. Call me paranoid, but I didn't get sick :)

Now that I'm a cruising veteran, I can say that I think this type of vacation has its place. If there if somewhere you want to visit but not spend a very long time, or if you enjoy just getting away from it all and letting a travel company take care of all the details, then a cruise might be the right choice. For me, I usually prefer having more time to explore new places and experience different aspects of cultures - more than you can see in a half-day excursion. I also like having some actual peace and quiet once in awhile.

Home Sweet Home :)

Leave-Taking Behavior

If you aren't a cultural anthropologist, you might not have heard of "leave-taking behavior" before, so let me explain. It's basically a fancy way to talk about how people indicate, both verbally and non-verbally, that they are going to depart from the company of whomever they're presently with. This culturally-conditioned behavior is taught to us as children ("Wave bye-bye!" "Give grandma a kiss goodbye," and so on). And so far in my experience, I've observed some notable differences between Southerners and Pacific Northwesterners in this regard.

*caveat* All of my anecdotal observational data comes from interacting with friends, not family members. I suspect that familial leave-taking behavior may vary. My own extended family has rituals like going around and personally saying goodbye to everyone present. But since I don't have any relatives in Memphis and I hardly ever hang out at other people's family gatherings, I have nothing concrete to report on that topic.

1. Length of time it takes to leave

From the time someone first says, "We probably should be going" to when they actually walk out the door, how long does that usually last, in your cultural context? Factors that may influence behavior: the total number of people present, the type of activity, the intimacy of communication that has been experienced thus far, and the importance of timeliness to the person's next engagement. So far I think the record that I've seen in Memphis is about 40 minutes. This happened at our apartment when we had 2 other couples over for dinner. Around 8:30, one person asked their spouse what time it was and commented on how they should probably get home to the kids. The other spouse agreed. But, they didn't get up from the table and continued talking. Eventually we all collected dishes to take to the kitchen, and the conversation shifted to something else. It had probably been about 15 minutes by this point. Spouse #1 again mentioned that they should be heading out. The other couple agreed that they needed to leave, too. Then somehow a gender divide happened, with the women talking in the kitchen and the men in the living room. Again, about 15 minutes passed. Spouse #1 gathered their belongings and started moving towards the exit, but spouse #2 needed to use the restroom. Finally, goodbyes were said all around and the first couple left. The second couple stayed a few minutes longer before also heading out the door.

Interesting, isn't it! I haven't experienced this long of leave-taking behavior in Seattle. Usually, I would wait until the time I actually need to leave, then say something to the effect of, "Well, it's getting late" or "we have to get up early for work tomorrow" or even just "it's been so great to see you! We should probably be heading out." Then within maybe 5 minutes, I'd be gone. 

I think the longer leave-taking behavior ritual may symbolize a level of comfort or familiarity on the part of Southerners, that you don't feel like you need to rush off after your designated activity (in this case, dinner) has finished. But I don't understand why they would announce their intentions to leave so much earlier than they actually walk out the door. In my cultural upbringing, you wait until you actually have to leave, and then you go. It's less drawn out. And perhaps, less friendly? I will say that when these people took a long time to leave my house, it made me feel like they enjoyed our company and were not eager to depart. I felt the same way about my friends in Seattle, but I would have probably communicated it verbally, by saying "we had such a great time! It's always so fun to hang out with you," etc. 

2. The importance of being on time

I really don't have enough data to fully expound on this point, as my main frame of reference is church. The people in our Sunday School class (yes, in Memphis, adults go to Sunday School) arrive at class at least 10 minutes after the scheduled start time, and then we don't leave on time to get to the church service. After class is over, the culturally appropriate behavior is to talk to the other people about whatever is on your mind, including but not limited to college sports, the Grizzlies, upcoming social events, people's children, the weather, what restaurants you've been to lately...just general life stuff. I like to get to the church service for the singing part at the beginning, but I feel kind of awkward being the first ones to leave. So we usually stay and chat for awhile until the conversation starts to die down.

Also, the church has two services with Sunday School in between, so some people are just going to be heading home after class and aren't in a hurry to leave.

The exception here might be parents with young children that they have to go pick up from the nursery. Young children's impact on their parents' leave-taking behavior is a subject for other scholars with more first-hand experience, though.

3. Group normative behavior

Here's another anecdote for you. A few months back, some friends invited us over for a game night. We knew the one couple who was hosting, but we hadn't met any of the other attendees before. We'd eaten snacks and played a couple group games. One game had just wrapped up and we were deciding what to do next when, all of a sudden (in my perception), two people said they needed to get going because they had to get up early in the morning. Then all of the other guests (about 8 total) all hopped up saying that they needed to leave, too. In about 5 minutes, they were all out the door. I was surprised! I had never seen a group of people leave so quickly in Memphis! D.F. and I stayed to play another board game. When we were setting up the game, we looked out the window and saw the other party-goers standing in the driveway, continuing a conversation for about 10 minutes. Aha! My theories about the South prevail! These people couldn't resist the pull of Southern leave-taking rituals that one does not simply bid a group farewell and then depart. No, it is important to extend the gathering and conversation for an appropriate amount of time, even if that means standing in the driveway talking in the dark. 

I'm sure I'll have other observations as time goes on. And if you are one of my Memphis friends and recognize yourself in these stories, I hope you don't mind me studying your behavior for anthropological purposes :)  I just find y'all very fascinating!

Crawfish Festival

Festival season has begun in Memphis! Our first event of the year? The Overton Square Crawfish Festival. 

Saturday was gorgeous outside with high temperatures pushing 80. (This is a nice thing about the South - we have like 6 months here that would qualify as summer compared to Seattle.) Overton Square is a pretty hip area of town where we've hung out a few times before. The streets were hopping this weekend with crawfish lovers, vendors, and bands. 

In true Memphis festival tradition, the attendees seemed to really enjoy freely drinking in public. (They don't have beer gardens here - you can just walk around sipping your beverage of choice.) 

  

So in the interest of full disclosure, neither of us had ever eaten crawfish (or crayfish or crawdads) before this weekend. They are more of a Louisiana delicacy, but that didn't seem to stop everyone from chowing down. We decided to be brave and buy ourselves a 3 pound batch to try. I had to ask the internet how to eat them. It's a lot of work! But actually, they're pretty tasty.

D.F. reminisced about his childhood days of crawdad hunting in the ponds/sewers of South Dakota. It was a little weird for him to eat the critters he used to catch!

Dine Around Memphis: International Edition

DF and I like going out to eat at new and different restaurants. If I was making a list, I'd include it among our hobbies. You could probably project all kinds of psychological dimensions on this, like it's because neither of ate at restaurants very often as children...so now we're making up for lost time :)

The last edition of Dine Around Memphis was more domestic-focused. Lately we've been checking out various international flavors. It's a little harder to find "exotic" restaurants here than in Seattle. (There is a serious shortage of teriyaki in Memphis, too.) But if you do a little research, you can find some good choices.

Here's just a sampling of where we've been in the last week or so. (I really do cook at home sometimes, promise! Actually the week before this, we hardly went out at all.)

Sunday - Indian buffet at Mayuri. I LOVE Indian buffets. They are one of my favorite types of restaurants. I like to try a little bit of all the different dishes, because I like almost all Indian food and it's rather boring to have to pick just one. Mayuri's butter chicken is totally delicious. Definitely worth taking a Lactaid to eat it :)  They had some type of cabbage dish this time that I also really liked - bonus - it had lentils!

Monday - in honor of St. Patrick's day, we had Chinese food. Ha ha! This is our tradition actually, starting a few years back. We used to live close to an Irish pub in Seattle, so we walked over there on St. Patrick's Day only to find out they were charging a $10 cover just to get in the door. We were like, "um, no thanks!" and proceeded down the street to our local Chinese establishment. And after that, it became a tradition! This year we did happy hour at P.F. Changs. Not quite as quaint and local, but still pretty tasty.

Tuesday - BBQ. Ok, that's not exactly international. But what would a week of dining in Memphis be without it? Germantown Commissary is da bomb! I got chicken and beans. Their beans are really good. They don't have jalapenos in them like some other BBQ places. And their prices are really reasonable. I mean, $5.45 for half a chicken - who can beat that?!

Wednesday - dinner at church. It was taco salad night. Does that count as being international?

Thursday - the first day of spring is Persian New Year/Nowruz, so I decided we needed to eat something semi-Persian. Yelp directed me to the cumbersomely-named Mediterranean Pita Sandwich & Grill. Oh my word, Memphians who read this blog, you have GOT to try this place. Yes, it is kind of strange because it's half grocery store/half restaurant, and we were the only patrons there, but it is really good! I had the vegetarian platter because it had all the things I love - grape leaves (dolmas), falafel, hummus, and baba ganoush. This restaurant is kind of randomly hidden in the corner of a strip mall so they probably don't get much foot traffic. But seriously, it is worth the drive. Also DF was happy that they don't put onions on their gyros.

Doesn't this all sound tasty? Three cheers to Memphis for being exotic and delicious!

Volunteering: New Territory

Memphis is a youthful city - we ranked #9 on a Forbes list of "Future Cities" due to the percentage of population under age 14. The 2010 census found 26% of Memphis residents were under 18. If we can support and nurture these young people to develop essential skills, they have great potential to help turn the tide of some of the negative factors Memphis is dealing with. Unfortunately, though, the city faces a number of issues that affect children, and education is one of the big ones.

I have neither the historical understanding nor personal experience to attempt to explain the Shelby County School District to my non-Memphian readers. Let's just sum it up by saying that the school district has some problems, and there are places where children are really struggling due to a variety of factors. I've recently begun volunteering with a program for some kids who need help. 

To preserve the privacy of everyone involved, I'll call it Calvin School. This particular program is implemented by a non-profit organization in cooperation with Calvin (at least, that's my understanding so far!) I'm helping out with a reading program that uses curriculum structured to help students improve reading fluency, accuracy, and comprehension. Not all the students at Calvin participate, just those who have been identified as needing the most help with reading. 

At first I was a little worried, since I haven't actually worked much with native English speakers - my background is more in English as a Second Language. All the students in this program except one are native English speakers. But as we went through the training materials, I realized that a lot of my ESL skills actually could be applicable. 

When I went to the school for the first time this week, my GPS sent me to a new part of the city I hadn't visited yet. I made some initial anthropological field notes, but I'll withhold them from publication until I've been able to observe in more detail. Also I didn't actually get to meet any of the kids yet! I did training last week, and they're out on Spring Break now. This gives me an extra week to brush up on my phonics skills!

Luckily I learned all about phonics when I was a kid. Now let's see if I can access those far recesses of my memory bank...ah ha! I knew the internet would help me :) If you scroll through that article, you'll see a chant I learned in elementary school about the sounds that letters make. I went a little something like this:

A block A block A A A

B beating heart, b- b- b-

C cracking nut, k- k- k-

D knocking on door, d- d- d-

and etc...

(full disclosure, that article was really long and boring, so I didn't read most of it. I hope it was saying it's in favor of reading!)

Riding in Memphis

My parents raised me like a good Oregonian to appreciate public transportation. Heck, I started riding the school bus in kindergarten! When I was in middle school, I rode the city bus across town, by myself, to help out at a day camp. During my study abroad excursion in Central America I hopped on and off all sorts of public transit. I did own a car from age 23-25, but as soon as I moved to DC I sold my little sedan and (usually) happily got around town via bus or Metro. The next 5 years I spent car-free until marrying into vehicle ownership. Even then, D.F. and I just had the one car and I took the bus to work. 

All that preamble to say, it's been a bit of an adjustment to live in Memphis, which is a really car-dependent place by comparison. We're actually fortunate to be within walking distance (0.5 miles) of a grocery store and other shops. Since I work from home, there's really no need for us to have two cars, but the bus system here has a kind of bad reputation, so I've been hesitant to try it. 

But today, necessity won out. I had to be at an appointment before D.F. would be home from work to give me the car. When I checked the bus routes online, I realized it was just a straight shot on one bus for me, so I figured what the heck, let's give it a try! 

The way that Memphians talk about the bus, I was expecting it to be a total sketch-fest of weirdness, but y'all, I gotta tell you, it was just about the most normal, uneventful bus ride I've ever taken. For real! I fully confess that I only have one data point, and for my study to be conclusive, I'd need to conduct further research. But I will testify that based on my limited experience, the bus seems totally fine to me. 

Here is what I observed on my 35 minute ride around 4:30pm:

• Passengers: mostly young African-American women. People playing on their phones, some chatting.
• Number of riders: lots! The bus was pretty much full, but almost everyone had a seat
• Timeliness: bus arrived to my stop 3 minutes after scheduled time
• Fare: $1.70 one way
• Driver's ability: drove safely, if a bit slowly
• Weirdos: maybe one, depends on how you define "weirdo." A young man was sitting up on a wheel well where I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to sit. But he didn't seem that weird, just like he didn't care about the rules.

By comparison, here is what I usually experienced in Seattle:

• Passengers: wide variety of age, gender, race. People playing on their phones, some chatting. Often homeless people with big carts and dogs, especially downtown. 
• Number of riders: during rush hour, totally crammed, standing room only followed by another bus that is half full, which passes you on the viaduct while you stare longingly at it from your sardine can
• Timeliness: good at picking you up on time, but then you'll get stuck in a huge traffic jam and be late arriving
• Fare: $3.00 one way during rush hour
• Driver's ability: drive like maniacs because they have to if they ever want to escape the aforementioned traffic jam
• Weirdos: HA HA HA! like half the bus! Someone will be trying to start a drum circle in the back, teenagers making out, tons of piercings everywhere, an old dude ranting about something...
• Bikes: no one was using the bike rack in Memphis today, but lots of people load their bikes in Seattle

Now before you think everything is rainbows and butterflies over here at MATA, I must tell you, it's not. Service is woefully inadequate for a city of this size. The bus I caught today was running every 30 minutes down one of the busiest streets in town. In rush hour! The comparable routes in Seattle run every 5-7 minutes during peak hours.

Route options: really lacking. Here is the system map, if you're interested. Look at those huge gaps between bus lines! And also note how the routes are set up, mostly, on a wheel-and-spoke system. Meaning, imagine that downtown is the center of the wheel, and all the other routes are spokes that go out from it. So if you want to go anywhere, you'll probably have to ride downtown, wait, transfer, and then head back out. And remember, each bus is only running a couple times an hour, so you might be waiting a long time.

The reason both of the above are really important is that Memphis is a city with a lot of poverty. Owning and maintaining a car can quickly eat up a huge chunk of your income, especially if you're working a low-wage job. Activists are trying to raise awareness. Some people are talking about plans, at least. 

Leadership is another issue. MATA is currently searching for a new general manager, and although certain groups are calling for an outsider to come in and shake up business as usual, I get the impression that's not how things usually play out around town. Just in case the future leader reads my blog, I will now offer a few meager suggestions.

Fares: why is the fare $1.70? Who caries around dimes with them? Just make it $1.75. But as an aside, I noticed a lot of people using magnetic stripe pass cards, so maybe most people don't pay with cash and it doesn't matter.

Technology: I couldn't find any app like One Bus Away for MATA so I just looked up my trip on Google. When I arrived at my stop, a sign listed an email address and stop number, and it said you could text for an update on your bus's arrival time. I sent a text but got no response. If you want young, wired people to use your services, MATA, you've got to make it more user friendly.  

Stop spacing: MATA really needs to look at re-spacing their bus stops. There were blocks that literally had 2 stops about 100 feet apart. That is ridiculous, and it results in slow service.

And thus ends my naive bus post based on a single ride. I'll have to hop on again sometime soon to gather more data! 

Nashville!

Living in a land-locked state has its benefits, such as being within driving distance of several fun places to visit. Our most recent destination was Nashville, TN. It was a blast! Here's a summary of the high points.

Food/Drink
Southern food is alive and well in Nashville, and we thoroughly enjoyed the culinary stops on our tour. We hit up Peg Leg Porker, 55 South, and Loveless Cafe, and Merchants, just to name a few. Plus we stopped by the Yazoo brewery. Word to the wise: reserve your brewery tickets in advance. It was already sold out when we got there, so we consoled ourselves with a beer sampler :)

 Oops, I ate half my sandwich before I remembered to stop and take a picture!

 This pecan french toast from 55 South was sooooo delicious!

This was from a dinner made up of lots of snacks. First snack: fried sampler platter. It has okra, pickles, catfish, and shrimp. My favorite was pickles, of course :)

On the next stop, DF got a salad and I got a Jack and coke. Hey, I already ate lots of fried veggies!

History
(from oldest to youngest) President Andrew Jackson's home (the Hermitage), the Tennessee State Capitol building, and various sites related to the Battle of Franklin (Civil War).

The kitchen at the Carter House, one of the main places where fighting occurred during the Battle of Franklin

The Hermitage is undergoing some repairs and renovations. Hey, it's like 200 years old, what are you going to do?

Final resting place of Andrew and Rachel Jackson, along with some other family members

The view looking down the hill from the Capitol. Isn't it depressing how all the grass turns brown here in the winter? I've heard it will just magically green up some day...I suppose this must be true, as it was quite green when we arrived in late May.

During a heated dispute way back in the day, a shot was fired in the Capitol. Look, here's the evidence on the banister!

Music
What visit to Nashville would be complete without live music? We did the Grand Ole Opry one night and boogied at the honky tonks another. It was awesome to hear so many talented musicians, especially the fiddle players!

Friends
Thanks to Facebook, I knew that two of my West Coast friends now live in Music City. We got to meet one friend and her family and saw another's husband play a live show!

Sightseeing
I recognize we were doing sightseeing in general, but it's the best title for the category of visits to the Parthenon and Opryland Hotel. The hotel is amazing! It reminded me of a giant Vegas hotel, except without a casino. There are huge plants/trees inside, waterfalls, a river...so cool! The Parthenon is a full-scale replica of the Greek one. It was originally built in 1897 for the Tennessee Centennial Exhibition, but that first version was made out of plaster and quickly began to crumble. The permanent one was built in the 1920s after the citizens of Nashville clamored for it, since their city was known as the Athens of the South. Now, it's an art museum.

Yes, that is inside a hotel!

 A ceiling mosaic in the hotel lobby

The Parthenon...and more dead grass

Photos are only allowed on the second floor where there is this giant Athena statue.

Other Stuff
Being good southerners, we went to church on Sunday (First Presbyterian) where we found out that people dress up A LOT, like everyone was wearing a suit, except us. Aaaaawk-ward! But the building is cool and old, so that was a plus. The town of Franklin is quite charming and has done a great job of modernizing while still preserving history. We ate at the Aquarium restaurant and I took an outrageous amount of fish pictures.

And last but not least, Nashville has a Trader Joe's. Hip hip, hooray! I stocked up on all my favorite non-perishable snacks and am trying not to devour them all at once now that we're home.

It was a great trip! There's still so much more to do there...hmm, maybe we'll have to make a return visit someday :)