Us and Them

I've been out getting stuff for starting a normal office job and began to pay attention to what people are wearing around London. Since I last checked, more people are wearing things that would typically be seen in America, including sweat pants, tennis shoes, stuff with logos on it, and baseball hats. As far back as I can remember, people in England dressed like adults for the most part, slacks, shoes, topcoat, etc on the level of business casual at least. However there is definitely a creeping cultural change here in the UK toward all-things American.

The movie place where we went a few nights ago was surrounded by a bowling alley (didn't exist here more than a few years ago) an "On the Border" type of chain Mexican place, and a Burger King. People no longer have milkmen that bring you what you want in the morning. The mail only comes once a day now. Everyone seems to have a NY Yankees hat or jacket and apparently no one has any idea what sport the team plays. Television now has British versions of everything from "Beauty and the Geek" to "Pimp My Ride", the latter of which is apparently hilariously hosted by a white guy who says "bling" all the time, but I haven't found the listings.

You see this sort of thing going on all around Europe as well. This phenomenon of more Americanization also comes with an increasing amount of diversity in the public sphere - the train could be full of women with hijabs, African guys with African-guy hats, Polish construction workers, Sikh businessmen, and the occasional white English guy. It leads to people here calling for more restrictions on immigration, but it also makes for an amazing city. This evening I had dinner with an Indian-American cousin and her German husband. You see this globalization in major cities in America also and it makes you wonder exactly what it will mean to be from a country or race in the next 50 years. Until we figure that out, they're trying to look American and I'm trying to look English. Well, sort of.