French Dinner?

Earlier this week I was invited by Pierre to his French dinner night. He and some of the other French exchange students were cooking French food and had invited some non-French exchange students such as myself. We had baguette, ratatouille, red wine and crepes for dessert. The French students claimed it was not as good as the real thing due to the limited choice in supplies but it was still very good.

I did realize a cultural phenomena that I had not considered before. In terms of understanding culture I have been focused on how Westerners relate to the Chinese. I had not considered the difference among Westerners themselves, let along the dynamic of a multicultural group trying to survive in a culture not represented by the group itself. That night countries represented were France, United States, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Korea, Japan, Canada and China. All of us were getting along and exchanging stories of their home country.

This night also led me to another realization, perhaps even more practical. The world is very much globalized. There are all these students of many nationalities at one school. Furthermore, we all know that we can go to Hong Kong and find multinational business men. We can shop at IKEA or get food from McDonalds. Despite the dinner theme being French food, there was nutella from Germany, the wine from Australia, and the jam was Smucker's, right down the road from my home in Wooster. A very small big world we live in.