Shop...Give...Get...Return and the Cycle Continues

For Christmas this year I, like anyone celebrating a holiday this winter season, received a couple gifts that I didn't particularly like and wanted to exchange.  Different color this, wrong size that, the usual suspects.  When I took a trip over to the mall to try and make such an exchange, it was easily apparent that many and I mean many people wanted to make such an exchange as well.  I went to the mall the day after Christmas, and the parking lot was sprawling with cars driven by frustrated, impatient patrons.  You would be practically ousted from society if you decided to not subscribe to the regular holiday traditions by not getting someone a gift, yet those people receiving the gift are not bound liking it despite the amount of time and thought you may have put in.  At Target stores there are whole segmented desk areas for the sole purpose of making returns and exchanges.

The thing is, however, it is never this simple.  According to an article from a story done by CBS's Augusta, Georgia affiliate, people have lots of different and valid reasons for making returns the day after.  "I bought some games for my nephew.  I decided I had bought too many.  So I needed to return something," said a shopper in the news story.

Whatever the reason may be for taking a gift back, the article said that during this holiday season almost 40 percent of us are expected to return one of our presents.  I suppose it's easy to do with all of the advantageous post-holiday sales that stores advertise nowadays.  My only fear, however, is that people will just give up and just give a gift card or money for the holidays.  Then the magic of receiving a big, colorfully wrapped box with a neat bow tie on top and wondering what's inside until you tear the wrapping paper off in a whirlwind of fervor to find what you now have will be lost, though.  We can't lost this emotional part of the holidays in lieu of the logical choice of not giving something to someone because of the risk that they may not like it though.  In my opinion, people do not remember specific things as well as the feeling they had at the time that the specific thing was in their life.  What's more significant: 1) remembering getting a scooter and learning to go off a jump or 2) remembering the excitement and happiness of receiving a scooter and recalling the thrill/pride of learning to jump?

It seems that Americans, or perhaps Westerners in general, often care more about option one from above: just getting something.  Gift giving can sometimes be looked upon as a formality, and if one doesn't conform, it's automatically a faux pas.  In other cultures besides Western ones, gift giving is popular, but there is a little more that goes into the process.  One article about Japanese culture says, "In Japan, it's customary to give gifts periodically to certain people, such as co-workers, bosses, parents, relatives, teachers, and so on.  These gifts are given to express gratitude."  This time is somewhat like the holiday gift giving custom in the U.S., but the average price is about three to five thousand yen in Japan, which equals about forty to sixty dollars per gift.  These gifts are called "o-seibo" and "o-chugen".  The fact that these gifts are given to people other than family and close friends differentiates it from American culture and shows the amount of thought the Japanese put into the idea of gift giving.  If Americans receive gifts from family only to return them the next day, what would we think about buying expensive. ornately wrapped gifts for mere co-workers?      

Made in the USA

Over holiday break, my brother, mom, and I are currently visiting my cousins in the greater Boston area and while spending some time here, we've spent some time sightseeing historical sites.  A few days ago, we took a walk over the North Bridge in Concord.  The North Bridge is the starting place of the Revolutionary War and is famously dubbed as the location where the, "shot heard 'round the world" was fired.  The bridge crossed over a small river and led to a gravel path which wound up a hill to a little gift shop-museum building.  We bought a small ornament there to serve as a testament to our visit and as a pretty addition to our Christmas tree at home.  We joked around as to where the ornament was made since it was such an American artifact and things are so often made in other countries like China nowadays.  I pored over the small ornament, which has a picture of the minuteman statue, to find that it was hand painted in Russia.

I thought to myself, "I'm at one of the most important sites in the United States' history and they sell items made in other countries here?"  It was funny at the time due to the apparent irony, but I later thought about how lame this actually was.  There was no authenticity in the ornament now besides the fact that we actually bought it at the North Bridge.  However disappointed I was, the ornament is still nice and we are still happy with it.  So how important is it that something is genuinely authentic if the product is the same or better?  Also, if the ornament couldn't be painted as well in the United States as it could have been in Russia, then maybe we are doing the site better justice if it's painted in Russia.


According to North Carolina State University economist Mike Walden, "Now 12 percent of the durable goods that we buy are made in China, but only half of that 12 percent is using Chinese inputs.  The rest China does by assembling parts that come from other countries."  China is, of course, the primary source of the U.S.'s foreign imports.  If you watch the video to the right, ABC News reports that 98% of the clothes made for the United States are made overseas and the majority of that is from China.  The report also shows the massive price difference between Chinese and American factory wages, the root of outsourcing United States jobs, which has helped to fuel the current economic crisis.


All of this is somewhat besides the point as it pertains to the ornament we bought in Concord, but it is still relevant in terms of the current economic situation in the United States.  The fact is that the ornament we bought is about something strictly American, yet it was made overseas.  I'm sure there are Americans who could paint the piece just as well.  No matter how well they could paint it, though, the odds are that the American would charge more for their work than the Chinese, Hondurans, or in my particular case, the Russians.  Why is this?  Why does someone in China work all day for $14 and someone in Michigan for $88 a day?  Is this something that is at the root of Americans' ideals? 

Satire and Society

Last year, our high school started a satirical newspaper where students write articles that basically poke fun at whatever ideas they can muster up in their heads.  This year, I've begun writing for this newspaper, and it's so far been a blast.  I find that writing something for comedic purposes is often quite relieving, fun, and exciting; it's exciting to see how people will react.  I've always been a junkie for laughter and love to hear other people laugh at my jokes, no matter how stupid they may be.  I began to wonder as I wrote some of my articles, however, what the significance is to a satirical newspaper besides making people laugh.

At first, I thought that making fun of issues in society can be an interesting and raw perspective straight into the eyes of the public.  For example, if Saturday Night Live makes a hilarious skit about how there are always so many people in any given Apple Store not really doing anything but playing around with the various gadgets, this can send an important and true message about what is considered important to people in today's society.  Satirizing something is a gateway into what people are thinking and it often (but not always) adds a spin to relate it to real life or to make it funny.

According to an article titled The Purpose and Method of Satire, "Inseparable from any definition of satire is its corrective purpose, expressed through a critical mode which ridicules or otherwise attacks those conditions needing reformation in the opinion of the satirist."

Above all, the author is saying, true satire highlights what is wrong in society and offers a solution or a "correction." Of course, our high school satirical newspaper is not a relay of society's ideas, that's more the purpose of a free press.  Our ultimate goal is to be funny by finding out and exploiting what is wrong in high school, suburban, or global society.  In doing this, there is a sense of connection people feel to one another to see that something they see everyday is seen by someone else and they can talk about this with other people.  An illustration of this is found in the show Seinfeld, where some of the funniest episodes are making fun of what we see all the time.  This has commonly been dubbed as "observational humor" and an example is shown in the clip from Seinfeld shown above to the right.

You'll notice in the clip that George, the bald character, is describing a moment in a hotel that many of us have probably experienced and this connection is what's supposed to make it funny.  Same goes for the part with the woman at the payphone.  This part suggests a societal issue of the time (early 90s), however.  Back when this show aired, payphones were commonplace and therefore societal issues arose from this that led to popular t.v. show satire.  This is similar to the Apple store example mentioned above; as the times change, so do peoples' interests and opinions, and these are often relayed through the channel of satire.  Can you name a time when something funny also made you think about the society you're living in?  You could ask yourself, "what makes this so funny and how/why is this significant?"

Why aren't We Nicer and should America Make Us?

I was browsing through the home page of the New York Times and found one of the first articles to be about Somalia, a topic that has lost much media coverage in the past decade or so.  What most know about Somalia, however, still remains.  It's still horrifically violent, impoverished, and conflicted, but with a major change.  The African Union has been sending troops into Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, to officially wipe out the heinous militant group known as the Shabab.  The article says that they are making strides to killing off the Shabab, who have been wreaking havoc in Somalia as far back as the U.S.'s peacekeeping attempt known as Black Hawk Down in 1993.  At the end of the article, though, the author poses an interesting and painfully true question.  He writes, "What will these African Union sacrifices amount to?  All peacekeeping experts say the same thing: that peacekeepers are a Band-Aid on a gaping wound, a way to buy time until a political process takes hold and alleviates the cause of the conflict."  

Somalia is a typical case of foreign conflict where a terribly corrupt government offers little hope at the end of the tunnel once the violence ceases.  What I've always thought to myself was, don't these militants and corrupt government officials see the pain and suffering felt by the masses in Somalia.  Where is the empathy that humans feel simply because we are all connected?  My teacher's daughter actually gave a presentation to our American Studies class about the civil war in Uganda where she touched upon this exact idea.

Some would say that the times overall have actually gotten better in terms of how people treat each other.  Coincidentally, on the same New York Times home page, I stumbled upon an opinion titled, "Are We Getting Nicer?"  The writer says, "Wars make headlines, but there are fewer conflicts today, and they typically don't kill as many people."  He also gives a number of specific examples on how we have become less violent as a human race since ancient times.  This argument definitely has basis because right after reading the opinion I realized how instead of watching people kill each other in gladiatorial death matches for fun, we watch football and hope nobody gets unintentionally injured. 

This is strictly an overall theory, though.  Atrocities still occur, people still kill, and violence still exists.  But the question is why?  And why does America often find itself stepping in to right wrongs?  Is it our responsibility due to how many would argue we are what John Winthrop called, "the shining beacon on a hill" whose beacon light as Reagan said, "guides freedom-loving people everywhere."?

Mac or PC?

Recently, in response to my brother getting older and having to use the family computer more often for school, I got my first laptop.  There was a bit of discussion even before researching the best computer because it was a large purchase and I of course did not want to hastily make the wrong decision.  Before researching, I talked to my parents about whether or not I should look further into Macs or PCs.  My dad is a big PC believer and strongly urged me in that direction and I'd heard from other adults that from a practicality standpoint PCs are the way to go.  So, I ended up getting a Dell and am happy with it.  

At my high school and even back in my junior high school, Apple products are and always were the preferred choice.  In junior high, surprisingly all of the school's computers were Mac products and nowadays, my friends tend to like Apple products over PCs.  So what really is better and what do Americans really think about when making a purchase of anything?

A friend of mine told me that anything you can do on a PC can be done on a Mac in response to m telling him my understanding that the majority of the working world uses PCs.  I had a hard time believing, however, that the whole world uses Mac products over PCs but have always wondered why someone would pick one over the other.

According to a couple of sites, it seems that Mac products are simply better.  The OS S Snow Leopard operating system beats out the Windows 7 system according to laptopmag.com.  The older Leopard OS beat out Windows Vista in a study conducted by Popular Mechanics' website.  According to these sites, there are a number of technical reasons they found the Macs better than the PC but what was interesting to me was the Popular Mechanics opening paragraph where the author writes that the guy in the Mac commercials is a, "hip, sport-coat-and-sneakers-­wearing type of guy who uses his computer for video chatting, music mash-ups and other cool, creative pursuits," and PC users,"probably think that Mac guy is a smug slacker with an overpriced toy that can't do any serious computing anyway."  The article does say that both of these stigmas are incorrect, though.  

So maybe my dad's original idea that PCs are more practical and Macs are a bit more artsy is incorrect, but what does the popularity of Macs suggest about the changing tides of American culture?  What do we care about?  The following is from an article titled, "You Can't Innovate Like Apple" on Pragmatic Marketing's website:

This is straight from Jobs’ mouth: We do no market research. They scoff at the notion of target markets, and they don’t conduct focus groups. Why? Because everything Apple designs is based on Jobs’ and his team’s perceptions of what they think is cool.

During the Industrial Revolution, Thomas Edison's goal wasn't to make something "cool" but was instead focused on making something practical and helpful to society.  Apple definitely does this and people will always tell you that their Apple product is very helpful, but there is another element essential to Apple's marketing ideals and that is aestheticism.  Mac products are cool, sleek, ergonomic, and appeal to a creatively-driven audience.  Mac products are unparalleled in this appeal and Steve Jobs has obviously built up an enormously successful company.  Looking at this somewhat apparent shift in what Americans look for in their purchases nowadays, what do you think this could mean?  Or does it mean anything?   

The Faster the Better

In America we're all about getting there fast.  This is a theme brought forth by many other students in my American Studies class for which this blog is for.  Businessmen and women will look for the fastest flight to get to a meeting (which they hope will go quickly) and then look for the fastest flight home so they can quickly move on the next day. Cell phones are always advertising "the fastest 4g yet", online directions are automatically calculated for the most direct, fastest route, and we do not like to be kept waiting for our food (thus we created the appropriately named "fast food" to fulfill this purpose). 

Americans are always on the move because a general statement about us is that we are always looking towards the future.  A "Pre-departure Orientation for ChineseStudents" off the Association for International Educators site says under the heading of 'Time Consciousness' that Chinese people pay, "Relatively more attention to the past and to the longer-term future" and American people are, "Less interested in the past; eye on near-term future."  In other words, Americans want to see what's next so they can move on as soon as possible.

Perhaps this is the reason we as a country have developed so much so fast.  The United States is 236 years old and grew from a laughable, loose settlement of former colonies to a booming superpower in that time.  The people that came/come to American, no matter where they were/are originally from, have a drive towards something and work to see that future dream come to fruition.  It's a stretch, but maybe that mentality has made its way into our regular minds.

My 5th grade teacher told us a story that for some reason I still remember today.  He described a trip he took to Italy where the dinner he ate was multi-coursed and lasted hours on end deep into the night.  In Spain, a siesta or a generally accepted "nap time" is commonplace in the middle of the day, everyday.  A camp counselor I had in 7th grade recounted a time to our cabin about when he was in Tanzania, he and his friends went to a restaurant and waited about an hour for a hamburger at a restaurant.  At first, they were infuriated and took the matter personally.  They brought it up with the waiter and he laughed at them saying something along the lines of, "You silly Americans are so caught up in moving forward, you do not appreciate the moment you are in right now."

This whole topic came to my mind during homeroom one day.  The guy sitting next to me was talking about his essay for English class where he argued  high-speed rail trains should make their way to America to replace the traditional style Amtrak currently uses.  An article from The Hill.com says, "Obama has argued that a high-speed rail network could eventually rival the interstate highway system that was built in the 1950s under former President Dwight Eisenhower."  The article talks about how creating high-speed rails can create jobs that are desperately needed in today's economy.  Aside from that aspect, however, this push for super fast trains, trains that can get you from Chicago to San Francisco (a roughly 2000 mile trip) in close to 11 hours as opposed to a day and a half by car.  It seems that we're always looking to go faster.    

"Joe Pa" and Penn State Spiraling Downward

My mom's family used to live in the Pittsburgh area and although much of her immediate family has since moved away or currently lives in different parts of the country, her brother continues to live there with his family.  My uncle Mark went to Penn State, met his wife there, and they are both HUGE Nittany Lions fans.  I'm not sure how they're reacting now to the abundant media coverage following the Penn State former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky molestation disaster.  

I do know that my uncle Mark (along with basically ever other Penn State student) loved Joe Paterno and he even had a life size poster of him in his dorm20 years ago. Joe Paterno is going down with this spiral, however, and the longtime most prominent man on campus was fired on Wednesday because of accusations that he didn't report sexual abuse violations made by Sandusky to the proper authorities.  Paterno even said, "With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."  According to the New York Times article that is linked in the beginning of this paragraph, Paterno has the most wins out of any other coach of a major college football organization and despite his lack of action in the.  The students love him despite the fact the his name in a dark light during this massive scandal.  Just look at this video showing kids protesting Paterno's firing.


    

This video also focuses on the fact that the victims' struggle is overshadowed by football because the kids are only rioting for their veteran football coach to be back.  I found it sickening that this entire scandal ever even happened and am disappointed that Joe Paterno, such a large part of Penn State culture, did not turn in his colleague to the authorities and as a result has been ousted from the coaching staff.  In the video it does mention that one of the sisters of a victim is not upset at Paterno but more at Graham B. Spanier, Penn State's president who was also fired.  I'm disgusted nevertheless by the fact that such a heinous crime would even happen at Penn State by one of its former employees and am distraught that kids are not paying enough attention to the victims.  The video mentions jokes about Sandusky and an overall lack of sensitivity to the issue that has really put a dark light on their school.  What do you think this says about college culture in the US?  What do these riots specifically say about college football culture in the US?