America the...?

*Taken from Adbusters.org

I’m in search of the real America. My cousin asked me when we were in holiday in London, what the American culture is. London is jam packed with people from every corner of the globe…most seem to still represent the distant (and not so distant) lands that they come from, even in subtle ways. Looking around, I wasn’t quite sure how to answer her. What is the budaya America? Growing up on a steady diet of American television (filtered through the censor boards), and reading, listening and viewing American foreign policy in action, I hesitated to give the standard stereotypical answers – there has to be more to America than Dubya, cheerleaders and Walmarts.

Maybe it was difficult to answer because I had grown up watching American telly, hence everything seemed rather familiar to me. Or maybe it was difficult because I’m finding it very hard to find features that stand out, because everything seems to be so…uniformed. Americans pride themselves for having qualities of independence, uniqueness, qualities that make them stand out from the rest…yet, on the few drives that I’ve had across Minnesota, and also from Minnesota to Illinois, each town we passed in different states seemed to be replicas of the previous one. Walmart, Target, McDonalds, Starbucks, Perkins…the stunning natural beauty of the American landscape littered with logos, each doing nothing to represent the state they inhabit, the town they reside it, the people they feed off. Doesn’t it seem crazy to you? Malaysia is such a tiny country, but drive four hours from KL to Kedah and you notice the difference…why do I not see that here? Or is it still here but difficult to notice, breathing its last few breaths in the corners between giant supermarkets and chain stores?

Perhaps, perhaps, and I shall go in search of it. Five months poking about a small part of America doesn’t do much justice to this search, but it’s what I’ve got for now; that, and optimism.

~*~

*I didn’t think I was the only one with these thoughts, but I had no idea there was a documentary about this. I’ve yet to watch the full doc, but the trailer looks promising. Do check it out at http://www.independentamerica.net/