In the Land of Cans and Can Openers... Where No Distinction Is Made Between Children and Old Men

When I was at the university, in the state of Iowa, I used to notice in the appearance of my room and my manner of living a deficiency that arose from my failure to make good use of all the modern inventions that fill American homes. But I did not feel the effect of this deficiency much until I married an American and began taking up housework — cooking and the like. I remember that I asked my husband, shortly after our marriage, what he wanted for his breakfast. After long thought he hit on the easiest thing, in his opinion, and said: "Eggs and bacon." But I did not know how to cook this kind of dish, so no wonder he was astonished and said: "Have you lived in the desert all your life?"

If America is called the land of the dollar, it is only right that we should also call it the land of cans and can openers. And I do not exaggerate when I point out the great place the can opener occupies in this country, for the life of the American lady turns as it turns, and it is what guides her to the quickest way of preparing delicious, nourishing food.

Besides the speed required in learning to use the machines for washing, sweeping, and cooking, we see the necessity of speed in everything. People here hardly know how to walk, because most of them run — either from the house to the car or from the train to the taxi. This speed shows even in speech: you see no trace of the formulas of courtesy and excessive pleasantry current in our Eastern lands. Here they say "How are you" or "Hello" and that is enough — unlike our traditions, which permit the repeating of "How are you, and how is your father, and your children, and your mother, and your brothers — well, God willing..." I do not mean that a person should be coarse and rude, but I point to the error of using conventional, time-wasting phrases that express no genuine feeling...

One result of their advanced way of life is the disappearance of visits and receptions and of nearly every manifestation of social life among families, apart from what the churches and their affiliates carry on, or what the public establishments offer — though the aim of these last is financial gain, not social life. You may live a stone's throw from your neighbors for years and know nothing about them, not even their names. Speed and the desire to save time lead to frankness of speech and to the casting off of circumlocution, prolixity, ambiguity, and double meaning. It is one of our Eastern customs to invite our visitor to eat if mealtime comes round, or if the visit falls while we are seated at table. This visitor may be hungry and eager to eat, and yet social good taste dictates that he refuse the host's invitation until the latter repeats it several times and assures his friend that he means what he says. My explanation of this insistence is that the lands of the East have known in their history the hunger and privation that have left their mark on the country's customs. The visitor must refuse the invitation at first, to make sure he is not snatching the morsel from the mouths of the host's children. In this country, however, people need no courtesies of this kind, because the drugstores fitted out to serve sandwiches, coffee, and refreshments are many and near to everyone. If a person is invited to table, he says yes or no without lying. And if he says "Thank you, I don't want any" when he is hungry — woe to him, for the invitation is not repeated!!!

There is another difference between our mentality and theirs. It is that in the Middle East we respect old men merely for their age, while here respect is held to be an appreciation of the works and efforts a person performs, regardless of his age. And here we see no old men, because everyone works, young and old; even the children are trained to perform a duty suited to their capacity. If you see a small boy you say "Hello" to him, and if you see an aged man you say "Hello" to him too, in the same tone and with the same degree of respect. The only difference between the old man and the child is that the first has done his duty and is doing it now, while the second has begun to do it or is preparing to. For life here is not a series of separate stages but a chain

(1) The author of this article is an Iraqi married to an American and residing in the United States.

of continuous efforts in which all share without exception. It is a perpetual motion that ends only with death.

Yet the greatest difference we observe between us and them is in the matter of relations between the sexes. In my early life I lived in surroundings that forbade a girl to know — or to show that she knew — the simplest thing about sexual matters. Marriage was an agreement between the two families: the girl's family and the young man's family. And it was the girl's duty to accustom herself to love her husband after the marriage, since she was marrying a man unknown to her, so that no prior love could exist between them. Here, however, marriage concerns the young man and the young woman, with no third party between them. Custom allows the two sexes to live together from childhood to youth, and thus there grows in the nature of each of the two parties a kind of automatic control that directs their conduct in a natural and reasonable way.

Among the things that strike me in a special way is the desire I see in the people of this country to perfect every piece of work to the point of completeness, and to raise every trade, however lowly, to the level of science and art. If one of us in the East were asked what his work was and said "I am a peasant," we would picture a poor, worn-out man who works more than twelve hours a day, lives in a wretched house, and hardly gets his fill of bread; and no doubt his children will follow him into humiliation and misery. But the condition of the American farmer differs entirely from this picture. For he usually owns a farm equipped with machines for plowing, sowing, and harvesting. He has at least one automobile. In his house there are an electric washing machine, a refrigerator, radios, and perhaps a television set; his wife dresses in the latest fashion and his family goes to the best color motion pictures. And beyond food enough for all the members of the family, his income comes to about two thousand dollars a year or more. This is owing to the mastering of all the operations that make up the art of farming and the following of the newest scientific methods in destroying insects, in fertilizing, in irrigation, in supporting prices, and in grading produce — all those arts that the farmer learns in the schools and goes on studying after leaving school.

Among the sciences that receive here an attention they receive nowhere else are the art of furnishing and arranging the home; the art of dress, adornment, and grooming; the planning of houses and home gardens; the arranging of the library; dancing in its various kinds; the dressing of shop windows and of the goods displayed — I mean those arts that guarantee the pleasure of the body and the eye, and thence the delight and vigor of the mind.

(Washington)