Welcome to America - Where Violence Starts Young.

Tristan's birthday party was yesterday, and much fun was had by all. As in every birthday party he has ever had, the crowning glory of the party (besides the awesome bubble-wrap party game: and whoever thought of THAT was absolutely brilliant) was the piñata.

I have never given piñatas much thought. Everyone has them. They are standard fare in the borderlands at birthday parties and other special occasions. But, holy cow, they really teach kids how to be violent.

Child approaches effigy of choice.


Child is handed a baseball bat or a stick.


Crowd screams in what can only be called blood lust, "Hit it! Kill it! Knock it around! Harder! Hit it harder!"

Parents and adults comment on the ability of the child to destruct the effigy. The more powerful the blows, the better. You hear things like, "She's a little spitfire, she is" or "Look at how he hits it, he will be strong when he grows up."

To challenge older children, they can be blindfolded and spun around, thus ensuring that they are capable of violence in difficult situations.

Children take turns hitting until said effigy is in bad enough shape to let out its insides, which happens to be some sort of sweet or toy. There is the mad rush of children to fill bags with goodies fallen to the ground, and a real 'each to his own' mentality. Those who get the most win. Those who don't, cry.

Upon thinking about it, this innate violence is not limited to this culture and the occurrences of piñatas (which may have originated in China and traveled across the world to Spain, and by extensions, Mexican culture.) The world has many types of similar things.

The ancient concept of the sacred king, who is sacrificed for the fertility of the fields at the end of his reign, transmuted into the sacrifice of an effigy. England's Bonfire Night sees children throwing effigies of the traitor Guy Fawkes they have been carrying around onto the bonfire and screaming in delight as it burns.

Historically effigies have represented powerful figures, and even today the destruction of an effigy may be a political statement of discontent.

It is not that I am against piñatas. I have grown up with them, as have my children. But it interests me that there is such a violent undercurrent to them that we don't even really notice. Perhaps violence is in our nature the world over.

References:

Sacred King:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_king

The Piñata:
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/wdevlin/wdpinatahistory.html

Bonfire Night:
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/guy/history.htm

Political Effigies:
http://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php/Political_Effigies

Effigies as political statements:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/sep/16/catholicism.religion
http://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/12225

2 Weeks of...

In the last 2 weeks, I have been sick, busy, sick, studying, sick, still sick, and more sick. But I am better now.

This was the first round of illness that I have had since arriving here, and boy, was it a doozy. I'm sure it was just a cold, but it crawled up into my ears and made its home in my throat and called itself happy. I haven't felt a sore throat like that since my years of tonsilitis. I had forgotten how miserable they were. I though about heading to the doctor, but every day I decided that I would tough it out just one more day... and I made it through. I drank a LOT of really strong lemon and honey tea, took a LOT of echinacea and just as many airborne tablets. I love airborne tablets. I wish we could get them here.

So now I'm back to 'normal' as it were, with an interesting little thing I have noticed. Acetaminaphen, here, is called paracetamol. And it, along with asprin and ibuprophen, are 1.) not available in bottles of large quantities, for fear of overdose... and 2.) between 15 and 35 pence a package of 16 tablets. That is 30 to 70 cents. So there is a trade-off. Yes, you have to go and buy them a little bit at a time, and yes that means no stocking up, but the price is so minimal. It makes me wonder why the US has to pay such high prices for pain relief in the states. If 'everything is more expensive' in the UK, are pharmacutical companies in the US really giving people their best prices? Or are they milking people to pad pockets? Just a little something that I had never thought about before.

Miss you all!

In Which Amy Ponders the Implications of Shoes... (Myspace Blog)

I want to talk about shoes. There is a guy who walks to class barefoot. This makes me happy. I do not know why. He is tall, with longish-blonde hair - a hippie like me maybe? Anyway, I think he is important. I think I have things to learn from him. Is it the freedom from the constraint of wearing shoes? He makes me want to write about them.

A college campus is the perfect place to write about shoes - there are so many to see. Tennis shoes, dress shoes, pointy toed, black lace, high heeled, flip flops, sandals (though none like mine... are 'Jesus sandals' really so unusual?) I think people are the only species to cover their feet. Does this further our inherent human need to distance ourselves from the animals?

Signs tell us "No shoes, No shirts, No service". We have societalized the need to wear shoes, taken away the choice to wear shoes or not - Why? Does it matter if you have shoes to go into a convenience store? Are the candies going to be infected by a persons' dirty feet stepping on the dirty floor that the candies don't even touch?

Wow - I never thought of the concept of shoes being, really, a concept of control. We are told that we MUST wear shoes. I am sure that people walking by barefoot guy think how strange he is, how abnormal. We are brainwashed into believing that 'different' means 'abnormal'. I like that he has rejected this means of direct control. I like that it makes me question - whose authority is it to decide whether or not I wear shoes? Why is it anyone's decision except for mine? I think I need to go and sit where I can watch these tiny control devices more closely... perhaps there is more to them than meets the eye.

I am going to have to stop barefoot guy and tell him what I have learned from him...

In Which Amy Thinks About Civilization... (Myspace blog)

I was having a delicious cross-cultural (he in the UK, me in the US) political discussion, when my very old and dear friend Stephen said, "Civilization occurs through depriving those around you of pure free choice of action..." I had to stop and think... how do I feel about this? Is this truth? And I couldn't say. Partly because I had never stopped to think about WHAT civilization was. SO... I did some research. I took what I found and put together a very tentative Amy-nition of civilization. I am curious as to how others define it, so please share with me, and help me to develop my own knowledge about this surprisingly sticky topic. In a few days, I will follow up and post what my research showed me... and my own definition. It is very interesting stuff.