California - Cultural Contrasts

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Today marks the 1 week point of my visit to Davis California. I know this since the Farmer's Market is happening again.

I was taking photos of the event when this fellow comes up to me and says, "is that an S2IS"? or something like that. I said "I don't know", but upon further investigation, which involved looking at the front of the camera, I determined that it was, in fact, an S2IS. "I use that camera too" he said.
Uh huh, thought I, but then I noticed that I was standing alongside a photo booth: "Teacher Bill's Photos". I said, "are you Teacher Bill? Yep," he said. "And you use this camera to take photos that you sell here? - Yep". Cool.

We got to talking. I told him that I had been raised in Davis. Him too, as it turns out. I told him that I live in Costa Rica and have this website, Dominical.biz. He said: "of course, everyone here knows about Dominical.biz!"... all right, just kidding. That is a bit of an exaggeration. He had actually never heard of the site. But, he was interested in what I was doing with my photos. I told him that, even though I had been raised here in Davis that after leaving it 30 some years ago, and also living in a foreign land for the last 8 years, there is a large cultural contrast. We call this "cultural contrast", those of us in this particular profession. It is this "cultural contrast" that I document via photos and writings, mental meanderings if you will.

Anyway, in talking with Teacher Bill, as is so often the case, I found myself formulating ideas that had been kind of rattling around, undefined in my head over the last few days. The contrast between Dominical / San Isidro, and Davis California, is black and white, night and day, ocean and dessert, you know, contrasty. Here in Davis, everything is all so, well, correct. Yes, that is a good word for it, "correct".

I mentioned this to Teacher Bill the photographer, this point about "correctness" and he concurred. Davis is PC (politically correct) whereas the Dominical Costa Rica area is absolutely not. As an example of this, among my Tico friends in San Isidro and Dominical, you will hear the Spanish equivalent for the word "fat" used openly and freely. "Hey man, you look fat today". I've been told that I look fat. In fact, I think that this was meant as a compliment. "Healthy" would be synonymous with "fat".

In the Davis culture I think that, whereas F words, and S words, have lost some of their potency over the years, the Fat word, has taken on new strength, to the point where we will lie. A fat person acknowledges "I'm fat". All those in earshot lie and say "oh no your not fat. You're just big boned". Fat is a bad word here in Davis California, and as I understand it, elsewhere in the States.

This is not so much to discuss "fat" as to discuss culture. It's different. Everywhere you look there are cautionary signs about what could happen here. I guess the concern is litigation. "Careful, this tree will likely fall down and land on top of you if you choose to walk under it. Most people are known to die when a tree falls on them. Walk under this tree at your own risk."

The grocery store here that I have mentioned in some of my other articles has a cancer warning sign as you enter it. The bike path that I used as a boy to get to junior high school has a warning alongside it for cancer.

By contrast, in San Isidro, you can be walking along on many street corners and see a jagged piece of steel sticking out of the concrete where a sign used to be. Watch out man! You could really get hurt by this thing, this jagged piece of steel sticking out of the sidewalk, if you don't watch where you are going.

I imagine such a situation in the States, and what I imagine is a line of people, waiting their turn to get a running start at the jagged thing sticking out of the sidewalk so that they can injure themselves in some way, then sue the city, and never have to work again.

In San Isidro, or elsewhere in Costa Rica, if you were to injure yourself on such a thing, you'd likely want to hide the fact, because, "hey man, watch where you're going". Plus you'd miss time off work, and you'd have to pay your own medical bills.

Anyway, I am hoping that we see some postings here to Dominical.biz from Teacher Bill. I told him about the site, so we'll see. He does some lovely photography and, he's got a really fat camera.