(being) Americans in India

We were recently guests in a village outside Coimbatore of a Tamil Nadu (the geographic state we live in) Hindu festival called Pongal. It is a harvest festival to thank God for the sun and the rain. Central to the festival is rice with milk and sugar cane that is boiled so that the froth flows over the clay pot. (hmmm….”you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” psm 23) The final night of the festival we were the dog and pony paraded out. Part of this is the amazing hospitality that overflows from the people here through gifts, handshakes and the utmost care taken to guests. Part also is the introduction that goes before us; Americans Mr. Eric and Dr. Andrea. This celebration and promotion of being Americans is uncomfortable to us; attention that we struggle to be in the center of. This experience I am sure is not unique to us, but to many who have traveled abroad to developing nations.
But hey! I am just an artist wanting to stand in a corner and draw the beautiful colors. An American here is Tom n Jerry Coca Cola Jay Leno Brad Pitt Billy Graham Bill Clinton The Dollar Barrack Obama McDonalds Michael Jordan Happiness. Which, I bring with me every time someone says American. The speaker at the festival said Americans were second happiest in the world, behind the Australians (would that make Americans happy to know that they are happy ?:) According to the speaker, our visit to the festival as Americans brought happiness to the festival. Is there an anthropological label to the cultural identity we unknowingly embody as we enter a new culture? For instance, an Op-Ed piece in The Hindu discussed America’s current economic status and finished with saying that he hopes America may soon again be exporters of hope to the world, that the world is in fact relying upon it; hope. At the festival, the bright bronze eyes of the children follow us and I can see that, though it baffles me.
In the airport in Delhi, Andrea and I talked awhile with a British couple who talked a lot about the global village, our world. As semi-isolationist Americans we use that term infrequently at best and so the global village term stuck in my head for a number of days. This point hit home when Andrea and I were discussing our colds we brought with us and she mentioned that US researchers study the flu strains in Japan to know what strain of flu will be coming to the US in 6 months time. The global village seems small to me then, and this particular village seems closer.