I suppose my phone, which holds all my contacts, thousands of pictures, access to internet, maps, language translations, and currency conversions, would be the most valuable as well as practical for me to take. I also have a small Swiss army knife, given to me by my daughter, which means a lot and is also practical. My family has many works of art that were created by my grandfather and his brother. These are huge sculptures and paintings that are no smaller than 5'x10'. Most of them are in Italy, but my parents have a few paintings. I have photos of these items--on my phone.
I could not even come up with a third item. So, if I was told upon arrival in my new country that I could only have one thing, it would be my phone. As long as I had my family (which had better include my dog Sasha!) everything else is just stuff.
From reading about the cultures that do exist in other families, and traditions they have enjoyed, I do feel a bit left out. But, my current family life is so fulfilling that I wouldn't dare complain.
I do want to talk about my trip to Chicago this weekend. My husband and I had to find our way off the plane to the correct train, figure out how to buy a ticket from the machine, catch a bus going in the right direction, figure out how to pay that fare, determine which stop to get off and which direction to walk to find my daughter's new apartment. With all this discussion and the readings on my mind, I was gaining a slight perspective of what it would be like to find your way around in a completely new place, and you couldn't speak the language to ask for help. I have to give immigrants a lot of credit to be brave enough (or desperate enough) to attempt this.
Renee,
ReplyDeleteI was also like you, it was a hard time figuring out what would most represent my culture, heritage and values. Don't worry you are not left behind. I realized that I did not have any valuable objects that represented my family culture such as gold jewels or any other precious belongings or even books. Just like you, at first thought what I would find most significant to bring along with me would be a technological device and mine would be my ipad as this is very useful to my family. We have a lot of pictures in it, we can skype, surf on the internet and play music and my children have many games they like to play also on it. I hesitated though arguing to myself that I can get another Ipad there so I am very glad you chose your phone as its true that finally we are very attached to these technological devices. Can technology be also part of our culture? Great post!
Caroline
Hi Renee,
ReplyDeleteYour post is quite interesting and I think it is quite unique how you chose your phone, because it does contain a lot of information. That would be a good item to keep. I chose my computer, because it would keep me connected to the World. I guess I could have also chose my phone. Nice Job Renee!