Multi-culture

People worry about the monoculture, and argue that what with the McDonaldses and strip malls, everywhere in the world looks just like everywhere else and distinctive local cultures are disappearing.

This is not true.

I was at a Denny's near the airport in Milwaukee having breakfast. I ordered the two eggs (scrambled), toast (wheat), hash browns and coffee. I'd been battling a stomach thing over the previous few days and wanted something pretty mild and easy to deal with, digestion-wise, and didn't want to to anything risky or experimental. I piled the eggs on the toast at first, and it was pretty good, but I had toast left over and wanted to put something on it. There were little tubs of grape jelly and orange marmelade, but that would be too sweet, that wasn't quite it. I scanned myself to work out the specific nature of my desire, and what I wanted was Vegemite.

Then I reflected on the outrageous impossibility of them serving Vegemite in a Denny's in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. No one in the Denny's at that moment had ever even heard of Vegemite, I was sure, and some of them probably couldn't find Australia on a map. If you explained it to them it wouldn't make sense, and if you got them to try it they probably wouldn't even consider it a food (that's the reaction most Yanks have). So, imagine going from that state to actually finding little tubs of the stuff on the table at a Denny's, or even a Denny's-like place, right next to the grape jelly. How much the world would have to change for that to be possible. Yet you absolutely find little tubs of Vegemite right next to the jelly (called jam, though) in every Denny's-like place in Australia, everywhere you might find yourself while travelling and wanting a simple breakfast because your tummy's been a bit funny. In that culture, it's absolutely normal and expected, and in this one it's so unlikely that it boggles the mind. Hence, there are still cultures, we're not all in one mono-culture.