The owner of my current company recently came back from a trip to China. Today he was in the kitchen talking with a coworker about how the food over there was so bad and that he should tell them they need to fix it. The coworker agreed and mentioned that "it isn't anything like the Chinese food over here" (which is true in the context that the preparation and flavors are different), to which the owner said that "it isn't anything like the food over here period" (which again is true in the flavor/style profile, but that wasn't the meaning behind the statement).
All this dialog was disconcerting to me in the facet of my mantra being supporting cultural diversity. Just because it's different doesn't mean it's bad and should be fixed. I'm not a meat and potatoes midwestern guy, I'm a "I haven't tried Moroccan food so let's drag our meat and potatoes midwestern family out to a Moroccan restaurant" type (the iteration of that Moroccan meal wasn't too pleasing but I'm game to give the style a second chance!) Main rule is all is fair except for brocolli!
This encounter brought me to internally lament about the American way of wanting everyone to be like us, down to the food they eat. For some reason this made me think about the song sung by King Louie in the Jungle Book:
"Oh, oobee doo
I wanna be like you
I wanna walk like you
Talk like you, too
You'll see it's true"
Although in this case it would all be the reverse and would sing something like
"Oh, oobee dee
I want you to be like me
I want you to walk like me
Talk like me, gee
You'll be set free"
All this talk about the monkey song harkens times past where I would get raucous in singing this song. Apparently when I was a kid I would go around when this song was playing and belt out
"I wanna be like you - oo oo oo"
Anyway, get out there and enjoy all of the cultural diversity that God has created!
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