Menus, Loyalty, and Otherwise

Author: Maura Youngman
Project: Alternative Law Forum | Human Rights Advocates Connect
Year: 2014
Bangalore, India

>Things that would be labeled spicy in the United States are not labeled spicy in India. > Prices are fluid, sometimes / haggling is the best. I don't understand why this is the way it is. One thing that I found jarring about being in India (and other places that are not America) is that where you purchase things from seems to be less about brand loyalty, and more about loyalty to the people selling the items. You wouldn't go to Target to pick up a new rice cooker because Target doesn't exist. But you might go to your friend's friends store who sells rice cookers because your friend's friend got a decent price when he bought his there, and he has the best ones. Maybe haggling is part of building a potential relationship with a vendor -- something that doesn't matter as much in the United States as the system is visibly and fundamentally controlled by corporations. > Studying, and then staying, in the United States is seen as elitist. In some of my conversations, individuals expressed a sense of resentment or abandonment at those who left to study in the United States and then stayed there. When asked why it is seen as elitist to stay in the States, the reply: "You can drink the water there." The concept that living in the United States would be seen as elitist is -- if not surprising, then at least a perspective I have to remind myself of -- as the United States is no more and no less than my default.