I’ve traveled quite a bit for work over the years, and it never fails to amaze me what American stuff gets exported. I’ll never forget the horror I felt the first time I went to Dublin, hoping to get a taste of Irish culture and get away from all the garbage here at home, when I walked down the main shopping street and saw not just Burger King and McDonald’s, but… TGI Fridays. See, we don’t export the good stuff, like Thomas Keller, mom and pop diners, Annie Dillard or John Irving. We export the mass-produced unoriginal corporate “stuff” (I’m trying to be polite).
Of course, when I was in China last week, what did I see? Another TGI Fridays, in a hotel right in front of the new Beijing Olympic Stadium.
My romantic notions about the rest of the world are pretty much shattered at this point. I know I’m going to run into American brands pretty much where ever I go… that even in the farthest flung reaches of the world, I’ll never be far from a can of Coke or even a McDonald’s.
Your inspiration for today is: Take an every day object, something we all take for granted as just being there, and take it away. What would the world look like without cars, phones, airplanes, fast food or indoor plumbing? Could you remove those things in isolation without affecting other things? What would happen if we lost one of those things completely?
