American Idiots?

Happy 4th of July!

Well, I never thought i'd be that kid, but last night we were.

The American SIP students spent several thousand rupees on beer and liquor and fireworks and showed India and the European international students what the 4th of July is all about with a party on the roof.

Some highlights:

1. We had an all-american playlist going for our music. when one of the europeans pointed out that ACDC was australian everyone immediately shouted that they be banned from the playlist until midnight.

2. The fireworks we bought were huge and obviously would have been illegal at home. We lit them off on the roof of the guest house.

3. Kevin smashed a bottle of port when the coal from the hooka fell on his foot. This is indicitive of the state of the roof at the end of the night.

4. The guest house staff made us a "picnic" in honor of the holiday. There were tuna-esque chicken sandwhiches and fries. It was nice of them, but clearly not anything like we're used to. We toasted them.

5. We had a cake bought for us at a European bakery in India by a Canadan. We lit candels on it and screamed the star spangled banner. At the end the boys set off a couple of the really big fire works im sure you could see all over campus.

And Green Day sings:

"Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the idiot nation
Everything isn't meant to be ok
Television dreams of tomorrow
We Aren't the one's who're meant to follow
Well thats enough to argue"


I'm not sure how I feel about all this. At the time I thought that setting off fireworks and screaming patriotic songs and drinking and causing a general rucus was a great idea. Today I'm not so sure. Are we becoming less ethno-centeric or more? The answer isn't clear.

I'm begining to think some of my ideas about global politics are actually overly ethnocenteric because I tend to blame us for a lot of the world's problems. We are a part of it certinally, but in the midst of the developing world i feel more compelled then ever to celebrate the 4th of july.


Anyway;


Tonight we are flying to Mumbai and then taking a train to Ishani Patel's house in Gujarat. She grew up there and moved to the states with her family a few years ago. Now she goes to Pitt. We're going to stay at their house for most of the weekend, but we might go to the arabian sea one night. We'll be back in Hyderabad on Monday evening in time for class Tuesday afternoon.