It's Like A Whole Other Country

The title of this post is a slogan used in Texas to promote tourism.  Basically it suggesting that Texas is different enough from the rest of the country to have some things worth seeing.  This makes some sense, if you live in Ohio I can't really see much of a reason to vacation in Michigan.  If course, they are making this marketing pitch to those Americans who don't actually want to go to another country.  At this point there is a record number of people with passports in the USA, double the amount of a decade ago.  Contrast this with the70%  in Australia.  Why do so many Americans have no interest in traveling abroad?  As far as I can tell it is either fear or a belief that the USA has everything.  Very sad, and yet very explicative.

Anyway, one of the reasons, among several, for moving to Texas was that it would be living in a different environment, like living in a different country.  For me, it is actually a foreign country, there is so much I retain from England, and I have lived only in liberal cities in the north of this country since arriving.  I have lived in a college town in the Mid-West and a very liberal small city in the North-West.  There is perhaps nowhere in the USA less like those places than Texas.

Now, don't get me wrong here, Texas isn't necessarily full of right wing, Christian cowboys in pick-up trucks, with a vast collection of guns.  The state has voted democrat more than once, and the mayor of Houston right now is a lesbian.  However, I live in the more affluent suburbs, and right wing, Christians with guns is the vastly predominant demographic.  The second largest demographic is hard-working, skilled Mexicans.  The USA would not be in trouble if the second demographic made up a majority of the population.  There are people here who wear tight jeans with a huge belt buckle, a button down shirt, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat without any sense of irony or self-consciousness.  That's who they are, where they came from, and they are damn proud of it.

When dealing with the local public it must be very much like going abroad and being fluent in the local language.  You can talk to anyone, they immediately know that you are from somewhere else, and while initially they seem friendly you are never quite sure whether what you say will cause offense or get you into serious trouble.

Now, there are similarities with previous places I have lived.  There are paved roads, houses, paved roads, people drive, there are radio stations, you can get a McDonalds.  But this is true of almost anywhere you can travel to relatively easily.

This all struck me today as I was walking the dog.  It had rained last night so there was mist rising off the ground like steam.  There were swarms of mosquitoes fighting against the repellent I had sprayed myself with before setting out.  Cicadas filled the air with their hum.  The sound of birds singing was everywhere.  Strange and loud birdsong, more than anywhere else I have ever been.  I scanned the ground ahead for snakes and fire ants.  A sluggish, mud-filled river slunk along beside me, its sandy banks indicative of the frequent, sudden flooding from intense thunder storms. 

As I walked along I sweated through my shirt at 7am, just after dawn.  The air thick and cloying.  The grass was sodden with dew, yellow, red and blue flowers poking above the thin, spindly, decidedly foreign.  The trail was sandy, covered in places by a think layer of pine needles.  Across the river loomed a somewhat sparsely wooded jungle, overgrown with creepers and vines.

I returned to the car, loaded in my black wolf, giant, gleaming fans surrounding a lolling tongue, and set off along a neighborhood boulevard as wide as Naito Parkway, or the North Circular Road, wider than North Street.  I returned to my unnecessarily large house to drink fresh ground coffee by the pool.




At my best I remember that I am indeed a tourist in a whole other country.