April 28, 2008
Cross-cultural exchanges programs allow students to gain a deeper appreciation of other cultures, to step outside the bounds of the familiar and explore… Ah, who we are kidding, student-exchange programs are mostly about getting drunk and hopefully laid in some place other than that listed on your beginner’s driver’s license. As such, the “cultural exchanges” taking place may not be what mom and pop read about in promotional literature for these programs.
Take for example the type of “cultural exchange” currently happening in Florence, Italy. Florence, along with Rome, has seen a strong influx of students from the UK and US who spend a term of their studies over there. While these students might take a recipe for a knock-out pasta fagioli with them and be able to make an Italian person feel at home by cursing them in their native tongue, the citizens in Florence get to witness their drinking culture go from one of reserved imbibing to the more violent, binge-drinking style of boozing that is favored in the UK and the US.
Florence is looking to reverse this trend by enlisting volunteers to help monitor the city’s bars and piazzas and discourage “exaggerated drinking”. These people would be called “pub angels” (serving the opposition function of the angels we covered here) wear bright-colored vests, and go around trying to “dissuade drinkers from having one too many”. This, as far as volunteer jobs go, sounds like a right crappy one, but no mention was made of any perceived difficulty in getting people to do this.
It’s also optimistic on the part of city officials to think that a program like this would meet with any success whatsoever unless the “angels” are trained in some sort of bone-breaking martial art and/or carry pepper-spray and a stungun. Brits or Americans faced with a guy sporting a bright-colored vest and engaging in an attempt to “dissuade” them from excessive drinking are unlikely to be met with a “Was I that drunk? Pardon me sir! I’ll be on my way then.” Those who have actually picked up some of the language are more likely to offer a variation of the following: “Vaffanculo a Lei, la sua moglie, e’ la sua madre. Lei e’ un cafone stronzo. Io non mangio in questo merdaio! Vada via in culo!” (See above link for translation and don’t try this out on your Italian roommate before you do).
