"it's a small world after all"

As much as I hate the Disney ride, I think it is an apt description of what I have come to realize lately. The world is small. Though we number in the billions, humans are connected in amazing ways. And why not? We are more alike than we are different. Though as an anthropologist I have tended to look at the differences between people, in actuality I end up finding more similarities.
First, musical connections. Tonight, I had dinner at a colleague’s house. I was dreading going out: we had a bad snow storm today, it was a depressing Sunday, shut in my apartment all day making lesson plans. But I got on my hat, gloves, scarf, thick wool socks, new Bulgarian boots and jacket and walked into the cold. When I got to my colleagues apartment, before I even got in, I could hear the 80’s hard core rock pulsating from within.
This isn’t the first time I have encountered this. I only knew two Bulgarians before I came to Bulgaria, both of them were from college. One of them roomed with a team mate of mine. His name was Ognan and he was a scary fellow. Long black hair, lots of Megadeath T-shirts, black leather gloves, you get the picture. And I thought it strange. This guy comes all the way from Bulgaria, and he is obsessed with 80’s heavy metal. But once I came here, I realized it wasn’t an aberration. Bulgarians, men especially, love heavy metal. I am a big Punk fan myself (enough so to be that kid in high school with spiked green hair, but that’s for another posting…) but this music is too much for me. I feel like ol’ grandpa Andy, “why can’t you play your music at an appropriate level?”
But back to my visit. So there I was outside my colleague’s apartment as Slayer pounded my temples. I stepped inside, preparing myself for a night of “Headbangers Ball.” Fortunately, my colleague’s husband turned down his music, but not before showing me his collection. I kid you not, he had hundreds of CD’s. I asked him later what were his favorite bands and he listed off “Megadeath, Slayer, Sepultura, AC*DC, Pantera, Metallica” and too many others to mention. My colleague’s husband and Ognan aren’t alone in their adoration of this music. Many Bulgarians are infatuated with, if not 80’s Heavy Metal, then at least 80’s music. My host brother in Krichim is a huge Metallica and, oddly enough, Chicago fan. Let me tell you, after a few Rakiyas there is nothing better than belting out “You Are my Inspiration” into the early morning.
Another weird connection: work. My colleague’s husband works for a factory just outside of Bobov Dol that makes liquid oxygen and nitrogen (which now that I think of it kinda makes me nervous. Aren’t those really combustible? Like mushroom cloud combustible?). Anyways, the company is called SIAD and from the first time I saw the logo on a truck I thought it looked like the logo of a factory I used to work for while I was in college. So in my best Bulgarian, I took a long shot and asked him if he knew Praxair, this company I used to work for. He said, “oh yeah, SIAD used to be called Praxair.” So I told him about my old job, and my colleague laughed and said, “you two are colleagues.” It made me smile: here I am living seven time zones away from home having dinner with a guy who works for a factory in his hometown, that also has a factory that I used to work in, in my hometown. It was like when I spoke with another colleague who used to be in the Bulgarian Army during the Communist Era. We were on a bus somewhere and he commented, “here is where we used to train with the Warsaw Pact to fight NATO.” And I realized that there were places back home where my father had trained with NATO to fight the Warsaw Pact. At the same time, my father and my colleague were training to kill each other.
I don’t have a succinctly defined opinion on globalization. I think that we should strive to preserve cultural diversity but at the same time I think we must strive to connect our human race. I think here in Bulgaria, though things are going slowly, we are moving in the right direction. After 50 years of isolation, Bulgaria is moving away from isolation. Though 80’s death metal still grates on my nerves, I was happy to get invited tonight to a rock concert in the summer. I am also glad that I am now working with my colleague instead of wondering if someday I will have to kill his son. And though every time I hear that song it brings back bad memories of getting stuck on that damn ride and hearing “it’s a small world- it’s a small world- it’s a small world” over and over again, it truly is a small world after all.