Labor Day Triptychon - I-79, Southbound

Again driving by night. But this time for a longer distance. And again, the same music that fills the interior of your car. But this time, you are not gliding down a main road in Pittsburgh, but you are forcing your car up and down the mountainous Appalachians. Towards Raleigh. The capital of North Carolina and hometown of your co-student. He is taking your roommates and you with him on a trip to visit friends and family.

An extended weekend lies ahead of you. Thanks to Labor Day. To get two days off for the “Holiday of the Workers” within a year is one of the bizarre things that you encounter during your stay in the US. The fact that the American Labor Day is not celebrated on the first of May goes back to a paranoid president. He was afraid of encouraging a communist revolution and so he opted for the less political September date back in the 1880s.

Thursday evening the four of you get started, with a setting sun and a relaxed tiredness of a short week of school. Because you are skipping Friday’s recitation sessions. Participation is voluntary and therefore you thankfully circumvent the dull and boring process of going through homework problems. Due to that and the holiday, the weekend grows into a four-day mini-vacation.

The first few hours of the drive, the car is filled with laughter and chatter, it feels almost like a school excursion. But the conversations fade away like the evening light. One after another the three non-drivers slide into an uneasy sleep of dubious quality. You get your part of it, too. And thus you miss out on the sparsely populated, wooded hills of West Virginia. The existence of this small, misshaped state that school kids, cartographers and politicians stumble upon, goes back to the days of the Civil War. As long as you have a stake in a political entity, its integrity is sacrosanct. When it comes to gaining influence, separatism comes in handy. And this way, some stubborn, poor hillbillies were encouraged by Washington, D.C., to split off slave-owning Virginia back in the early 1860s. West Virginia was created, becoming part of the North while the rest of the old state sided with the ill-fated Confederacy. The rest is history.

Shortly before crossing into the old, history-laden Commonwealth of Virginia you wake up. You switch drivers, steering the “MBA sleeping car” for the next few hours. You have driven a lot in the States. But mostly in the plains of the Midwest with its gently rolling hills. The home of the cruise control, so to speak. But the curvy Interstate with its steep grades curling through the westernmost portion of Virginia renders the cruise control useless. Due to the weak motor, also typically American.

Despite the unfamiliar landscape, you are reminded of past trips when you steered a car at night on the highways of this county. Especially driving at night has something calm, concentrated about it, that encourages contemplating and reflecting. No other cars bother you, no roadside advertisements distract attention. Just the asphalt passing beneath your headlights, being surrounded by stars and moonlight. You think of the people that you accompanied on those trips. The music, the atmosphere. All that seems to be distant and yet unbelievably close.

Primanti Brothers on Forbes Avenue

This will not end well. You will never make it. But you wanted that challenge. Ok, you did not know, what it would be like. But that doesn’t matter now. You have to survive this.

What this is all about: The giant Baloney Cheese Sandwich in front of you. Together with an Indian-American quartet of fellow students you are at one of the most unique food places in Pittsburgh. The furniture and equipment probably dates back from the golden days of the city. If it was not for the inevitable TV screens above the bar, you might think you are back in the 1930s. Dark wood planking, scarce illumination, a busy counter. Space was expensive back then, therefore everything is built in a very compact way: Directly behind the bar, without a separating wall, is the “kitchen”. This is where sandwiches and fries are freshly prepared. The man working there must be a master in multi-tasking with at least four jobs at the same time: Barkeeper, psychologist, cashier and cook.

But the Primanti restaurant close to school is not the original one. It is located in the Strip District, an old market and warehouse section close to downtown. The workers and truck drivers there did not have much time during their lunch break, so sandwiches came in handy. But if those were not big enough, the Primanti brothers invented a new design: Why not packing the sides, coleslaw and fries, onto the other stuff in the fresh Italian bread?
Luckily, you have decided to go for the separatist version, eating the sides in a regular manner. It remains a mystery, how anyone could eat such a food bomb with elegance. The regular sandwich itself is big enough for stuffing two skinny students like you.

Your other group members are also struggling with their huge portions. According to the wisdom of child-raising parents in Germany, the sun will not shine upon Pittsburgh tomorrow. Actually, it is too early for dinner. But after a long day of school you and your gang were too hungry and worn out to get onto the bus immediately. Just for surviving the arctic temperatures inside those buses you need some calories. You and your group are on your way back from the university communication center, where you ordered business cards for yourself. What would a future MBA be without this important tool in today’s business world? After all, your program does not only consist of classes and homework but also of networking. In contrast to your colleagues, you will have a job upon finishing the program. No hassle with applications, job interviews. But making come contacts and getting to know some people has never hurt anyone, hasn’t it?

In the meantime, things get more philosophical while you have your food and drink: Are the United States a culture nation in its own right? Could it be that what is hidden behind American family values is actually some kind of extended individualism? How much equality is there between men and women while they still get unequal pay for the same work? Interesting questions that your group members are pondering about. One of them is Biff, a Mandarin learning small-town and yet cosmopolitan guy from central Pennsylvania. And there are three Indians, male and female. They are polyglott as well, some of their brothers and sisters or even parents are scattered around the world, while holding on to India with their hearts.

You could sit here for hours, bringing in your own experience from Germany, Belgium, the US. Soaking up the internationality of your stay. But you got to go. Go home, pack your stuff. Because tomorrow, you will dive into another “culture”, if you want to believe some of their proponents: The South.

Lotus Food Company

China, one of the oldest cultures in the world, has claimed its place in Pittsburgh. In order to demonstrate its power, its cultural and economic superiority. To reach out for its people abroad, far away from home.

That gentle touch of the “central country” manifests itself in the form of a Chinese supermarket. Squeezed in between football merchandise, fresh fish and frosted cookies. Just like there is the small Republic of China (commonly known as Taiwan) next to the People’s Republic, the Lotus Food Company is not alone in the business district “The Strip”. One block down Penn Avenue, Wing Fat Hong also offers Chinese produce.

Nini, a Taiwanese co-student of yours, is all smiles about the Chinese stores. Like the Indians in the MBA program, the East Asians also struggle with the American cuisine and the assortment of local grocery store.
Both stores are small, tightly packed with products and people. But neon lighting and air conditioning prevent any bazaar-feeling from arising. The huge range of products mocks every Asia-food-corner that you can find in the Giant Eagles and Tescos of this world. Soy sauce. Soy sauce? There are more than one hundred different soy sauces. What German would like to stand in front of a single type of beer in a supermarket?

A few non-Asian Americans stroll down the aisles, either out of curiosity of sinophilia. It is recommended to take the Mandarin class beforehand, though. For many products on display no one even cared to put English labels on.
But already the outward appearance of many products seems mysterious. Even Nini does not know some of the vegetable and fruit varieties for sale. For example melons: You can Korean ones there, looking like mutated giant candy with their yellow-white stripes. Or bitter melons, that Nini dislikes due to their taste: Unhandy, like light green fire extinguishers.

The fresh meat section is creepier. Besides premium meat suitable for European-American taste, you can find the “left overs”: Pig ears, tails, liver, tongues. The Chinese way of Asset Management.

The multi-lingual cacophony adds to the exotic ambiance. The people around you speak Chinese with its different varieties, Thai, Hindi, Vietnamese, you and your friends guess. Snoopy toddlers, busy cashiers, live crabs – except for the shelves, everything seems to be in motion.
The stream of Saturday shoppers carries you out onto the street, into the glistening midday sun above Penn Avenue. A scene, which you have not seen before in Kansas City: Sidewalks full of people meandering between stands, beggars, honking cars. As if all those endless suburbs, broad highways and dead downtown districts would not exist.

Stranded at Robinson Centre

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. The activity of the day. Each disaster has its starting ground, so does this one: Sacrificing half of your Thursday for a Swedish furniture chain was not primarily caused by being stuck in traffic at 5.30 pm. It was actually a damaged couch that you had bought past Sunday. It is not a good idea to have that kind of furniture when you are planning on selling it next summer. Even without an MBA degree you would know that. Too bad that you noticed the defect after getting back from the store. An American would have probably sued the company right away.

And so you decided to go back to Ikea together with your roommate, to demand our rights as paying customers and our right to undamaged consumption goods. But rush hour in Pittsburgh plus a car accident on I-279 equals a total standstill on the highway. The equation does not solve otherwise, despite all math refresher workshops past week. Your mood hits its first low of the day. Playing an ABBA CD brings some relief, making your roommate sing and clap on the useless steering wheel in the middle of the traffic jam. But only for a little while.
After you finally arrived at Ikea, the next setback. They don’t have a substitute. At least not right away. What is cost-saving for the company is time-consuming for you as the consumer: The simultaneous usage of the building as warehouse for stocks and as sales floor. They cannot get the couch down from the high shelves with the fork lifter until the store is closed and all customers have left. Is that rule the result of a lawsuit?
The alternative to additional two hours of waiting would be coming back on the weekend. But within the next days, ten thousands of students will rush back to college and thus to Ikea, too. What the holiday season is for most stores – that is “Back to college” for Ikea.

The prospect of dull waiting in the shopping district “Robinson Centre” or fighting over the last “Solsta” couch with Undergrads – the choice between plague or cholera. But the price is already too high after the traffic jam. Returning home without the couch would be a shame, a defeat. Didn’t Bush warn against an early withdrawal from Iraq drawing a parallel to Vietnam?
And so play Robinson Crusoe for a few hours. Hotdogs and frozen yogurt appease your stomach. At Circuit City next door you ask the service guy a gazillion questions about external hard drives and software. Looking through the DVDs and CDs on display kill additional time. A longer talk via cell phone complete the modern quadrathlon.

Instead of the of the afternoon haze, the moon has risen above Pittsburgh. But romantic feelings do not arise.
At 9.20 pm, finally: You receive your new, this time undamaged sofa. But we hallooed before we got out of the woods. The interstate, some sort of sadistic protean or quick-change artist. Another car accident plus inflowing college students turn the highway into a lethargic parking lot. The motionless red rear lights look like a sea of red candles in a Catholic cemetery, you think. But in this sad affair, the only one who is moribund is the climate. Thanks to 20 miles per gallon SUVs.

Chicken Bacon Ranch on Forbes Avenue

You got one year of study to master, divided into three parts, more or less bite-sized. The fall term lies before you, menacing like the stages in the Alps for Tour de France bicyclists after the prelude in the plains. But unlike them, you are without doping.
The fall is going to be harder than the following terms, the MBA coordinator told you. Typically American with the words “You gotta get your feet wet“. In German they would probably say „they will throw you into the cold water“. That you get an involuntary full bath in German is revealing, somehow.

And that full bath comes faster and less expected than you thought. In the form of a tropical, heavy rain on your way to Subway during lunch break. During first week they served you lunch in the form of taking you out to restaurants, picnics, buffets. But the honeymoon is over. And now that the second week has started, you have to organize your own lunch. A cafeteria, large and subsidized like in Europe, does not even exist.
Squeezed in between lectures and refresher workshops, you got one hour. To appease your stomach, that is about to rebel after a bowl of cereals for breakfast. To get to know your co-students. To relax before five hours of afternoon classes start.
The self-sustaining and economically thinking get the food they brought from home out of their bags, while other hungry people gather in the lobby. They gather in small groups to swarm out into the surrounding streets to end their longing for nourishment. With bagels, sandwich, pizza, burgers, soups, noodles, etc. Your ad-hoc team, consisting of Pallavi, a vegetarian Indian girl, Jarid, a vegan American, and you, sets out.

The step out of the building almost takes your breath. Hot, humid air around ninety degrees Fahrenheit invades your lungs. But the steam sauna is not enough. The rain turns the two-minute walk into running a gauntlet. And thus, your team runs up the hilly road to Forbes Avenue, one of the main streets dissecting the city center. Not named for the New York magazine, but a British general. In 1758 he conquered a French fort after a longer siege where Pittsburgh was built.

Besieged is also the first food place you headed for. Due to a lack of time, you have to do without Panera’s freshly baked stuff. You switch to Subway instead, on the other side of Forbes Ave, which looks like a typical American downtown road with its shops, restaurants, illuminated ads and looming skyscrapers in the backdrop.
At the counter, you hastily opt for sub with chicken and bacon, in opposition to your vegan and vegetarian group majority. The advantage of fresh preparation of your food is equalized by the downside of too many choices regarding the ingredients. What type of bread? What vegetables? What cheese? What sauce? What side, if any?
In a way overstrained are also your companions. Jarid by the double size of his sub. Pallavi by the blandness and softness of her food – a sad, bad by now familiar picture while having food with Indians here.

The topic of your conversation: The future. You will have a secure job after you are done with the program. A blessing. Or a curse. But in any case less stressful than searching for a job like your co-students. Jarid wants to look for something in Seattle, the city of his dreams. Pallavi could imagine to stay in the US and work here after her studies. Not out of love to this country, but due to the higher salaries compared with her home country.
Future. In the short term, an afternoon full of math, statistic and accounting is also future.

Fifth Avenue

Just you. Just you sitting in that car rolling down Fifth Avenue, through the twilight of the beginning evening. You have arrived. Mabe. For the first time you feel that it is real, nice, true that you are here. Here in America. That feeling blends into the relaxation of the evening, the serenity accompanying the beginning weekend.

Your first week at school, in Pittsburgh, in the States, lies behind you. And now you drive off into the rest of the day that it is just yours. Driving off into that feeling. Into your year here, your own year. You are just overcome with that feeling while picking up a friend.
Just a few miles down the main road that connects your part of the city, Shadyside, with the city center. Luckily, Pittsburgh was largely built before the invention of the car, with only a few highways dissecting the city. Competing land owner magnates prevented a grid system during the booming years. Turbocapitalism versus urban planning. Due to that, the Fifth Avenue meanders reluctantly through the Eastern parts of the town, far away from the patch of numbered streets downtown, between skyscrapers and among companion roads.

The Fifth Avenue has forgotten the chaos of the evening rush hour, as you are gliding towards the center in your car, passing sleepy, historicistic villas and neo-gothic churches. They bear testimony that there used to be a lot of money in this steel and coal city. Tired by weather and pollution, they look to you the passerby, still grand and attention-attracting.
The jazz and rock tunes of an American band fill the inside of the car. The voice of the singer, gentle and still striking. And you feel that something connects you to this land, this language, these people here.

One of those is Cem, a guy with black, curly hair, who is originally from Istanbul. Co-students with less linguistic talent can call him “Jim”. Just because [djem] is not available. Like a missing product on a supermarket shelve. One can easily grab the product next to the empty spot. That should work as well, shouldn’t it? And this Cem lives in one of those lofty and a bit creepy apartment houses. They are taller than their neighbor houses without actually being high-rises. A lot of them show a brick exterior, some with pillar decorated entrances that give a hint concerning their age. With well-sounding names like “The Fairfax”, “The Kenmawr”. But using monarchs for naming the buildings was obviously also popular. And so Cem lives in the “King Edward”. Actually, not too far away from Walnut Street, a street with shops, cafés and bars, where people from your school often meet. But the unreliability of the public bus system, which increases dramatically with the start of each weekend, gives you the chance to give him the favor of picking him up. How American.

Lost in the Woods

It is warm, very warm for you. You, who had just recently escaped the unimaginably cold and rainy German summer. The midday sun burns down onto the small wooden building in the middle of the Pennsylvanian forests. The sun would probably be proud of itself if it would see us sweat beneath those ridiculous fans, hanging from a decorated Styrofoam ceiling. Painted not by anyone, but by American children’s hands. Did the obese, hyperactive and TV-addicted kids sweat like that while painting?

Away from the ceiling, your eyes look at the plastic plate in front of you. A squishy burger next to lettuce and a cookie. The patty is vegetarian, no chips and lemonade – that way you ‘outsmart’ the American high calorie cuisine. But the sad rest in front of you does not taste better by that. Anyway, there is not really time left for eating the food.
Outside, in the airless heat, for which only the shade of the trees give some relief, the others have started already. With team building. You and completely unknown co-students – you are supposed to be a team?! And you can just build it like that?! American optimism and naivety do not even stop from tinkering social relationships. But those approaches and practices already exist on the other side of the great puddle, your overheated head realizes.

Before the balancing on ankle-high ropes begins and sweaty arms and hands merge and disband in a bizarre ballet, there was supposed to be lunch. Actually. And with enough time. But a bus driver can get lost in the Pennsylvanian woods.
The simple refectory starts to empty. The sense of duty would redden the cheeks of future employers out of joy if they could see that. But luckily, you are not the only one who puts taking care of one’s physiological needs above punctuality. You look up from your plate to the person in front of you. The waves of globalization have carried this self-confident, proud Indian to the academic shores of Pittsburgh. But her excitement about enriching her knowledge – in the long run – and rope exercises – in the short run – is overlaid by the unbelievable blandness that American food can have. Used to the spicy, intense world of Indian flavors, her tongue has to settle for some spiced chips along with her lettuce in order to taste anything significant at all.

Despite all adversities, the coincidence of meeting each other during lunch turns into an interesting conversation. In the middle of the Appalachian hills, a window with a look onto the mysterious cosmos of South India opens for a few minutes.

Flight CO51Y

You wake up, somewhere above the Atlantic. It seems to you like you have slept the whole day away. But actually, you have only been dozing a few hours, that have taken you away from that unimaginable situation. To leave family, friends, work and apartment behind. Instead, you will go to school again for a year – because your employer wants it. An everyday craziness in a globalized world.

You feel your body squeezed into one of those Economy Class claustrophobia seats. In front of you, flickering images on the miniature TV screen in front of you. Next to you overweight, snoring Americans, middle-aged and middle-badly behaved. The mist of your dreams dissolves like the ice cube in your water cup. To distract yourself, you watch a Hollywood movie, of course in English. The story is predictable, the characters flat and bland. Like the remaining hours of your flight. But fortunately, your travel literature helps out. A novel full of tension about a boy growing up in Kabul in the 1970s. In German. The sneaky invasion of English into your thinking is stopped this way for the time being.

You arrive at Newark with its highfalutin title “Liberty International Airport”, but reality mocks that name. The queues seem endless in front of the border control officers. Bad-tempered, they scrutinize travel documents, take finger prints and pictures, ask questions that seemed to be answered by the lengthy visa process a long time ago. They are just doing their job, you think. Part of a giant bureaucratic machine, that has become autonomous due to security hysteria over time. But the US are not alone regarding that. Instead of fair treatment, you see a lot of unfriendliness and an intrusiveness, that lets the general suspicion towards visitors shine through. Just like the gazillion American flags in the building make clear, what exclusive country you are about to enter.

Waiting for your connecting flight after the long transatlantic flight and the immigration procedures seems irrelevant. The additional hours in the terminal do not help you to realize the dimension of this day. The generic, sterile ambiance of the airport, which could be anywhere in the US, supports that unreal feeling of yours.

The look down through the plane window onto the countryside reveals the dimension of urban sprawl and suburbanization. Fresh uprooting and new roads indicate the future metastasis’ of Greater New York/New Jersey. Pennsylvania, in contrast, is conciliatory with its farmland, rivers and rolling hills, flooded in the evening sunlight. Along one of those rivers, the density of settlements increases gradually while the plane starts to descend.
The airplane stops taxiing in front of building with the giant letters “Pittsburgh International Airport” beneath a cloudless sky. Without getting an answer, you ask yourself what it is, that you love about this country.

This is a Public Service Announcement

In the land of the free and the home of the less-free, I am writing down my impressions. I will share those with you during my stay here in Pittsburgh for a one-year MBA program.
Like in a diary, the events of the day, observations, thoughts and feelings will have their place. Interesting stuff as well as trivial things. Foreseeable as the content is also the cumulative number of spelling and grammar errors as well as an increase of Anglicisms during my stay.

In short: The world before my open eyes. And tired, maybe.