This all happened in my new country, of course.
How would you feel if you were trying to do something (and you know why you were doing that) and a random neighbor/stranger told you that what you were doing was considered wrong and inappropriate?
Amused, irritated, freaked out, dumbfounded, perplexed, interested or something else?
Winter 2005 - I spent my entire cold season in Burlington, Vermont. I was a new fish in the pond, learning to walk in the deep snow, learning to dress properly in the winter, learning to taking a bus to work to the homeless family shelter, learning that life could be cold and that that was o.k
Then, one day, it was not o.k.
I walked from my apartment to the bus stop on a typical heavy snow day, and I didn' t want to get wet. I took an umbrella to protect myself from the wetness. The bus arrived, I ran up and made sure that the umbrella was closed. I sat down warmly and happy. Suddenly, a middle- aged Vermont woman, sitting across me, yelled at me, "ma'am, we don't use an umbrella with snow! Do you understand?" Almost every single passenger on the bus looked at me as if I came from the 18th-century world.
My face turned to the colour of a ripe tomato. She told me that in this state (or this country), it was not o.k. to use an umbrella to protect myself from the wetness. But I thought I had total "freedom" to do any thing I wanted in this country?
The ride to work was so long (really only 3 minutes) because of this awkward feeling of committing an inappropriate cultural mistake. I have never been in snow, of course, and I didn't know what to do with snow.
(Two years later) December 5th, 2007 - I was in Washington, DC. Today was the first snow day of the year. I left my office at around 6 p.m., and was busy comparing my first snow day in Vermont with my first snow day in DC. Then I saw a black man, in a nice suit, carrying a big umbrella, walk past me.
I stopped, laughed and smiled. "He must be crazy," I thought quietly.
But no he wasn't crazy. I kept walking, and to my utter surprise, almost EVERY single DC person in Dupont Circle on the way to the metro was carrying an umbrella to protect themselves from the snow!
How I love my umbrella, that Vermont woman, and the difference of perspective a small move in the United States can make!
TAN
7 comments:
that is so funny, i never realized this before but you are right, it's definitely a regional thing. i grew up in connecticut and no one ever used umbrellas in the snow, and it does seem wrong to me to do it. (and i still never do it, even though i now live in the dc area, where -- as you note -- it is common.) now i realize why i'm so opposed to it!
though i've never heard of anyone criticizing other people for doing it! that's a little much. connecticut isn't nearly as insular as vermont and maine.
I'm from Michigan, and people in the midwest do not carry umbrellas in the snow. I told a former roommate I wouldn't walk with her if she was carrying one! (Joking, of course, but I think it looks silly!)
Hehe, nice observation!
In the north you wear a hat and weather-appropriate outerwear. Unless it's freezing rain, then by all means, an umbrella... Or just stay inside because freezing rain is awful.
Too funny, as a native Vermonter I always took for granted that we didn't use umbrellas in the snow. I didn't realize how ingrained that was until it snowed the other day and I realized that I subconciously refused to take one.
DC snow tends to be more like freezing rain than like the light fluffy stuff of the north.
Last week I was in Seattle where rain is an everyday occurrence. The woman I was with said to me "Only tourists use umbrellas".
I am a Southerner... and I totally bust out the umbrella in the snow. I'm in NYC now and last week, that umbrella was out. I refuse to be umbrella shamed =)
(I saw others too... it does happen! Even if not "the norm" haha - who wants to be normal??)
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