A Globalization Moment

Several years ago, I was in New York City for a board meeting of the International Council for Distance Education.  After the session, several of us decided to have dinner together.  We were four—from Germany, India, Norway, and myself from the U.S.

            We set out to find a good restaurant, deciding that we could easily find good food within walking distance of our Manhattan hotel.  We came to the door of a well-known Italian restaurant and were about to enter when our Indian colleague stopped.  “I’ve never understood Italian food,” he told us.  “I don’t think I am ready for this.”

            We stood on the sidewalk and discussed where to eat.  Eventually, we all agreed on Chinese food.  We had passed a Chinese restaurant on the way and so backtracked to it.  It was late, and the restaurant had on a few tables with customers.  Our waiter, apparently, was born in China and, if his grasp of English was any indication, had arrived fairly recently.   We struggled to identify what was in the different menu items.  Finally, my Norwegian colleague found something he liked.

            “Bueno!” 

            He had a habit of exclaiming in Spanish like that. 

            Our waiter’s eyes lit up.  “Quiere esto?”  he asked.  It turned out that, in the New York neighborhood where he lived, Spanish was more common than English.  It was his American language.

            After that, we had no problem.  We ordered the rest of our Chinese dinner in English, confirming the details in Spanish.  It was a great evening.  Smiles all around, including the waiter, who was much relieved.

            It was a globalization moment—a little example of how our new world works.  We are all in this together.  All of us equals in a world, all of us trying to find a language that will help us become part of the new community in which we find ourselves.  There is no room for xenophobia in this world:  we are all strangers here.