My Friend Beth...

I got in touch with my college friend Beth. She is definitely a character. A culturally open-minded American, married to a French man. They've lived around the world, thanks to his job and family background. She has all sorts of interesting stories about how Americans behave abroad, how the French fear their culture is not as dominant as before or which topics you should avoid when interacting with Chinese officemates in Hong Kong.

She is currently learning her third foreign language, Italian - can already make nasty jokes and also put together sensible sentences. Through all these linguistic and cultural adventures, she remains a New Yorker, her eyes observant of national sensitivities.

When she talks about how she would love to live in Paris, and how people's aloofness there reminds her of New York, it strikes me that she is one of us. Beth travels in her mind, whishing she was elsewhere even when she is on the way to somewhere.

Kebab Connection

I saw the funniest movie of the year this past Friday at the Turkish Film Festival in NY: Kebab Connection. It's the story of a second-generation Turkish-German young man whose dream is to film the first Kung-Fu German movie. He starts with an advertisement clips for his uncle's fast-food restaurant Kebab Connection--which becomes a huge hit, turns the small restaurant into a success overnight. But things get more complicated as his German girlfriend gets pregnant, his uncle's store almost puts the Greek taverna across the street out of business and his Greed buddy (the taverna owner's son) turns vegetarian and opens a falafel place with an Arab friend. This is the ultimate cross-cultural comedy. You must, much check it out. Click on the link.