When I say America, You say....Bob Esponja?

Day 71

Monday

Here in Spain, I’ve found that some cultural icons will never translate, but what is even more curious to me are the icons that do. Sponge Bob, Hannah Montana, Michael Jackson, Kanye,McDonalds, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts and Disney are wildly popular. Their faces stare at me from the t-shirts of my students, peek out of pencil pouches, spin by on backpacks, and even hover over me on umbrellas. But when I tried and explain the story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer my students who hadn’t already tuned me out only shook their head in confusion, “But why wouldn’t the other reindeer let Rudolph play?” Clearly we haven’t covered the chapter on diversity and equality. So during the ‘arts and crafts’ activity with a holiday spin to it I had the kids make Rudolph, and despite my entreaty to give him a bright red nose, they all colored reindeer with green faces and purple noses, brown faces and brown noses, yellow faces and brown noses, but rarely a red nose. They didn’t seem too hooked on tradition. Which fascinated me because I was glued to the TV screen watching old Rudolph re-runs or I was having a blast singing songs about Rudolph at school. The other teachers patted me on the back and said it was a good idea and as I stared at the wall at the back of the classroom sighing with a frown because they didn’t look at all like my example nor like the real Rudolph. Part of me (my terribly cynical side) just wanted to laugh, thinking “Well Katie, you certainly got in the diversity education you thought they were missing. Look at all those colorful reindeer. Not a single one looks like another.”

Later that night, during my private tutoring session I thought I’d give Rudolph another go with my rather bright 5 year olds. Turns out only one of them decided to show up, so Natalia and I had a lovely time coloring in reindeer, Santa and Christmas trees. She didn’t care much for Rudolph either; she just wanted to chat about what she was getting for Christmas. We had some nice girl talk, granted all of the English was done on my part and all the Spanish on her part, not quite what they’re paying me to do, but at 6pm on a Monday night, you shoot the moon and ask the boss to call you out on it because you’re done.

I love how the kids ruffle my best laid plans and my ‘wondrous’ activity crashes and burns while my back up warm up is a hit. I won’t give up on those untranslatable icons yet though. Especially when my experience of the English language is tied to those icons, when I grew up talking about Rudolph and his ostracization (granted as a 7yr old I probably said ‘his loneliness and the bully reindeer’) but really, my memories of English are rich with the cultural spread of the land. And I keep thinking, they’d like English so much better if only they could play with English speaking children. What they’d learn! I’m afraid my dialect is one of nostalgia, lost in abstract context and rumination, lacking the lightness and spontaneity of youthful discovery.