Journal Pages: A little cultural communication

Is it cultural, clever, or just crazy?

It was 5:45 a.m. in Italy, and my husband and I had just walked what seemed like a hundred miles from where our Alitalia jet had landed after the eight-hour flight across the Atlantic, to the lower-level waiting area of Gate A-28, in Fiumcino Airport in Rome.

It would be a three-hour wait for the connecting flight to Bologna. I was dopey from an almost sleepless night, my feet were swollen from the altitude, I was vaguely hungry and nauseous at the same time, and I wondered out loud why we subjected ourselves to this.

In his cheeriest, most patient voice, my husband offered, "Because this is what we have to do to get where we want to go. I'll see if I can find a roll and a Coke." As he disappeared around a corner, I propped my feet up on my carry-on and lost myself to immediate and deep sleep, alone in the empty room.

Then, as if in my dream, he had returned and was sitting next to me. He nudged me, delivering messages with more good humor than I would have liked to hear, and I thought perhaps he was intentionally disturbing my crabbiness. "Close your mouth; you are sleeping with your mouth open." I awoke with a start and closed my mouth.

"There is a sign over there," he continued, "threatening a fine for smoking in the airport. It's a minimum of 27.50 Euros, but can go as high as 275 Euros if there is a pregnant woman in the room, or a child under the age of 12."

He had a Coke in hand and was munching on a half of a sandwich. He pushed the noisy, clear plastic clamshell toward me to share. "Have a bite." I grimaced as I read the label: "pig meat/chees/sauce."

"Try it; it's good. Something was just lost in translation, that's all."

I scrutinized it suspiciously, trying to identify some part of a pig, perhaps a curl of its tail? But no, it was a ham and Swiss cheese sandwich with mayonnaise, and quite good.

Across the room, three Japanese teens pooled their resources, dropping coins into the mouth of a soft drink machine, then took turns kicking it when it didn't produce. Just as we wished they'd stop their fruitless assault, a can of Coke shot out the bottom. They laughed and cheered, passing the single can among themselves.

It's always a challenge for me to be a stranger in a strange land. If it had been my coke that wouldn't leave the machine, I'd have timidly turned away, thirsty, assuming that I'd done something wrong. I'm not very daring, not apt to just "go with" the culture.

Sometimes, one can imagine letting go, simply surrendering to the mores of another culture. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." That's what our mothers said, never imagining we might actually one day be in Rome. But still, some things baffle us completely; sometimes, we just want to give those people in another land, well, a good old American "heads up."

On one such occasion, I kept my mouth shut and tempered my shock by tucking the sign in my suitcase as a souvenir. It was in a beautiful, old hotel renovated to include the most modern amenities, in a country that I will not embarrass by naming. On the desk in our room, along with the room service menu, a "do not disturb" sign, and some elegant hotel stationery, there was also a two-sided sign, printed in four languages.

On one side, directions to the guest read, "If you leave your baby alone in the room in the evening, please hang up this sign on the door outside." On the flip side was a close-up photograph of a precious, newborn infant, asleep. It read, "I'm alone, if I cry, please tell the concierge."

We examined it over and over, wondering what these people could be thinking, but nothing came to us. The sign offered a jaw-dropping suggestion, and we prayed that no parent had, or ever would, hang such a sign on their hotel door!

We thought we'd learned a few things after my husband was asked to leave a Greek Orthodox church in Nice 15 years ago for wearing shorts. So when in Rome recently, we gave each other smug glances as we ascended the steps of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, behind the shapely derriere of a young woman dressed in a brief mini-skirt and a halter blouse. Surely, she wouldn't be allowed entrance. But the girl knew a new drill; just inside the doors, a tall basket held knee-length white gauzy paper skirts and shawls to cover the bare legs and shoulders of those who still wished to pray despite their penchant for fashion — an improved world, to be sure!

They exist everywhere, those cultural curiosities that baffle even the most astute traveler; certainly we have them in our own country.

I remember chuckling out loud some years ago when David Letterman showed on his late night TV show one of his "top 10" lists. It was of signs across our country's highways and byways that needed revision to be clearly understood.

They were real signs, too; he had photographs to prove that point. Each was as ridiculous as the next, and I regret that the only one I can recall at this writing is, "Eat here and get gas." Letterman ended the segment with, "What must foreign travelers think of us?"

Communication is a beautiful thing, meant to straighten things out for all manner of folk. Sometimes, it just fails. Sometimes, it's just cultural. Sometimes, it's just impossible to tell which is which.

My friend Charlie rode on a bus once, south of the border, in which a poster warned: "Keep this bus clean. Throw all trash out the window."

Charlie was pretty sure that one was cultural, but who knows? Did some inflection in the Spanish language muddy the clarity of the message? We can only hope.

Susan S. Emerson is a regular Times columnist.

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