New Podcast: Letters from Spain #1

I recently started on a new podcast project, Letters from Spain, where I hope to document my life in Madrid, and to reflect on some of the differences between Spain and the United States.

To listen to the first episode, click here.

Below is the text of the podcast:

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Letter #1: Beginning

I am here to talk about Spain.

But I should begin with some reservations. Talking about other cultures is a dangerous enterprise. A major risk is exoticizing the culture—making it seem altogether unusual and even nonsensical. From there, it is a short step to dismissing the culture completely, treating it as an illogical accident of humankind, a bizarro land where nothing is as it should be. On the other extreme we may normalize the culture by focusing exclusively on the ways in which it is not so very different. This way we treat the other culture as we treat ourselves, which is partly good; however, this way we may fail to recognize how a culture is genuinely special.

This is only the beginning of our troubles. To talk about something, we must ourselves have a point of view; and that is formed, of course, by our own culture. For me that culture is American, specifically from New York, specifically from Westchester County, specifically from the town of Sleepy Hollow. For me, that is ‘normal,’ and this sense of normality shapes my perspective. I cannot help but compare Spain to this culture, my culture, and to see everything Spanish as, in a sense, a deviation. Is it possible to talk about a culture in purely objective terms? I doubt it; and even if it were possible, I doubt that it would be worth listening to. Culture is, among other things, a system of values, and you cannot understand it without having values of your own.

I am going on, listing difficulties, and yet there are still more risks. An obvious one is the use of stereotypes. Now, what is a stereotype? It is not merely a generalization, but a widely known and popularly believed generalization, usually with positive or negative ramifications. Each country has its share of stereotypes—the Spanish dance flamenco, go to bullfights, and sleep siestas, while Americans eat hamburgers and live in big houses. And so on. Now, some people say that stereotypes are problematic because they are generalizations. I don’t think that’s true. All knowledge consists of generalizations. And some generalizations are perfectly true. It is true, for example, that Spanish people tend to eat dinner later than Americans.

The problem with stereotypes, then, is not that they are generalizations, but that they are misapplied or untrue generalizations. Most Spanish people don’t like flamenco, or go to bullfights, or have time in the middle of the day for a nap. And, besides, these stereotypes are troublesome because they project a kind of fantasy version of Spain, where the people are living passionate, dangerous lives under the scorching Mediterranean sun. Don’t get me wrong, these things do exist in Spain, and they are interesting facets of Spanish culture. But to characterize the whole country that way is highly inaccurate, to say the least.

Considering all of these risks, then, what am I here to do? In this podcast, I hope to use my own experience in Spain to consider some of the subtler differences between life here and life back in the United States. To tell you something about myself, my name is Roy. I am a 28-year-old English teacher, living in Madrid. I decided to move here over four years ago, when I was working in Manhattan in an office job that, shall we say, did not fulfill my dreams of post-college life. I wanted an escape, to see the wider world, to go on an adventure; and Europe seemed to be the answer. I had been reading about European history for years. In undergrad, I studied cultural anthropology, and my advisor did his research in the south of Spain. Dreams of castles and philosophers’ graves beguiled me, and soon I found myself on a plane to Madrid.

You may ask, why Spain? Well, the answer is not very inspiring. Simply, Spain is one of the easiest countries to legally work in for Americans. It was an entirely opportunistic move. But, it was a fortunate one, since I became enamored of the country within months. My backstory explains my own bias. Like many people, I suspect, I came to Spain seeking an escape from the dreary world of American adulthood, and I found one. Thus, for me, Spain is tinged with a kind of rosy hue, as a place of refuge and adventure. I have lived here long enough for some of this to have worn off, but still I am predisposed to see all things Spanish as good. Still, I do hope I will avoid idealizing this country, since such a romanticized image would have little value. 

So in this podcast I want to explain what I have come to learn and appreciate about this place, and why I have chosen to stay year after year. And I will do this from an inescapably American perspective. The differences between Spanish and American culture goes far beyond flamenco and siestas, and I think these subtler differences have much to teach us. I hope do to this without either collapsing the differences between these two cultures, and without making Spain seem impossibly exotic. Let us see if I can thread the needle.