What Surprise Parties and the Prodigal Son (aehm Daughter) have in Common

I live far away from my family, which most of the time suits me well. I love going ‘home’ and spending quality time with my family and then coming back ‘home’ (here in New York) and mind my own business at my own pace – far faster than anything on a Swiss Autobahn.

Early this summer my mother had a ‘big’ round birthday and we had decided over the Christmas Holiday that it was ‘irresponsible’ to spend the money and ‘made no sense’ for me to visit just for the birthday. And at any rate, my mother said: It’s no big deal.

That changed when my father dropped a line about “the Party”. What party? I think I reserved the (frequent flyer) ticket within 24 hour of that conversation. The days before I was fretting over whether it was going to be perceived well that I had spent “all that money” (time is the issue here, really) to just come for a few days for the birthday and the party. My sister bent over backwards to organize everything at the ‘home’ front so we would have a great family dinner (cooked by her in her kitchen and transferred to my parents house).

When my mother saw me standing in the elevator – the look on her face was beyond priceless. I was holding a huge bowl of potato salad so we couldn’t hug – so I gave HER the huge bowl of potato salad – and we still couldn’t hug. It was clear and evident that the decision to come had been the only right one.

Two days later at “the Party” I was passed around like a prize possession - the ‘pragmatic, practical, reasonable’ daughter that after all had shown up all the way from America for my mother’s birthday. I felt bad for my sister who had so much to do with planning it, keeping it a secret, putting up with me and that big dinner two nights earlier and I got all the glory just for showing up…. thank you, Meta.

The Challenge of Anger Among Young Muslims in America

A supporter of the film sent me this blog post looking for my response to it. I read the blog post plus the 10 pages of commentary. It talks about polling and the discovery that a much higher percentage of Muslim youth than any other denomination is angry, depressed or unsatisfied with their lives. The commentaries went in a totally different direction and worried me more than the article.

Here my comments:

I was a bit surprised at the responses that really did not at all address the issue at hand but talked about ‘repatriating’ rather than actively working on a solution to a real problem. I find at my end there is very little energy from Muslim NGO’s to reach out across the faiths to educate and create understanding – I get a lot more support from other groupings […] to help spread the word with the film, then I do from Muslim organizations. There seems to be much more of a fatalistic undercurrent that is also visible in the responses to the survey.

The survey itself however I’m not surprised about. If Muslims are demonized all the time of course the youth and children will internalize that, be it that they pick it up subconsciously at home when adults talk about it or actually have negative experiences themselves. Going ‘back’ – for many, especially converts there is no ‘back’ – is not the answer. Muslims in this country and Europe have to learn to take responsibility to teach, reach out and build bridges - that is what’s so important. We don’t all need to agree on everything but we need to learn to live together respectfully….

Guest Blog: Cross Cultural Luggage - What Color is Yours?

by Susanne Mueller
Have you ever wondered when you are waiting in the arrival hall of an airport where the luggage on the carrousel originates from? You look at the diverse people around you and are thinking of which arriving luggage belongs to whom? Transnationals, business executives, entrepreneurs, consultants, leisure travelers, and families with kids are populating the arrival halls. These days most of the bags look more like global luggage: plenty of them are the same size, shape, and colors are black, brown, gray; on my mum’s clever observation she bought a bright red one –now it seems multiple people were following my mum’s advise and you see many more red colored bags. What color is your luggage? What has luggage in common with cross cultural issues? Luggage can shed some interesting light on a variety of cross cultural stories beyond borders.

Let’s go back in time and delve into nostalgia: in the early days, people were traveling on boats and vessels and were carrying, maybe also sending heavy trunks with all their personal belongings to venture to a new world. The pieces of luggage looked more like entire, immense houses itself. In those days, people were traveling for an extended amount of time and many travels, discoveries and explorations took much longer than today’s supersonic Concorde flights from Europe to America – which unfortunately, in my opinion, do not exist any longer. All nostalgic memories we have of the old times when traveling was something special and very much out of the ordinary!

So if we go back to the arrival hall at the airport and still wonder where the luggage comes from do we now look at things differently though a novel, cleaner, unusual, and curious lens? I used to work at the Lost Luggage office for Swissair lines in Switzerland: in retrospect I think that was my best ever –non academic however - cross cultural training which I obtained without even thinking or enjoying it fully: After a while I became an expert in deciphering and telling where on this planet the pieces possibly would come from.

• Asians tend to have very elegant and high end, high tech pieces that would have wheels on all four corners. So they could wheel their luggage upside down as well as lift them up easy to pack them in the buses. They were apt to travel in groups in and out of many towns and countries in a short amount of time. So all had to be very functional yet elegant to fit their style.

• Middle Eastern luggage was usually big, vinyl and in dark moron, gray & black colors. Most of the pieces would have some dust of the desert on them. Their purpose of travel was mostly to visit family members and they brought with them many goods from foreign lands. These pieces intrigued me the most as they looked very interesting, mystical and I am sure they could tell a thousand stories from their long travels: Arabian nights without wheels.

• European luggage seemed to be more practical and typically smaller. Europeans can travel light and very down to earth. So a backpack could be as adequate as well as a sports bag or a suitcase. Many different colors and patterns with or without a logo were available.

• The American luggage represented in those days the ‘American Tourister’, all looked brand new from a major department store. Usually, there were many in the same shape and pattern. Obviously, women on their trips needed a full bag of shoes to accommodate all possibilities of their travels and potential opportunities. Also Americans were known to travel through Europe in a whirlwind.

Some observation that I have made was that today in the global environment we see less and less cross cultural luggage –the globalization has taken over: there are fewer nuances. We all can agree with Thomas Friedman’s quote: “The World is flat” (2005). "We merge into a global travel civilization where all looks the same."

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Susanne Mueller, MA, New York, http://www.susannemueller.biz/, a transition coach and consultant is an expert on cross cultural awareness. She was working for Swissair lines in Switzerland and New York. She resides in New York, USA.

Small Moments

Last night I was invited to the North-East Regional fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club of America. Thirteen youth competed for a spot to their National competition in DC that day. They had been grilled during the entire day and then spoke for two minutes each before a sell-out crowd of about 150 at the fundraising dinner.

The young lady who won, Dempsey sat after the tables had all cleared and most guests had left, alone at her table with the gigantic mock up check from the Reader's Digest Foundation in her lap. It was a beautiful moment, noticed first by a woman who works for RD. I looked around for a camera and saw the young woman's sister's camera and asked her to take a picture - for herself - of this lovely and intimate moment. At that point another video producer who was at the table with us jumped into action, walked over, pulled the check into the light and made sure it was well visible for the camera. I was shocked.

First for the fact that I had not thought to do that myself and then that I had that reaction to begin with. My instinct was right - and it was a documentarians instinct and not a corporate video producers, it was a beautiful intimate moment, perfect for the camera of Dempsey's family and the checks amount or donor where at that moment irrelevant. But the other producer's instinct was great too - capture this intimate moment but make sure it's relevant for her client RD, even at the risk of losing the magic.

Can one wear both hats as a corporate director and a documentarian? Where are my instincts stronger? Had I reacted differently if RD was my active client? How many hats can we wear effectively, especially in a creative environment?

How many hats do you wear?

Children of the Blue Sky

My friend and Director of Photography, Martina Radwan is single handedly running, fundraising and growing this foundation for street kids in Mongolia. She has a lovely website, and I’m always excited to get her updates.

There is such a sense of progress, real hope and that the money goes to the kids and the kids only. Martina takes each of these children under her wing and sets them up for a new life, hope and a future.  Read some of the stories and donate your old (sturdy) shoes!

info@eternalblueskyofmongolia.org