Basketball Culture Shock

It’s now been two days back in NC. Today I ventured out of the house for the first time since getting in from RDU. I was expecting to be bowled over by the differences between Italians and Americans, but nothing doing. Either three months in Italy isn’t enough time to give some perspective on twenty years of America and I just need to pay more attention, or they really aren’t all that different anyway. Right now, I’m inclined to go with the latter. Watch the referees…they talk with their hands. Listen to the crowd…they are just as noisy as the 2 am passagiata crowd on the weekends. People are people, are they not?
One would think that a high school basketball game in Alamance county would be about as un-Italian as it gets. Really, though, lots of homeschool families screaming together in the gym of a Baptist church isn’t exactly something that I encountered much in Tuscany. However, I ended up being more surprised by the similarities of the experiences rather than the differences. Listen to the names…they’re surprisingly similar. Practically everybody in Italy is named after a saint: Francescas, Micheles, Chiaras, Andreas…the list goes on. Homeschool kids have to compensate for a preponderance of biblical names: there were two Micahs, three Jacobs, a Christian, a Daniel, and a smattering of Matthews, Marks, Lukes, and Johns on the court. Sitting next to me on the bleachers—Mary and Elizabeth.
Now, none of this is to say that Italy and North Carolina are the same. Nothing of the kind. For one thing, seeing one, two, or at most three children in one family for months isn’t good preparation for homeschool clans of five, six, seven, or even ten. One of the things I love best about such large, tightly knit families is seeing the sibling interaction. Watching a baby sister imitating the team’s warm-up stretches or a little boy high-fiving his teenaged big brother every time he jogs around the court is sweet, but it’s even more meaningful to see that the big brother doesn’t roll his eyes or brush off the reverential attentions of his little siblings. While the Italians excel at intergenerational interaction, it’s tough to beat these Alamance Eagles kids when it comes to brother-sister relationships.
Of course, here’s where I start over-thinking...but I’ve spent an entire semester desperately trying to pick up on cultural clues, to understand the unwritten rulebook of Italy. As far as watching basketball games goes, I’m out of practice. The controversial calls mystified me, the language of the court and the bleachers fell on unaccustomed ears, the etiquette of good sportsmanship seemed elaborate and puzzling. I suppose you could say I was going through basketball culture shock.
I’d love to be able to give you a funny, insightful laundry list of all the unusual things Americans do. I’m afraid, however, that won’t be happening anytime soon. I can, on the other hand, call things as I see them, but you’ll have to be patient with me. This whole reverse-culture-shock thing is almost as complicated as it was cracked up to be. But hey, I’m glad to be back in a country where they sell index cards.