choques de cultura

friday night, a new friend invited me to join him at a nearby country club for dinner.

i am not a regular at any country club, but felt that i knew--more or less--what to expect:
a fancy, softly lit dining room.
waiters dressed in white button down shirts.
fancy food at fancy prices.
more white people than not.

the restaurant at the country club basically met my expectations. i felt a bit overwhelmed by the luxuriousness of it all; i'm not accustomed to being served in that way. and my date and i were the only mexicans--and perhaps the youngest couple--in the room. even the waitstaff was mostly white!

once my nervousness subsided, i started to enjoy the atmosphere. a house band played for the dining patrons. i think that the best way to describe their music would be country-ish. that kind of twang, but they played non-country songs, including covers of fleetwood mac and elvis costello. it was fun for me to watch all these older couples spin and twirl on the dance floor. they seemed to lack any kind of self-consciousness, just danced and enjoyed themselves as if among friends.

then there was this very surreal moment.

the band started to play a country version of bob marley's "i shot the sheriff." and everybody was dancing. all of these white-haired white couples, men in their jackets and ties, women in their little black dresses shuffling back and forth, swaying their hips shaking. to bob marley. to "i shot the sheriff."

irony????

i looked at my date wide-eyed. we shared a laugh. and i thought, well, he and i are crossing a cultural/class barrier having dinner at this country club. these kinds of choques de cultura happen all the time. sometimes i guess they're just more funny than others!

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