Chuck Norris & the Indians
For the last couple of nights Ivy and I stayed in a hotel near her company's office so she could spend some time in person with her boss. There's a free breakfast and so each morning it's fairly crowded as most everyone in the hotel comes down to have some food.
Since we were staying in the heart of Silicon Valley, there are people from all over the world in the hotel, but mainly Indians (from India) and a few Chinese. So yesterday I sat down at a table with my breakfast in the dining area (Ivy had already eaten) and discovered: that there were about 25 Indians there, that I was the only white guy--and probably only American there--and that an episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger" was playing loudly on the big TV in front of everyone.
Most everyone was watching the tv, and it was right at the end of the show with a massive violent fight scene that seemed to go on forever--legions of bad guys were wiped out; everyone was punched, kicked or shot, all accompanied by dramatic sound effects. And all the characters--good guys and bad--were wearing cowboy hats too.
When I glanced around I saw that a lot of the Indians seemed scandalized by the show--a lot of them just watched it with wide eyes and hardly looked at their food as they ate... And what was kind of funny was that I felt like I stood out, as the only representative in the room of this crazy, macho, violence-prone culture, and I started kind of chuckling to myself (which probably made them think I was getting lots of satisfaction from the show and it made me happy to see everyone beat up).