Hot Coffee

What do American teenagers do for fun? A simple question, yet one that I answered with a reluctant "Y'know...stuff". The question caught me completely off guard in class and I was frustrated that I couldn't come up with a glib, vague answer for. What do American teenagers do for fun? The question was brought up while discussing the Greek social interactions at their coffee shops and it was here that I realized the uniqueness of those coffee shop meetings. Every day, groups of men, women and older teens will gather in coffee shops anywhere from two to four hours and just talk, rarely sipping at their beverages at all. Now, other than the amount of time spent at the shop, this might not surprise anyone reading this, but when you realize that America doesn't really have an equivalent to this social ritual, you start to appreciate it a bit more.

Americans communicate on a largely impersonal and electronic basis. Our friends, family and acquaintances are all connected to us via mobile electronic devices and we gossip, coordinate and interact though these. Not exclusively of course, but enough that American social interaction has molded around the use of technology. The Greeks are not technologically incompetent by any means and use the same methods of communication as we do, but for a different purpose. The Greeks get their fix of gossip and social interaction in their daily coffee shop visits with friends. It is here that all of the business of the community, politics, and interpersonal discourse is conducted and in a very intimate style and setting. A group of men will sit aside the street at one of Aghia Paraskevi's many coffee shops and not move for hours, just watching, sitting and talking. It is fascinating to watch and you can only wonder what they can talk about for so long without tiring of each other's company. I reflect upon my own conversations and realize that they typically do not last any longer than two hours, at an absolute maximum. To catalyse a conversation, I usually have to be doing something with the friend or family member I am conversing with. An American family will rarely say, "Lets go down to the local cafe and just talk" but rather "Lets go down to the mall and shop". Both activities facilitate the same function, but in different styles. The American style is much more impersonal, requiring the medium of shopping to force any sort of interaction whatsoever, the Greeks don't need that medium.

Neither style is good or bad, this is not a critique of cultures; it is merely different than what I'm used to seeing. To see a community so intertwined is a sight that one rarely gets in America. In Jacksonville, where everything is connected by highways and roads, it is hard to achieve that sense of community outside your immediate neighborhood. In Athens, all communities are interdependent and independent, each with their own town square, coffee shops, butchers and family owned grocery stores. It creates a different dynamic between the people, like a hundred small towns comprising one big city. When looking at the coffee shops, you can just tell that the people in them are talking about the same issues and individuals that others in subsequent coffee shops are talking about. The interaction is so family oriented and you can tell how vital it is to the well being of the community just by observing how many people frequent these coffee shops on a daily basis, and how long they stay.

Another curious habit that differs from American interaction is the focus on commodities, or in this case, coffee. When Americans ask one another out to get coffee, it is usually to do just that, acquire a cup of coffee; everything else tends to be superfluous. The Greeks ask each other to go get coffee and rarely touch the coffee they order. The coffee is just a bonus to the conversation, as opposed to the conversation being opposed to the coffee. This is where you could argue that Americans may be more materialistic than Greeks, and that may be true to some extent, but it just goes to show the value we put on interpersonal communication compare to other countries. As Americans, we like to focus on getting to know our family and friends, and outside of that, nothing else really matters. The Greeks make a conscious effort to connect with almost every aspect of their community, to keep tabs on all daily matters. Neither one is the right choice, they are just born out of completely differently lifestyles that these two nations possess.

It is worth it to go to Athens and just sit in a coffee shop and watch people. The idiosyncrasies that they all possess are more foreign than any substance, food or ritual. You can tell just by looking at how comfortable everyone is that this is an integral part of their life. Older people having intense political debates in one corner, younger people laughing and sharing cigarettes in another, women quietly handling their affairs in the adjacent corner. All of these little moments ultimately weave into the greater fabric of the Greek community, and witnessing that first hand makes you realize just how different our two western nations are.