As I am sitting here on the bus, I am thinking about the "flattening of the world"

**Fair warning, this is just a sudden brain wave as I was getting off the bus and walking through the rain back home, so this could make very little sense, and reading over it is not doing any good for me.

I just had a very interesting Hungarian class where we discussed how Hungarians give tips, and what their characteristic meal habits are. It was noted that Hungarians really do not tip; they are poor, and why should they tip only a select few of the minimum wage-earning population? It was very direct, very Hungarian. Food-wise, they held a very European idea of the long lunch with smaller meals around with heavy, characteristically-Hungarian foods.

Now, the food. With a, for all intents and purposes, Jewish mother, food was a topic of choice. In her household, there was a bit of a clash of cultures: a Belgian mother and Hungarian father. Between the delicate and the light and the rough and direct sat my mother. I know she absolutely loved it, though bits of each were preferred. The point: when she visited the family in Hungary, my mother would eat like a Hungarian, which is excellent, except for the breakfasts. North America really caught onto the idea of a light, fruit-like breakfast, like that of the French speaking world. Hungarian breakfasts are meat. Well, not entirely, but they are hearty and thick feeling. My mother has told me this story countless times: Hungarians like their meats and breaks and stews, but, after a week or so, my mother needed something light, especially for breakfast. She scanned the kitchen, and grabbed a pepper, thinking "thank God, I finally found a juicy, bell pepper", and sunk her teeth into it. (Backstory: my mother and I cannot do spicy. Ketchup is spicy to us.) It was a hot pepper. She spent hours recovering, her tear ducts have never been drier. Moral: Hungary has thick foods, even the "bell peppers".

So, in class today, our prof explained that their breakfasts consist of meats and "light" sandwiches. Albeit, Starbucks has popularised the breakfast sandwich, but, honestly, I do not, personally, view a sandwich as breakfast-y. But, that is what is great about Hungary, they do not tip because they do not see the fairness in it, they eat hearty and heavy meals, they are a homely and rough people, just as Belgians are a little more Dutch, very proud, delicate, but tough, and the French are, well, French.

The whole reason behind this post is just from a quick comment said aside in class today: our prof's mother used to come home to cook and prepare the customary large lunch, but that is dying out as people are working more 8-17h jobs. A very American idea.

That got me thinking on the bus, our world really is becoming flat, and I honestly cannot decide if that is a good thing or not. The French are holding fast to their long lunch periods, but, as in Hungary, it is dying out. Tipping is spreading around the world as a standard. Supermarkets have become the standard. It seems to be erasing cultural identity. I mean, studying here in Canada is really eye-opening, a truly multi-cultural society. You can be on the bus and look around to see a strikingly English gent, who is sitting next to a quintessential Chinese girl, whereas behind you are two obviously French people (not only because they are speaking French), and next to you is a girl from Nigeria. What happens when we start to become too similar? Even myself, usually you can tell European groups apart pretty easily, but I am a mutt; I am technically Italian, French, Belgian, Slovakian, Hungarian, Irish, Norwegian, etc. We may keep our cultural history in books, groups of people, and whatnot, but there will be a loss of national and cultural identity. With a flattening, we get a more informed populace, yes, and a more globalised viewpoint, which are great. There is now more respect, both for the individual and the culture; there is an increased awareness that comes with globalisation. Still, we have genocide and suffering, but we have always had that. From sexual abuse and maltreatment of people to meaningless killings, the world is becoming more and more outraged at individual events, which it good, but this idea that more people are aware of the atrocities that surround them is only a byproduct of globalistation.

In so many respects, globalisation is great, it is the future, except, with it is the loss of cultural identity. We cannot stop globalisation, but we can at least understand that we could see a mass-cultural extinction.