| Florentine life differs in and out of classroom (2/05) | | Print | |
| Written by Willy Zhang | |
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<br /> The city is elaborately decorated with famous relics of the Renaissance — a 12-foot-tall nude statue, a painting of a beauty standing on top of a seashell and a chapel adorned in unforgettable frescos of biblical figures.<br><br> Although many students may have experienced Michelangelo’s David, Boticelli’s Birth of Venus and the Sistine Chapel, junior Sacha Mount had the chance to fully immerse himself in the culture of Italians when he lived in Florence, Italy, last year with his family.<br><br> Mount said that the city was very unfamiliar at first. “I didn't have a clue what I was doing for the first three months,” he said, adding that it was embarrassing for him to ask locals to repeat themselves whenever he spoke to them.<br><br> The language was not the only difficulty; Mount did not conform to the fashion orientated city, wearing clothes typical of boys in American schools — a cap and loose jeans.<br><br> “Italians have a specific style of clothing, and brand names are important to them,” Mount said. Italians “define who you are by the clothes you wear.” He did not fit in with the clothing style of teenage boys at his school, since most of them sported tight jeans and fitted shirts, according to Mount. “They would wear baseball caps on the back of their heads like a Jewish yammakah,” Mount said. But fashion wasn’t his biggest problem. Because Mount was not part of an exchange program, he was the only American at his public school. He said that many students disliked the fact that he was American since they opposed American intervention in Iraq, adding that there were many anti-American protests in Florence during his stay. “They judged me as part of the whole (government) system,” Mount said, adding that their opinions changed after they met him. Mount also said that he witnessed widespread racism against Jews, gypsies and Albanians. He added that some Italians were prejudiced against those ethnic groups because they believed that some of them took jobs away from Italians and others. Mount, who can be open about his Jewish background in San Francisco, could not discuss his culture with his schoolmates. He said he only felt comfortable telling certain students in school that he was Jewish. However, Mount, who has played soccer since he was a child, was able to share his love of the sport with the kids at his school. During his leisure time, Mount played competitive soccer throughout the year. “I played on a serious team that played games once or twice a week the whole year around,” Mount said. “It was not a game, it was like a business — it was not a nice experience, and it turned me off soccer for a while.” The intensity of school was amazingly similar to Lowell, according to Mount. He had his first experience with a difficult language in Italy — Latin. But there were also differences in the learning environment. He said that in Italy, students could connect with teachers more personally since they only had one teacher who taught them one lesson for the day. Students also had more freedom in school. “The classrooms were hectic. Some (students) would wrestle during breaks since they love WWF (World Wrestling Federation),” Mount said. Mount said that his visit enabled him to triumph over many cultural differences, and he no longer cares how others perceive him. “I care less about what people think about me because I stand out. Being different is something that I cannot control,” Mount said. “I feel like if I survived there, then I can deal with almost anything, because everything is tougher in a foreign country.” |
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to listen.
