Top things not to do when you live in Italy



Living in Italy. Photo by Antonia Scott.

1. Leave the house with wet hair



I'm convinced it must be a criminal offence to leave your home in Italy with wet hair by the sheer look of horror from wet hair witnesses, especially the older woman variety. Growing up in Australia I was used to walking out into the sunshine for an "air dry". It saved time, energy, and according to many Aussie hair gurus, protected my hair from split end mania. However, when living in Italy seven years ago, in a beachside village no less, every hair washing morning I was unable to get down to the piazza without being accosted by someone letting me know that my hair was wet. On the way down to the beach one day a neighbour even sheparded me into her home to lend me her hairdryer. After a few weeks, I had the rules down pat. Coming back from beach with wet hair is accepted but going to the beach or any other direction from one's home with wet hair is not. Seven years later I blow-dry my hair no matter which country I live in and am no longer known as the "foreigner with wet hair."

  

2. Jogging outdoors (if you live in a small town or village)



I've lived in five different towns and cities in Italy and on the whole (present location, Milan, excluded) Italians don't jog in public. Whether I'm jogging around a park or through a town centre on my way to a park I'm always the only one jogging and I can't help but shake the carnival parade feeling. Like I'm the only performer on the only float in the parade but extraordinary enough to attract the attention of all. Men burrow out of darkened bar doorways, al fresco apperitivo drinkers rise from their checkered covered tablecloths and children playing football in the piazza halt mid kick - all to stop, stare and jest at the spectacular that is an outdoors jogger. Possibly worth noting that the response is not one of the admiration variety, no wolf whistles or seductive head to toe once-overs.  Instead, the inquisitive stares are often accompanied by calls of "correre" (run), "Vai!" (go!) and I once even had a 12ish year old boy leave his game of football to run after me imitating the way I ran. Another side note would be that as far as I am aware my running style is not to be compared to the likes of Phoebe's from Friends which is so Gumby like it caused Rachel to avoid her as a running partner. So what is it about running in public that's so out of rhythm with Italian life? Maybe that's just it. It is simply is out of sync with the slower paced Italian life where people stop to smell the rose of beauty at every corner. Perhaps a fast moving, red-faced, sweating runner goes as well with Italian culture as a McDonalds next to the Cuomo.



3. Watch TV (if you are a feminist or don't like, boobs or butts with your politics or game shows)

As mentioned in a blog below, Italian television is a constant show reel of showgirls showing all. No matter what the programme type or subject matter it would seem "entertainment" in Italy is synonymous with hypersexualised women whose butts, boobs, vulvas and legs all grind, gyrate and gesticulate around the screen. In Italy, the red light indicating your television is on is also a sign that you have entered a realm of entertainment similar to that found in red-light district around the world, often on stage in an afterhours called something like "Lucky's". Should the women's liberation movement of the 70s, who helped clean up the sexual objectification of women in vintage TV, arrive in Italy today, there would be a mass spring clean of epic proportions. The majority of programmes in Italy sexually objectify women, disregarding their personal and intellectual capabilities and reducing their role to an instrument of pleasure for men. Whether dancing routines similar to that taught in my jazz class when I was 9 mixed in with a striptease session, or simply standing there half naked to be ignored, insulted or laughed at from time-to-time, the portrayal of women is one likely to cause outrage in countries like Australia, America or the UK. However, the fact that 60 per cent of viewers are women suggests that while Italian women may be open to watching a bra burning to reveal a nipple on their screens they are unlikely to take to the streets anytime soon. So in the meantime, I've taken to boycotting boobs and buttocks and the representation of women as boobs on TV, which basically limits my Italian TV watching to Affari Tuoi. It's called the "don't be a boob" campaign - all are free to join.

4. Phone a taxi

Unless you live in a big city and need a taxi at 5:30am I'd think twice about phoning for a taxi in Italy. I once worked as an English teacher and had a first lesson in a business complex about 20 minutes outside of the main town in the northern centre of the country. I'd caught a taxi there quite easily by flagging one down, paid 15 euros in total and on finishing my lesson I'd asked for the receptionist to call me a cab. Around 10 minutes later a taxi arrived and on entering I noticed the meter read 16 euros and proceeded to go up as my journey progressed. When I arrived back at my starting point the driver announced a cost of 35 euros for my trip. He explained that I was required to pay from where the taxi started its journey not from where I started it. My argument that he could have started round the corner from where I started and I'd never know or that he could have started from Rome, five hours away, and I would have to pay hundreds for a 15 buck trip, did little to inspire a reduced fee. I'm told you can refuse to get into a taxi if you think the meter reading is too high on entry and see if they reduce the cost. Instead I no longer call for taxis. I figure I don't want to piss off the guy/girl who I'm relying on to get me home safely.

5. Buy an envelope at the post office

Or do. Go on try. One everyday duty where the daily instincts of the Australian, British or American are bound to catch you out is that of the “sending of a letter or parcel”.  Unlike other countries I have lived in where the post office sells  many of the items one needs in order to successfully carryout the action “to post” eg: envelope, boxes, bubble wrap and sticky tape, the post office in Italy does not. Almost like a bored teenager the Italian post office seems to have given up its posting duties and has instead opted for being a bank (out of the six counters at my local post office four are allocated for banking while two are for posting) and a bookshop with all the latest best sellers on display. While the symbol on top of the post counters is of an envelope suggesting that in Italy there is a correlation between the envelope and the act of posting, yet the real envelope has been forgotten. To post a letter or small package, you must go to the cartoleria (card shop) and buy the envelopes, bubble wrap and sticky tape. For a bigger package you need to hang outside your supermarket and wait for delivery day when you can find a suitable empty box. Once found, don’t forget you will need specific brown parcel wrapping paper to wrap the box, which you can find back in the cartoleria.

  

Top international celebrities in Italian commercials

George Clooney, Megan Gale, John Travolta, Julia Roberts,
Ben Affleck, Dustin Hoffman, Lindsay Lohan,
Woody Allen, Leonardo Dicaprio. Italian commercials

Whether it's international celebrities searching for the advertising buck away from critics in their home countries or Italian companies seeking out the most popular international stars to endorse their brands one thing is certain: it's always a little odd when an international celeb pops up in a commercial speaking or acting Italian. Here are some of my favourites:

George Clooney

George Clooney, who spends some of the year in his villa on Lake Como, Italy, has got to be Italy's favourite international star. He prominently features on Italian TV advertising internet provider Fastweb, coffee Nespresso and Martini. The Italians have even associated him with one of Italy's most prized brands - the Fiat.  Despite looking ever so Latino, George was born in Kentucky, USA, with Irish, English and German roots.

Megan Gale

Aussie supermodel Megan Gale hit stardom in Italy six years after winning a modeling competition in Perth, Australia at the age of 18. For seven years, between 1999 and 2006 Megan Gale was the face of Italy Vodafone on Italian TV - an amazingly long advertising run for a model and product. Over the years her advertisements saw her scaling the Space Needle in Seattle, leaping over moving vehicles and even surfing with dolphins. Another star who could pass as an Italian, Megan was instead born in Perth, Western Australia and has a Polynesian and French background.

John Travolta

In 2010 John Travolta starred alongside one of Italy's most successful female TV presenters, Michelle Hunziker (ex-wife of Eros Ramazzotti) in a Telecom Italia ad. He also had success advertising Sky in Italy. As his appearance, surname and his role as an Italian American, Tony Manero, in Saturday Night Fever, suggest, John Travolta is a third generation Italian American.








 Julia Roberts

Julia Roberts is probably one of the newest international stars to join the italian circuit. Posing as Botticelli’s Venus, she advertises Lavazza Coffee by simply smiling - she doesn't utter an italian word. 

Ben Affleck

In 2008 Ben Affleck tried his hand at advertising women's jewellry line Morellatto. I like this one as I can't help but feel that while he doesn't say a word, behind his smile he's thinking "what the freak am I doing here?" Born in California, there's no italian in Ben's ethnicity as his background is presumably a mix of Irish, Scottish, English and German.

Dustin Hoffman

Hats off to Dustin Hoffman for his series of commercials for Caffe Vergnano. Not only is this a funny commercial but he masters the italian language convincingly. 

Lindsay Lohan

The worst italian add with an international celebrity must be the bizarre fashion outlet Fornarina commercial with Lindsay Lohan. Lindsay poses, pouts and says random English onomatopoeic words like "click" and "bang". Seems like they missed a trick, as despite being born and bred in New York, USA, Lindsay's background is part Irish and part Italian so random italian words may have come naturale to Lindsay.  









Woody Allen 
And the award for the best italian speaking international star in an italian commercial must go to Woody Allen in this commercial for Telecom Italia. As Woody Allen usually writes, directs and then acts in his films it's no wonder he's gone the whole hog and possibly broken the record for the most Italian words spoken by a foreign star in an Italian commercial. 










Leonardo Decaprio 
And last but by no means least is Leonardo Decaprio also in a Telecom Italia ad. The serene commercial sees Leonardo lie around in a picturesque field and play with a few bugs. Despite his first and last name suggesting he'd be a great contender for an italian line or two, Leonardo opts for one quintessential American English word "Whatever!" It's such a transporting ad you almost forgive him for not digging into his father's German Italian roots. Whatever!

Where are all the young hot men on Italian TV?

Last night I watched the Italian logies/oscars, 51° Premio TV 2011. The annual programme on Rai 1 celebrated the top ten Italian TV programmes for 2011. 


I watched as they showcased the top ten and by the time they'd got to the forth, Striscia la Notizia, I'd started to sense a pattern: so far they were all reality or infotainment programmes and the majority of programmes featured TV presenting duos in the form of one ugly older man accompanied by a beautiful young (scantily clad) woman.


After each programme was announced they were given around fifteen minutes air time to promote their programmes and so began the extravaganza of bald heads and boobs, butts and legs. By the time I'd got through to the sixth show, my tolerance for exposure to older ugly men and over exposure to young perky surgically enhanced breasts had worn thin.


Though while ODing on an international theory of attractiveness gone horribly wrong - it's "the bold and the beautiful" not "the bald and the beautiful" Italy! - my first thoughts automatically turned to seek out the older women.


Alas, the seventh programme, "Chi l'ha visto", was fronted by an older woman wearing a black conservative pants suit. However, this programme did not receive the fifteen minute promotional opportunity afforded to all the others. Instead she had just two minutes to receive the gold oscar like trophy, say a few thank yous and depart. So,out of two hours and 20 minutes of programming the older woman in the pants suit recieved just two minutes of the fifteen minutes of fame afforded to "bald and the boobyful".


While there were flashes of older surgically enhanced women in the audience, the secret to being a female presenter on Italian TV was clear - young and beautiful with bountiful breasts.


For an analysis on the young, beautiful and boobiful women on Italian TV, be sure to watch Lorella Zanardo's  Il corpo delle donne - The Body of Women . The closing shot of a woman strung up like a slab of cured ham in a meat locker leaves you with a lasting taste of how women are represented on Italian TV.


But back to 51° Premio TV 2011...


So with the surgically enhanced older women sidelined for the surgically enhanced younger women, it was when the eighth programme was presented, "Le Iene", that my attention turned to another group missing from the top ten until now - young men. While Le Iene had yet another beautiful young woman presenting, this time she was accompanied by nine young men. This got me thinking, where are all the hot young men on Italian TV?


By the end of the programme I'd collated the following statistics about the top ten TV programmes in Italy for 2011:


7/10 - have older men presenters
4/10 - have presenting duos with older ugly men and young beautiful women
2/10 - have older women presenters
1/10 - have young men presenters


And my worst fears were confirmed: hot young Italian men are massively underrepresented on Italian TV. Why?

When I think of some of the most popular TV presenters in Australia, the UK and America I think of the likes of Ant & Dec, Rove McManus and Ryan Seacrest. While their level of attractiveness is subjective, surely female viewers enjoy watching young male presenters just as much as watching older men? Personally, I'm all for watching young attractive men over older bald ones. With Lorella Zanardo's documentary stating that women make up 60 per cent of Italian TV viewers, why are our screens full of baldies and boobies? 


With international hot men indicators across the web showing young Italian men dominating the the top spots, why, ow, why are they not dominating our TV screens?


Why is Italy's most presentable group kept hidden? Where are the young hot men on Italian TV? 


Can someone find them and put them on air or are we doomed to re-live some older man's porn fantasy everytime we flick on the TV?

Happy 150 Birthday Italy!

Italy 150 years. Photo by Antonia Scott.

Italy could very much be the oldest newest country in the world. Today it celebrates 150 years since its federation. Only 150 years since its regions united to become Italia - that's younger than Australia.


 Well almost all of its regions as apparently Rome didn't join Italy until nine years later but as they say Rome wasn't built in a day, and it seems, neither was Italy. 

This part explains why every city, town and village in Italy that I've visited has a Corso Garibaldi - the man who unified Italy 150 years ago, and Via XX Settembre - the date, nine years later when Rome joined Italy and Italy separated its government from the Catholic church.

To celebrate we are all, including the fashionably late Romans, enjoying a public holiday. We're just fresh out of carnivale, which seemed to stretch on for about a month where adults and children popped up in fancy dress when you least expected (I bumped into witches in Zara one day, got served apperitivo by Huey, Dewey, and Louie another day and found my local baker dressed as a court jester a different day again). But today the streets of Milan are flapping with red, white and green flags as the Italians celebrate being Italian.

Meanwhile, internationistas like myself part celebrate being half Italian, part celebrate living in Italy and part watch and follow the pure blood Italians as they demonstrate what it means to be an Italian today.

From what I've seen so far today being an Italian means: catwalks, public readings of literature, football, pizza, nutella, nonnas, girls with flowing long brown hair, flags, bicycles, soldiers in uniform and changing your facebook profile photo to the Italian flag.

Despite BBC news reports today saying that Italy is anything but unified, referring to Italians' strong identification with their regions over their nation, I've received a mixture of responses from friends, some who say they are first Italians and then of their regions, while others reminded me that Italy was once the land of 100 provinces suggesting that some are still Milanese, Parmigiano or Roman etc first and yet to become full grown Italians.



What state this puts some like me in: born in Scotland, living in Milan, having grown up in Australia with an Italian mother who was born in Genova to a father from Sicily and a mother from Udine, is... well... less teen and more terrible twos.



Still crawling around, yet to get my balance, yet to become a true blue internationista.





Sportual Identity

Netball in Milan? Photo by Antonia Scott

In an effort to maintain my Aussie roots I've been searching for netball in Milan. Unfortunately the only result of my Google search this far is a post on Wiki Answers where someone has asked "How do you say netball in Italy?” To which someone has replied with: "vaffanculo". Which simply means: fuck off.

Most girls I know in Australia grew up playing netball at school or Saturday comp. Many of my friends still do. Saturday comp in the summer; indoor after work in the winter. In Australia the national and state teams even receive national broadest time, which is quite something for an all-female sport.

I'm not a netball fanatic but when in OZ I like to sub for teams and will even go and cheer on my sister from the sidelines. This got me thinking about how important sports is when determining one's national identity.

Growing up in Sydney Australia we played competitive sports in primary school like netball, softball, touch football, t-ball and kanga cricket. Then there was our annual swimming and athletics competitions. While after school it was tennis and on the weekends it was Saturday netball and Nippers on Sunday mornings at the beach. In high school I remember playing a lot of handball during lunch and tennis. When my family moved to a smaller coastal town surfing was added to the mix. In fact, my final years in high school were spent in classrooms that were half empty when the surf was up.

When home in Australia last month, whether flicking on the tele or seeing them in action, each one of these sports firstly struck an off-base, followed by a very familiar settling - old sock familiar and settling - chord with me. One I let the initial odd feeling rest, which was probably set-off by a year living without exposure to them, each one reminded me of a time, a place, a game, a wave, a friend, a kiss.

Out of all of the above, tennis is probably the only one easily accessible to me now here in Milan though as it's winter I'm yet to see an outside court with a game in action.

As a result, I am almost without these sport triggers that reinforce my Aussieness.

Like an Italian without soccer, the world cup, the stadium riots, the flares and anthems; an American without gridiron, the superbowl, Janet Jackson’s nipple, cheerleaders and hotdogs; or a Brit without cricket, the Ashes, the balmy army, and tea with strawberries and cream, I am an Aussie without my GD bib, without the umpire's weekly fingernail check, without teammates yelling "nice defense!" and "zone her out", without bitching about the opposition, without the endless ringing of the umpire's whistle of "obstruction", without my pulse beating overtime to the adrenaline of competition, mateship and Australiana.

What happens when you lose your cultural sport? Do you lose a part of your cultural identity?

Do you lose your Sportual Identity?

And what happens if you replace it with another culture's sport?

Put an Italian on a netball court, a cricket pitch or even a gridiron field and what happens? Well, I'd hazard a guess and say nothing at first but after a few mavafunculos followed by a lengthy explanation of how to play the game, followed by more mavafunculos, perhaps they'd play the game. Play for the game's sake. They may even feel a bit Australian, American or British while doing so if they played it for an extended period of time. But if they played it for a long period of time without playing or watching soccer would their Italian identity be diluted ever so slightly?

In the long term would they end up with a mixed sportual identity?


An internationista sportual identity? (And as a result be a complete pain to have around during world cup time like me when I go for Australia, Scotland or Italy - depending on who's winning.)









The Cleaner

 

Cleaner in Italy? Photo by Antonia Scott.



From the loungeroom window of my apartment in Milan I overlook the kitchen area of a four story mansion, where the cleaner/cook/dog walker seems to spend most of his time. This morning, at 9:30, I saw him arrive and start moving around the kitchen. While putting out my washing at about 10am I saw him randomly pop up in one of the 17 windows that face my apartment and imagined him making a bed in one of the rooms. At around 1pm he put on a burgundy coat and white gloves and carried plates of food from the kitchen into an unknown dining room of diners. He does all this with a beautiful white Labrador attentively and adoringly watching every move.

After pondering the significance of the burgundy coat and white gloves I got to thinking about a social norm here in Milan - hiring a cleaner. Everyone I know in Milan has a cleaner. Whether you rent or own your own apartment or villa you have a cleaner.

No one I know in Australia has a cleaner.

This got me wondering why a lot of Italians have cleaners while few Australians do.Personally, I have a natural/social resistance to hiring a cleaner. Growing up in a relatively working class environment in Australia where my mother worked full time and brought up two kids, along with keeping home, having a cleaner was always something I'd seen as excessive for the likes of us and reserved only for the uber rich, celebs, kings, queens etc. As I'd got older I'd decided that it wasn't too indulgent when you hit your 40s to treat yourself to a cleaner once a fortnight - a reward for all the hard work you'd put in; a justifiable expense, if you could afford it.

My resistance to having a cleaner may relate back to life lessons during my upbringing? It was filled with mumisms like "clean up after yourself", "do you think your socks are going to pick themselves up?", "I'm not your maid", "this room looks like a pigsty" "what did your last slave die of?" I'm sure there were even some Victorianisms at the root of it all like "cleanliness is next to godliness", "a place for everything everything in its place", "Saturday's child works hard for a living", "a penny saved is a penny earned" and my mother's slightly altered favourite "a family that cleans together stays together". Somewhere along the line I'd also picked up "cleaning is good for the soul".

The result? I now thoroughly believe that there are emotional, educational and financial benefits to gain from cleaning your own house, though I don't know what they are, and I completely detest the idea of having someone else doing my dirty work - I almost feel like I'd be cheating if I did, though I'm not too sure who I'd be cheating.

Another element which no doubt plays a part of my anti-cleaner stance is my high regard for privacy, especially in my home. I literally, cringe at the thought of a cleaner airing my dirty laundry. The idea of someone in my home cleaning my dirt and going through my belongings, even if just to clean them, makes me feel odd.

Why do I feel so strange about having a cleaner when it is so normal here? Is it just another consequence of being a stranieri "stranger" in Italy or am I just strange?

Perhaps I'm just an internationista.

Why the Internationista?

Living in Italy. Photo by Antonia Scott.



I'm an internationista.

Born in Scotland, to a Scottish father and Italian mother I then grew up in Australia. Around ten years ago I left Australia and have since lived in America, the UK and Italy. I now spend my time between Australia and Italy - this makes me an internationista both in blood and geography.

I also have an international accent which often defines who I am to others. When I am in Italy I am Australian or British, when I am in Australia I am British or American, when I am in the UK I am Australian. I am rarely thought to be of the country I inhabit, always a foreigner, always an alien and when in Italy a stranieri - always a stranger.

I'm multicultural or bicultural as I have more than one cultural identity but on top of which my physical environment is in a state of constant transition so that I'm no longer an Aussie/Italian or Aussie/Scott. I'm without a land but still with multiculture. I am an internationista.

After living in London for four years and then spending the past three months in Australia, two days ago I returned to Italy where I lived for two years, four years ago. The aim of this blog is to share my cultural observations and experiences as an internationista living in Milan, engage like-minded readers and start to raise awareness of what could be the world's newest cultural identity - the internationista.