Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
My brother Mark is the most widely traveled of the three Ellis siblings. So when he makes a statement like this one, “I like border towns and the mixed energy of two nations that swirl around them.” it makes me realize I’ve not got a lot of experience with border towns. Detroit and Windsor. That’s about it.
(bill for an event in the State Farm Arena, Hidalgo, Texas)
Mark’s in Hidalgo, Texas right now as a medical tourist, getting dental work done in Reynosa, Mexico, just across the border. He walks to the border from his motel, pays one U.S. dollar to cross on a pedestrian bridge and bang he’s transnational traveler.
His comment about border towns makes me want to visit a few, just to see what he means. I know he has experience of border towns between Thailand and Cambodia, gained because every three months or so he had to do a visa run while living in Bangkok. Others, I don’t know.
The anthropologist in me says, aha, diffusion. And yes, it would be strongest where two cultures meet, but where they are supported by different political and cultural norms, that is, across national borders. U.S. culture could effect Reynosa and Mexican culture effect Hidalgo, safe within their own cultural envelopes.
(Pinatas in Reynosa, Mexico)