Old friend, New friend, Non-friend

I can't help thinking how Sex-and-The-City-like this blog title is, which would be appropriate, as I made a mental note to write about it after being greeted - for about the two hundredth time - shrilly, earnestly, a little too worryingly fervently -

'How're ya doing' today???!!!!'

Yes, I was in New York City a few weeks ago. And no, I had no personal or professional connection with the person who'd just flashed an ear-to-ear smile at me with the question, in fact I didn't know him/her whatsoever. I had, as you've probably guessed, just walked into a shop for a spot of aimless window-shopping, but my new-found oldest friend was determined not to let even the slightest impression of neglect take hold.

Many frequent travellers, myself included, would acknowledge the commendable enthusiasm of the service-industry employees in the US on the whole , compared with their European counterparts. They like to make you feel they really care, their actual knowledge or competence being an entirely different matter. The big smiles and fully-loaded attentiveness are supposed to be the norm. And even an awful cynic like me can be left impressed often. But after all these years - including two living in the US - the intimacy of the Big Greeting by a total stranger can still make me jump sometimes. Or just simply wonder: do they actually ever expect a truthful reply to the question (for that's what it is, however rhetotic)? What would happen if anyone actually looked into their eyes and replied with equal fervour: 'Well, I'm feeling really crappy. I had a horrible day at work and things aren't going so well at home either. And now a total stranger has just pretended that they genuinely care about how I feel. I mean, I've given you the honest answer and now what can you do for me?!'

Globalisation and technology have, hand in hand, changed our perspectives on relationship and intimacy in so many ways. But really there's no point in deluding ourselves. In the world of Facebook, you become 'friends' with people who you've met once or twice. Didn't it use to take a little more effort, serendipity, common interest - and, simply, time - for true friendship to take hold? Whatever happened to the category of 'acquaintances'? What's wrong with just being acquainted with someone? Well nothing, except that if A is an Acquaintance to B as opposed to a Friend like C is, there's something horrifyingly wrong with A, especially if all this Profile is viewed by three hundred other people on a daly basis.

I am indeed aware that the meaningless enquiry of our state of wellbeing is not specifically confined to the American retail sector. Doctors, helpline workers, telemarketers, total strangers in any other number of guises, all want to know just how you're feeling right this moment. And of course no answer other than the positive affirmative can possibly be comtemplated. This is the basic rule of manners of our social existence. But because we already live in a world of excessive spam - materialistic, virtual, emotional - it's quite refreshing, once in a while, to be greeted by something that's merely functional but really a lot more useful than an empty smile. The shop assistants also automatically pump out their chorus of a one-liner in Japan and China, and they tend to be:

'Please feel free to look around!'

May virtue become the true glory

We got home after the LSO concert, cooked our simple dinner, sat down and, as always, turned on BBC News 24 online (this is a household of no TVs). Nothing but blanket coverage of the Obama inauguration. Flashbacks to the proceedings throughout the day, commentators, street interviews, tears, cheers, more tears, back to live coverage of the new First Family waving to the cheering crowds as they walk towards the White House. M turned to me incredulously: 'It's a full FIVE HOURS after the actual ceremony! Have they ever done this for any other US president inauguration in living memory?!' More incredulously, we were both watching this frankly quite mundane part of the events in full absorbtion. As I remember, back in 2000, when we still did have a TV and were living in the US, we didn't bother with the Bush inauguration at all. Then who knows what happened in 2004 - was there actually a ceremony? Did anyone care?

They showed that aerial shot of The Mall packed with crowds for what must have been the hundredth time today. Then it hit me: for millions like ourselves, i.e. the non-American generation who were born between the mid-1970s and the mid-1980s, whose apprehension of world events were, to a large extent, shaped by the American influence on the rest of the world in many ways, whose extracurricular cultural education had been encroached/dominated by American exports (from Michael Jackson to Hollywood to McDonalds), there was only one other particularly memorable occasion on which we had this identical shot: the Vietnam war-rally scene in Forrest Gump.

"Forrest - Forrest!" "Jenny!!" As Tom Hanks and Robin Wright Penn embraced in the middle of the Reflecting Pool, the all-encompassing American Dream was redefined there and then. Curiously, in retrospect, Gump actually personified what George Washington had pledged, and what was so calmly yet thrillingly reiterated today: '... nothing but hope and virtue survive.' 15 years ago, it was through a totally fictitious character that numerous Chinese (and Indian, Russian, Kenyon etc etc) teenagers were shown stories of the 20th-century USA that made the country as we knew it - and, in many cases, dreamed it. Today, everything felt infinitely more real, more palpable, the words more believable even when all the other headlines are looking more ominous by the minute. But Obama was never more convincing when he reminded us of the importance of hope. 'Hope.... is a good thing.' also Andy Dufrene, expressionless, in circumstances that couldn't be more different. (If you still haven't seen Shawshank Redemption, do. Borrow my DVD.)

Obama, as I keep reminding myself, is a politician first and foremost. Nothing will change overnight and as all this exciting carnival ends, he'll have to go back to the world of mess that he's inherited from W. Fortunately, if anything, he's far too intelligent to overlook the danger of sky-high expectations that cannot possibly be met by anyone becoming the US president at this time (no, not even Batman AND Superman combined). If I were any more cynical, I'd say the little hiccups at the actual oath-taking were deliberate and elaborate plans to show his human vulnerability - except that it's apparently been confirmed now that it was entirely the Chief Justice's fault for screwing it up, no doubt as a parting gift from W.

People were reportedly walking away from the inauguration speech with disappointment at the 'lack of big sentences to take away', but I really liked the sound of hope and virtue being the only survivors in this bitterest winter. We've all got used to the idea of 'land of Hope and Glory' (well, at least those of us who live on this little island, plus Anglophiles worldwide), and I find it rather reassuring indeed to know that, whereas the Glory of the past decade and more has been ultimately interpreted as material wealth - in whatever guises it may have taken - from now on we'll see it's possible to re-learn the concept of endurable glory, and (hopefully) question ourselves how virtuous we deserve to call ourselves.

Good luck, President Obama.