It’s difficult for us to imagine, but what if you had been raised in a culture that had never been introduced to American cuisine and were presented with a hamburger for the first time in your life? Would you even know how to handle the sandwich to prevent the patty, lettuce, tomato and pickles from spilling out? What strategy would you use to tackle the foreign dish? Would you cut it up into bite-size pieces? Nibble on each ingredient separately? Dig your teeth into the bun with the burger laying flat on the plate?
As surprising as it sounds, all of these eating techniques and more are presented in a short video that shows what happens when people of other cultures are confronted with something as mundane as a hamburger for the first time. To find people unaccustomed to Americans foods, a video production crew traveled to isolated villages in such locales as Thailand, Romania and Greenland. There, they let the locals try both a McDonald’s Big Mac and Burger King Whopper to see which of the two American hamburgers they preferred.
More than anything else, the video succeeds at showing us the diversity of the human experience. What we take for granted here in the U.S. is completely foreign to other cultures, and vice versa.
Watch what happens below.
Joseph Guyer?lives in Texas. An ad man by trade, he firmly agrees?with Bill Clinton that there is nothing wrong with America that can’t be cured by what is right with America. You can read more of his work at?Liberals Unite?and follow him on Twitter?@joerobguy.
