Week 4: 490

Last Thursday, in our health care class, we were given a task that required us to interact directly with Italians. The mission was to go into a local market, ask people for a minute, and pray that they would take a health care survey. This survey was written in Italian and asked questions regarding people’s personal opinions on Italy’s national health care. With only two hours in an English-free speaking market, our goal was to survey ten females and ten males.
The first route I decided to take was the produce section. It must have been my lucky day because the first guy I surveyed, summoned all his friends, and urged them to take the survey. It was interesting to see them all interact with each other, questioning the reason for the survey, and laughing at each other’s answers. Within three minutes, I was already halfway done with the males.
As I continued through the market, I realized things would not be that simple. Rejection became my middle name. I was shooed away, given the cold shoulder, and at one point just got stared at for an uncomfortably long time. Once I realized my hesitant, American attitude was getting me nowhere, I turned on the Italian in me and was determined to get all 20 surveys done. I basically tried to be like Danilo. Whenever he has to approach people, he has a certain charisma that makes him approachable and confident. He knows what he needs to do and does not wait for it to happen. This “go get ‘em” attitude was the turning point of my experience. Before I knew it, I had only two more surveys to go. I started to get a feel for which people would be willing to listen and which ones could care less. I started carrying myself with more confidence and took rejection as just another nibble to the catch.
Not only did I learn things about myself through this experience, but also about Italians in general. Barzini mentions that Italian are very suspicious of people they do not know. The other thing that triggered some thoughts while reading Barzini is at the end of chapter ten when he states, “Power, personal power, is the key.” Although this can be taken many ways, we can relate it to the market experience. When I approached certain people who did not want anything to do with the survey, were they rejecting me to boost their personal power? Did they feel threatened by these surveys, which directly threatened their power? Or did they simple not care? It is interesting to see how each person handles situations differently.