Discovery of the Real America

Before leaving the park Saurus could not help but notice a man and a woman, maturely in their thirties or even forties, leave the path ahead to disappear among the bushes. As he followed Jasper past the place minutes later he heard the unmistakable giggle of a woman, and the heavy breathing of a man. A glance in the direction of the bush revealed nothing, but the sounds were very close to the path. Saurus looked at his watch. It was not yet 8.20 a.m. What were couples doing coming to a park at such an early hour for such private activity?

As they came to a main road at the edge of the park he expected to see the queues of cars on their way to work. At this hour in an Eastern city all would be awake and rushing to their workplaces during a working day. But in Central City there was none of the bustle. Many did not bother to run a car here, as the public transport system of trams, trains and buses was so effective. He had heard that efforts to ban cars during the last century had finally succeeded, and had reduced their number when working practices had been gradually changed. Reduced work for all had meant a relaxation of rush hour congestion and many had found they no longer wanted or needed to run a car.

Jasper showed Saurus where his apartment was. "It's in that block up there," he said, pointing up to an attractive modern building, which reminded Saurus of the luxury hotels he had often holidayed in on the beaches of South India, the Gulf, or the shores of Morocco.

Saurus was immediately impressed. The prosperity of this continent was beyond doubt. Its people were well looked after in the material sense, just as his own were. In the historical past many of them in the West, in North America and Europe at least, had been much wealthier than the peoples of the East. But the East had caught up in the last century by hard work and sensible government, by peaceful coexistence between the lands and peoples of the East, and by rejecting the exploitative temptations of doing business with the West of old. But the West had changed too. It was no longer the greedy master continually evolving and growing on the human particles of its machine society. What had happened to the avaricious West of old? It was more benign now, its people more concerned with the wasting of their lives on short lived pleasures of the flesh, on drugs, and the childish repetition of its art forms. He was sure that its economy placed no threat upon the East. The East was happy on its own, its industries developed and secure in their markets. The West showed no desire to invade the economy of the East again, and could not have done, even if the East had dismantled the restrictions and tariffs which had protected it before.

From what he had seen of the people in America, they had little interest in business. Even if the borders of the East were laid wide open to them he doubted any of these lazy people would have lifted themselves from their slumbers to sell or to plan marketing strategies. They were cocooned in their soft existence, and all self motivation was gone. They did not even seem to work any more. The society obviously functioned well. There was plenty and the people lived in good quality housing. He would not have said they were well dressed, but that appeared to be more a matter of choice and taste than lack of clothing. In all the time he had been here he had seen little evidence of people working. There was no 'rush hour', as there was in Baghdad or Tehran, Delhi or Karachi, Singapore or Shanghai, in morning or early evening. He had seen no factories at close hand, but there were shops of many kinds. He supposed that he had seen many shop assistants, now he considered the question, but they had seemed to be relaxing in their tasks, taking time to talk to the customers, and hardly rushed off their feet. The shopping madness of the big department stores and the new shopping malls of the eastern cities were a far cry from the casual shopping atmosphere here in this original home of consumerism. People did not rush here. They had time to enjoy the day. They did not even seem to care much about the products. Evidently they were used to them, or had other entertainments on their minds.

"Do you want to see where I live?" asked Jasper. His guide had shown him so many sights of the city, grand public buildings, the busy places where people came together to do the things they liked to do. The question seemed strangely irrelevant after the places the younger man had already shown him. How could someone's home be of interest after the places and people he had observed today.

"Your home? You want to show me your home?" he said in the broken English of the East. Then, laughing politely, "Why, is that on the 'tourist agenda' too."

"Not normally," Jasper admitted, "but I thought you might have had enough of the sights by now. I thought maybe you would like to relax for a while. Unless you have had enough and want to return to your own accommodation."

"Oh no," exclaimed Saurus, the revulsion of yesterday returning, despite the many sights he had witnessed since then. "That's the last place I feel like going at the moment."

"I thought perhaps you would like to find out more about how we live. What better way than to see where I live. I am a typical individual. My flat is quite ordinary, in an ordinary district, but if you haven't seen the places where people live yet why not come and see it."

"Well, if you put it like that I will," agreed Saurus, seeing no reason not to. "I am here to discover more about your ways, and what better way than to enter the home of a native of America. I certainly don't feel ready to go back to my home at the moment, and I can't expect you to walk me around every building, and every park of this city centre. Are you sure you want me to continue to accompany you? You must be getting tired of my presence by now. I have taken up too much of your day already. Surely you have other business to attend to. When you wish me to go my own way, please tell me."

Jasper laughed good humouredly, "I said it before. I am quite enjoying this chance to show a stranger around. If I wanted you to go I would have made my excuses before, for sure. I wouldn't invite you to see my place if I did not mean what I say." Indeed he was enjoying his role for the day. The stranger was interesting, and he would enjoy introducing him to some of the fashionable modern perversions of the west, which were obviously so unfamiliar to him.

"You live alone, I understand?" asked Saurus, just to make sure.

"Yes, of course."

"Why of course?" asked Saurus.

"Well you may not have noticed but most of us in the west live on our own, unless we have children to look after," explained Jasper.

"Oh, do you? I didn't realise that!" said Saurus. " I realise now, of course, that you don't respect marriage properly. I have seen enough in the last few days to realise that, but I assumed you must live in families. I thought everyone in the world lived in families. I thought you weren't married, but I assumed you were still looking for a wife."

"No. I don't want a wife. I have enough girlfriends anyway. Marriage is still used to show a commitment to raising children, but it no longer commits the partners to living together, and certainly no longer prevents the partners from choosing as many sexual partners as they care to."

"Do you mean that no one here marries in the way we do in the East?" Saurus asked, surprised at how complete a breakdown of the traditions there had been in the West. He had assumed his observations of sexual excess in the last few days had been merely one of the more 'liberal' elements of this society. It came as a shock to him that no one married in the traditional sense any more."

"Yeah, that's true. Traditional marriage has been breaking down for a couple of centuries now in the west. Many generations have grown up since that practice was common. Everyone in the west has their own space to live. The people engaged in marriage have shared responsibilities to look after the children so they usually live nearby each other , or in the same apartment or building. The children can live alternately with each parent on a sharing basis or with a particular parent, visiting and having much access to the other parent, or together in the same apartment or building if the parents live together. Sometimes parents remain lovers. Often they don't, but they are friends. We found it settled the awful arguments and bitterness many marriage partners used to feel towards each other. Nobody owes sexual loyalty to anyone else. We can screw with whoever we like. It means we can enjoy having a few girlfriends and we can always sample strangers from time to time if we like. You see we all have our strategies. Some like to build close relationships which last a long time; others like to drift from lover to lover. The important thing is no one's life becomes boring or restrained. That is the theory at any rate."