Texas is an Island

Yep. 

I did not know that. Discovered it recently...

Till now, I had always been under the false impression that to be an island, you needed to be a land circumvented by sea. Or at least water. A lake could be enough.

It s Texas that has taught me I was wrong.

You can be an island just in the middle of the country. Live as if the rest of the world did not exist. And be f.. proud of your "insularity".

It s strange by the way. Texas is awfully rich, educated, known in most of the world for its tv show, it's culture... and of course his oil. 

So you would expect this state to be open to the rest of the world and curious.

Or, well, at least, just polite with foreigners. After all, with their history, must Texans are old immigrants. You could expect from them some respect of other culture and some interest in other countries.

Nope.

Texas is an island, living far from the rest of the planet, cut from most of the tumult that makes the world go so badly round. 

Texans are "proud", not to say often dumbly superior, even in the worst of their culture (oh God all these "I drink beer and I kill deer" t shirts at the Boot Barn, along with the NRA baby shirts - yes, baby garments stating "in a free state we are free to carry guns" or "proud to be a wild hunter" - it was a shock for me : babies and hunt, war, guns ? I have never seen that before !).

And Texans are so lost in their "proudness of their state" that they sometimes touch real dumbness.

In all my previous trips, I have encountered different reactions when I announced I am French. 

Sometimes real hostility, mostly for political reasons (in some Muslims countries like Tunisia or Marrocco people still hold grudge for the colonization ). 

Sometimes frank happiness - the most extraordinary was in Mongolia in 96 : I had no idea Russian TV actually broadcasted by satellite a cheap French soap opera called "Helene et les Garçons " (Helene and the boys) and I had the surprise of my life when in the midst of the steppe, in a yourt far from the nearest village by more than five hours of horse riding, the whole family I had just met worryingly asked me "how things where going now in France for Helene and her boy friend Philippe " - for they just had had a fight in the latest episode broadcasted on Russian satellite. And they were exhilarated to learn, while we drank mare milk and ate sheep tail together, that I had actually studied in a school like the one depicted in the show, and that I lived in Paris they tried to picture using their imagination  ; and they have asked hundred of questions about Paris, and France, and our political system, and where we kept our horses in our homes (!), with our guide patiently translating for all the kids seated around us... While on my side I learned about traditions. Wedding, kid raising, and life in the steppe when you are a free nomad on your own.

It was a great moment and I have learned as much from them that day than them from me. It's a beautiful souvenir.

And I recall great conversations with Balineese people - who were totally surprised to learn that in France or in the US, it could be "as cold as in a fridge", because they asked me very politely why Starsky and Hutch were (there was an old episode on the tv in the small remote village restaurant where I had stopped) "wearing cosmonauts clothes" - and who were very worried for France welfare when they learned we have only one God, and only went to see him once a week in a special church called a church - when Balineese people all have temple on their house and pray their numerous Gods at least once a day - one of the guys even gave me one of his favorite Gods name so I could "also reach him in my prayers", once back in Farnce, for he was a bit worried one only God would not be enough for all my daily worries "who do you pray when your car breaks ? Same God ? Noooo, he can not do it all. You must have one God for your mechanics, and also one for your travels, it s so dangerou, he will have plenty of work !)

Or even with Yemenites, who were however not the easiest culture I have met, and where only women were normally allowed to talk to me ... In Sanaa I spent an evening speaking  with a 24 old pharmacy student who was... the father of ten children, for he already was married to two women, and was considering the choice of a third wife. 

That s what I enjoy in traveling far...

I have always found everywhere people eager to exchange, learn, and communicate...

But, with my month stay here, in Texas, 

I haven t had one experience like this with a "real" Texan. 

With all the people I have met here, the only who have really asked questions and taken time to speak were foreigners... Or natives. Or recent immigrants.

Most "Real" Texans just don t care.

And if they can they even let themselves go to rudeness with foreigners...

- As I I was to invade their land (again :-) !

I was so surprised by this attitude that I finally asked a charming lady selling books in Wichita Falls for an explanation.

Was it because Texas still had a political issue with France, maybe because of history, that no one ever reacted when I said I was French, asked about Paris, art, fashion etc...?

And she made that unbelievable (for me) answer I give here exactly :

"Well, you know, we probably dont't care for your Paris because we, Texas, have ours."

What an answer ! And from someone who is all day in the midst of books, travel guides, political biographies, history and art books ! 

We have one Paris here, why do you want us to care about your old one !

Wow, I will never forget this answer, and this quiet assurance of so many people there that Texas is enough in itself to fill the whole world and forget about the rest.

Yes, Texas in an Island. And geography is not an explanation, for once again I have seen that Mongolians, who live as far from the sea and in the middle of a huge continent, are far more open minded and educated than most Texans I have met here.

No, I think it s more of a psychological island. A bit like those spoiled sixth years children you suddenly send to school and don t relate to anybody "because with all their family love and pride, they feel different and quite superior to all these other children, thanks".

Texans are probably the spoiled children of America.

I am eager to see how New Mexicans are...

But I will never forget my weeks in the culture of Duck Dynasty, beer, hunt, weapons, and hate of the strangers I have just met there... And it s here that I have seen for the first time of my life a truck with a confederate flag flying in the wind on the highway, after a Sunday of heavy drinking considering the flourishing noses of the guys inside. A confederate flag in 2014, when the world is painfully working at avoiding wars in Ukraine, Iran, Pakistan... Really ???

Yes, here in Texas, life is simple and dumb.

Drink beer and kill deer..

even the rubber ducks for babys are camouflaged for hunt : 

(Took that shot in the Wichita Falls bookstore, where kids books are just between the books and gadgets about Duck Dynasty, complete with the false beards, and the books about NRA and good shooting of the wildlife for fun.  I have worked for twenty years in publishing in France, I had never imagined such books before Wichita Falls!)

I am not really in that culture, probably. 

And from Dallas, and Texas landscape, I only did one painting. A small watercolor of one of the only places where I felt at home, drinking tea and working,

In the nice "cafe" of Art District, downtown Dallas, 

Where art mattered more than guns and beer pride...

I am not really Texan, and not that much into psychological islands...