My Neutrogena Epiphany

Being a foreigner in Poland these past few months has given me pause to reflect on how other cultures seem to subtly weave their way into others. Now there are French clothing stores here, Italian shoe stores, and British grocery stores, but since I'm an American, I have been especially surprised by the amount of American culture found in everyday Poland. This country has seen its share of American music, fashion (Wrangler jeans are big here), literature, cinema, and I even saw a Claire's Boutique jewelry store in Warsaw. What in the world?

Even the plain old English language has made its mark. English is EVERYWHERE. The Polish language has adopted many English words, like “telefon,” “komputer,” “okay,” and “parking” (the Polish word for parking lot). English is on hundreds of products in the stores because so many are imported. It's on billboards, and I even saw the English words “hot” and “cold” written on our friends' bathroom faucet. I am baffled every time I encounter something like this. I like to turn the tables and imagine it the other way around. What if my faucet at home in the U.S. had “hot” and “cold” written in Chinese, or something? What would that be like for us? Would that have any effect on our national identity? If the words were in Spanish, that would be one thing because there is a huge population of Spanish speakers in the States and Mexico is just across the border, but English isn't spoken in a country that's even close to bordering Poland — and there are so many other countries, languages, and cultures in between.

The many imported products vary from kitchen cleanser to toothpaste to Avon products. Some have Polish text on them, others have English on the front with a Polish sticker on the back, but still others surprisingly sport only English, without any other language on them at all. All of this is not to say that I don't love my country or that I'm not proud of its culture or the quality of the products it produces. But it's just strange to see so much of my foreign culture —and more so than any other, it seems — showing up in another country. It's hard not to feel a little bit like a bully.

I continued thinking about this as I was searching for some Neutrogena face wash a while ago, which turned out to be no problem at all. Again I was baffled that no Polish was on the container at all. Surprisingly, it is assumed that Polish people will purchase this product that is described in only a foreign language. And I guess they do. Could you imagine walking into Wal-Mart and buying a product that has only Spanish on it? Because there's a somewhat superior air I've noticed about all things American or English, it's weird feeling like the cool one while still being the odd one out. And it's even weirder feeling embarrassed or even guilty that, because I'm an American, I was partly responsible for the infiltration of another nation's culture. Because there is just so much Americanness around here, I can't help but feel that the Polish culture, whatever that might be, may be suffering, or at least getting overshadowed, somewhat because of it.

Later I scrutinized my container of Neutrogena and was aghast when I saw the words “Norwegian Formula” written at the top. Maybe Neutrogena was really a Norwegian product, and all this time I thought it was American only because it has been around for so long and it has become a part of our culture? Was this the case for the Poles? Did they think this foreign product was essentially Polish? And then I turned the container around and saw that Neutrogena was a division of Johnson & Johnson and my paradigm shifted back into place. It was still from the good ol' US of A like I thought.

I also noticed that there was some Russian text on the back of the facewash, interestingly, and that there were Johnson & Johnson divisions located in Dublin and Paris and this particular face wash was made in France. So there's more going on with world commerce than I'm talking about here or that I even understand in the slightest. And what I'm not saying is that Americans are evil or that all importing is bad. It's kind of a nice idea to see the act of importing as one country sharing the best products it has to offer with other countries, in the hopes that it will increase the business of the former and benefit the lives of the latter — and thereby create a sense of world culture, in addition to individual cultures. But I imagine that this is a rosier picture than things are in reality. And since American culture is so ever-present, it can be unpleasant to see one culture I want to learn about being changed bit by bit into the culture I already know.

So basically, I don't have it all figured out. But it is interesting to see how far you can go with a bottle of Neutrogena facewash.