You may never Know... unless you ask
Shortly after I moved into my dorm room, I was introduced to this company called Uber. Uber is similar to a taxi service, except it is cheaper, you pay with a credit card via a phone app, and you call for the car to pick you up ahead of time, rather than waving it down.
After my classes ended today, I requested for an Uber driver to pick me up and drive me to the Atlanta History Center, which is about twenty minutes from campus. My first driver, picked me and, like usual, I began to talk nonstop. I usually ask them about how their day has been, and ask them to tell me the latest and craziest Uber story, but this time I decided to tell the driver about my autoethnography project. I asked the driver if she had always lived in and around the Atlanta area. It turns out, she has lived in Atlanta her whole life. A smile lit up my face, as I thought of what a great opportunity this was to learn more about the "true southern culture" of Atlanta. I proceeded to ask many questions, and she answered every one. She explained to me how, growing up in the south, southern hospitality was important, and family meant everything. The "family dinner" was a huge part of growing up in the south, and the type of food they ate reflected that southern food culture I had known about before coming to Emory. Growing up in Atlanta she had a southern accent until she was about fourteen years old, but lost it once she started to attend a public school in the city. She told me how the "city" area of Atlanta is much more of a melting pot; most of the kids in her class did not have a southern accent, because they were simply not from the south, so her accent faded as school went on. The driver expressed how the further you travel outside of Atlanta, the more "southern" it gets. Before I could ask her what she meant by southern, I had arrived at my destination, but now I knew what I could talk about on the way back with the next driver. The next driver, as it turns out, had been my Uber driver once before. As I began to tell him about my project, he reiterated everything the last driver had said, specifically about it being "more southern" the further away you travel from Atlanta. I finally had the chance to ask what it meant to be "more southern"; he explained to me that whenever he picks up people inside of the "city" area of Atlanta, people are in more of a rush, but the further out he picks people up the more laid-back and nicer they seem to be. As he dropped me off at my destination, he told me I must go eat at Mary Mac's and get myself "some real southern cooking". I smiled, thanked the driver and walked back to my dorm. After coming back to my room, I thought about everything they had told me, but I also noticed something about the drivers themselves. In New York City or Boston, the taxi cab driver picks you up and drops you off. It is rare that you have a conversation. Maybe it is just the "Uber way", but I think being in the south, the southern hospitality switch turns on, and a conversation is typical. |
Click button below to read about my trip to the Atlanta History Center
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