In Brazil, some misguided people vow that it increases sexual prowess, others are under the delusion that it makes a man impotent. In Haiti, they say it is the only thing that will cause Damballah and his wife Ayida Oueddo, a pair of the chief deities of the voodoo pantheon, to put in an appearance at a voodoo session. Chinese bankers have taken to serving it instead of tea, and Italian aristocrats offer it to their guests instead of champagne. Graceful gondolas carry it along the narrow canals of Venice, and sturdy, resigned burros tote it into the dusty Mexican hills. Bright red signs proclaim its worth in the shadow of the Matterhorn and beneath the blank, unastonished eyes of the great Sphinx. The gentle burps which it evokes from the drinker are heard amid the bustle of Parisian sidewalk cafes and amid the tinkling of Siamese temple bells.
People almost everywhere are buying it as if it were the biggest glass of ambrosia in the world for a nickel. Actually, according to the official and modest definition of its makers, it is only "a soft drink . . . best described as delicious and refreshing." Its name, of course, is Coca-Cola.
The Essence of America. The late William Allen White once described Coke as the "sublimated essence of all America stands for." To find something as thoroughly native American hawked in half a hundred languages on all the world's crossroads from Arequipa to Zwolle is still strangely anomalous, somewhat like reading Dick Tracy in French or seeing a Japanese actor made up to look like Abraham Lincoln. But it is reassuring. It is also simpler, sharper evidence than the Marshall Plan or a Voice of America broadcast that the U.S. has gone out into the world to stay.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,820569,00.html#ixzz1aO2466r6
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