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Sect in the City
It only took “Amish in the City” housemate Mose one morning in midtown Manhattan to size up the lay of the land.
“In New York City, drivers don’t look at lines or signs — they cross lanes, straddle the lines and literally push each other out of the way with their cars,” the Wisconsin Amish schoolteacher said yesterday.
There isn’t much that seems to surprise Mose these days, not after living in a posh Hollywood house for two months as part of “Amish in the City,” the UPN reality show airing its third episode tonight (8 p.m./Ch. 9).
On the fish-out-of-water show, a hit so far for UPN, Mose and fellow Amish Miriam, Randi, Jonas and Ruth were thrown into the house with six often-snarky “city kids” — ranging from openly gay Reese to spacey vegan Ariel — who weren’t exactly thrilled to welcome their new housemates.
“I was ready for just about anything that happened, but the thing that never failed to surprise and disappoint me was the fact that the city kids couldn’t quite seem to close that gap, even after being in the house for a while,” Mose said.
“My first impression was, ‘This too shall pass, they’ll get used to us,’ ” he said. “It’s hard for me to imagine living with someone for 12 weeks and not becoming best friends.”
The event that made it possible for Mose et al. to even be in the Hollywood Hills house is “rumpsringa,” an Amish rite-of-passage in which young adults are allowed to explore the “outside” world before deciding if they want to continue living in the no-frills, back-to-basics Amish community (no electricity, etc.).
Mose, who’s 24, said he experienced his rumspringa a little later in life, since his Wisconsin Amish community doesn’t readily adhere to the custom.
He was about a year- and-a- half into his rumspringa experi ence, having traveled to Missouri, when he was approached by “Amish in the City” produc ers about par ticipating in the show.
“Unfortu nately, people [in the community] thought I had gone out of my mind, and I didn’t tell them where I went to be cause I didn’t want all the baloney that went with it,” he said.
“Rumpsringa is a deeper subject than most people realize,” he said. “I kind of made my decision [to appear on the show] and wanted to stick with it. It was very frowned- upon and I was shunned.”
Mose said he experienced a lot in his rumpsringa, so the house in California didn’t faze him too much.
“I was prepared for anything, but if you’re going to talk about what freaked me out the most, I’m going to say it was probably the whole Reese-gay thing,” he said.
“I wasn’t prepared for having a gay guy in the house — and there were a few things that went down during the show, about that subject, that freaked the hell out of me.”
Still, all in all, Mose said the experience did little to change his core beliefs or who he is as a person.
“I’m proud to say I think I stand pretty humble and pretty much the same person I was before the show, and I don’t see that changing right away,” he said.
“I want to stay the same person I was when I went into the house. I don’t want to be a big celebrity — I want to stay a country boy.”
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