Audio Spectral Travel

Monday, April 9, 2012

Reverse Culture Shock

When I went to India people said I could never be prepared for the culture shock, but when I got there I never felt more at home. I was actually interacting with human beings rather than systems. However, when I got home that's where I experienced the real culture shock. Everything seemed so contrived and fabricated, and everyone seemed so divorced from reality. I almost couldn't believe what I was witnessing. It seemed very clear in contrast we get to live the way we do in the West (rich slaves) at the expense of those in the East (poor and free).


Inspired from a post by Lenore Skenazy at Free Range Kids.

2 comments:

  1. Another bright and "living" post, Jamie. Thank you. I am soooo hopeful for the future of our children, and theirs, because of fathers & mothers with hearts and souls and minds as yours. Your own young family is already a living example of that exciting future.

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  2. Yeah. I agree with Nehru. There are some glimmers of hope.

    But...

    Sorry to crash the Utopia here, but idealism (and I like to idealize) sometimes drives be batty, and makes me realize why the nasty money grubbing weasels always get the upper hand.

    Would you rather be 'poor and free' and trying to stomach some maggot-infested dogshit for breakfast, or a 'slave' and eating decent food that you didn't have to acquire by selling your 4 year old daughter to some old creep?

    These people you speak of have a horrid track record of human rights, bizarre caste systems that are tantamount to slavery, and little, if any, regard for freedom. And if they seem free to you, that, my dear friend, is Culture Shock, or (more likely) just plain old novelty of going somewhere you've never been before.

    Why do you think they keep moving here? And why their daughters prefer to marry outside the culture if they can possibly get away with it?

    BTW, what the hell were you doing in India? Getting malaria? My cousin Tanya did.

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