Last week I ripped myself from our long trip and made my way towards LA via the Houston airport. It was weird.
Culture shock as defined by Wikipedia is "the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life." I can't say that I experienced a classic case of culture shock as I was returning to a somewhat familiar, if not forgotten, way of life. I noticed some things upon my return that I never noticed before and the noticing was more like a jaw punch than a "hmm."
Some weird things about America:
1. People don't say hi like they do down here. When you walk all but the most crowded streets in the places we've visited in Central America, people say hi. They mean it, too. They don't stop at hi either - they say Buenos Dias! They lift their head and flash a genuine smile and say good day! You really get the sense that they actually want you to have a good day. That it would truly please them and help them have a good day if you did as well. When you walk in a restaurant down here and pass the tables of other diners, you say hello and good evening. Of course you do, right? You'll be dining with these fine people and it would just be downright rude if you didn't at least acknowledge them and wish them well. When you depart, you wish them a good appetite. If you are like me and slow to learn just how to do that, you might be considered rude. The diners might wonder why the gringo didn't hope for their good appetite and be perplexed. I think that the people in the Houston airport were just as perplexed with my well wishes. Especially the people in the highly corporate and polished restaurant where I dined and wished good appetite upon the set of business travelers enjoying their chicken fingers and very tall beers. Apparently, my travels have made me weird.
2. Everything is shiny. There are many lights and signs, all of them clean and sparkly. One storefront flows right into the next, with no transitions void of sparkle. The tops of buildings sport neat rows of tiles or shingles and don't contain shards of rebar that signal the hope of another story when funds become available. They do look pretty sans rebar though.
3. You people DRIVE REALLY, REALLY FAST! I got my rental car and despite it appearing to be a compact, energy efficient car of the tin can variety, it apparently actually was a super-charged, nitrous-guzzling beast of a supercar. It was a good thing, too, because before I merged onto the 101, I didn't know that there was an amateur car race scheduled. I merged into one of the 4 lanes and up to the agreed upon speed of 75 mph while I tried to unglue my eyes from road surface long enough to warn all the other racers of the danger. "People, watch out! What are you doing! What if there's a tope ahead and you hit it at this speed?! What if a washout has left a section of the 101 in shambles ahead?! You'll drive right into it and crash. The pile-up will be a huge mess of mangled shiny new cars and it'll take weeks for the two cops that show up to sort out the mess of liability." The other drivers didn't listen and even seemed to taunt me in my paranoia by casually sipping gigantic cups of coffee and laughing while talking to themselves with funny illuminated objects stuck in their ears. I gripped the steering wheel in confusion and fear and tried to keep up with the pack. I was pretty surprised that we all seemed to finish our portions of the race and find our exits/finish lines without incident. Weird.
4. While ads try to tell me what to buy, people don't. I couldn't understand why when I walked past the fronts of stores, nobody tried to sell me anything. It was weird. I walked past a store in the airport and nobody told me about things inside. Nobody stood at the door and tried to convince me that I needed something there. Did they think that I couldn't afford the shiny things that the store contained? Was the store actually closed? I couldn't understand it. Do they expect you just to come inside IF you need something? How am I to know that they have great shiny luggage in there without someone to tell me? Even the (very few) vendors I saw on the side of the road (where were they all?) patiently waited for me to stop and purchase their wares. They didn't even bring them to my window to show me what they had. There seems to be a complete disregard for salesmanship around America. Get it together, people! How are you to sell those oranges if you don't get out in the street and get to work! The cars are just passing you by!
5. I understand many of the things you say in America but I just can't seem to figure out why you have no interest in shrimp and neckties. People down here seem to talk about those two subjects a lot, but in America, the topics rarely seem to come up at all. Maybe you're all just a little behind the times and unaware of the hot topics of conversation that are all the rage in the rest of the world. That's okay, folks. I never found them very interesting here and have never understood the appeal of the frequent conversations that seem to focus on them.
I returned two days ago to Guatemala and the comfort of the familiar. I experienced no reverse culture shock upon my return. I found that I was noticed and appreciated by the people that welcomed me into their stores and told me of their wares. I enjoyed the regular interruption of the transit by the topes that forced my shuttle bus to slow. I purchased treats through the bus window from bustling entrepreneurs working hard to make sure I didn't go hungry on my trip, and my snack settled as well as the people who wished me buen provecho truly wanted it to.
I enjoyed you, America, even with all your weirdness, but it's nice to be back.
You make me want to move there. Is the internet service good enough that I could remote into my office? I work from home almost 100% as it is, I doubt they'd notice that I'm remoting in from even more remote a location. Although, the conference calls could get expensive.
ReplyDeleteYou would like it Bob. The internet can be sketchy the ways that we find it (wardriving, mooching and coffee shops) but you can get full blown service if you lead a bit more civilized a life than in a van down by the river.
ReplyDeleteChuck, you will remember our time in Saudi Arabia. The driving there was pretty much the same as driving in Boston, in the USA, except there were no speed limits. Drive like that in Naples, Italy and you will be impeding traffic, and get many unfriendly words and gestures. I think the Latin American countries may be the only part of the world where the pace is slow enough to avoid topes in the middle of a main highway. In my hometown growing up the "culture" was very much as you are enjoying down there, except for the street salesmen. Got plenty of that if we crossed the river into Matamoros though.
ReplyDeleteChuck this story is great. I live in a small town in Georgia and am from Washington D.C. Recently I went home to DC and it was a culture shock as you noted. People speeding from traffic light to traffic light, not to many friendly "Good mornings or good evenings" and just way to fast for my taste over all. Just a bunch of people all hustling to make a buck, live for the weekend, make a buck and cycle continues. I think I will fit in quiet well when I get to Guatemala :-)
ReplyDelete@MarkM: I remember it well. No speed limits and no lanes either. That part is pretty similar to here. Lanes are subject to interpretation.
ReplyDelete@Bernard: Thanks. I think you would enjoy Guatemala. While there are big differences between the cities and the more rural areas just like in the US, overall, there are more good mornings per minute than anywhere I've been.