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Published: October 24th 2006
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"Culture Shock". Before today, I never really understood what the term meant. I've spent my entire life trying to experience and learn about new cultures, and I've tried to go into everything with an open mind. Consequently, I've always had open eyes.
At the start of my trip, I was on familiar territory. However--as early San Francisco--I quickly found myself thrust into many strange places and situations. I wouldn't have said that any of these were "shocking". Although they they were often unusual and crazy and confusing and frustrating and--in a few cases--bizzarely beautiful, I was always able to clearly see what was happening and the weirdness never hit me too hard.
But I got the shock today.
I've been doing a pretty poor job as a reporter, but any regular reader of this blog must be aware that I've been Laos for the past several days. I'm not sure exactly how long it's been, as Laos is a place that quickly entices you to lose track of date and time, but it's been a good while. Long enough to get used to a certain pace, a certain kind of speech, certain behaviors and customs. Laos is quiet
and under-populated, the people are nice and polite, and everything there is very inexpensive, and even though I knew dozens of people in every city I visited (I'd either met them in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, or elsewhere in Laos), I tried to spend most of my time with the locals.
I was only in the country for a week and a half or so, but I really do love Laos, and it's the people that make me feel that way. Laotian people are fantastic. America dropped more than
two million tons of bombs on their country during the Vietnam conflict, but every Lao person I met was willing to open their arms to a lone American traveler, to share food and drinks, and to talk and joke late into the night, despite my nation's crimes. I love their attitudes, I love the sound of their language, I love all their great sharing-customs, and I love being in their company.
So, I guess I got used to Laos, but I had to wrench myself away from the place and its people today. My friend Kirra is getting into the Bangkok airport tomorrow and I promised to meet her there.
That means I've had to spend all day today (and all the night to come) travelling south out of Laos and down through central Thailand.
And that's why the shock got me.
I guess it's not so weird for me to go into a new place, since I know it's new and I'm ready for newness. But returning to a familiar place after being somewhere quite different: that's weird! As soon as I got to the border and into Thailand, I was hit with all the crowded, smelly, pushy, commercial stuff that Laos doesn't have. And even though I know more Thai words than Lao words, my brain wasn't quite ready to deal with them. Then there's the currency change; and getting ripped off by Thai taxi drivers; and rampant English-fluency.
I just kind of shut down.
I guess it's not the new culture that's shocked me, it's the stark contrast between. I've spent most of this afternoon wandering wild-eyed, speaking in broken English to multilinguals with better language skills than I've been able to muster in a week. I've also been peppering my speech with Lao terms and trying to pay for things in Lao
money. Mostly I've been doing a confused zombie-walk, unused to big cities and noise and scams.
I think it all seems so weird because my eyes are simply closed to this place right now. I've left a world of newness and entered a world of the familiar (if only slightly familiar). I can't really see the forest for the trees right yet: all my eyes can focus on are little clumps of scam-maples and the odd lone ad-pine or an oak-tree-street-vendor... blahblahblah, I really let that metaphor get away from me, didn't I?
There's a point here, I think. The point is, I figured out what 'Culture Shock" is, and I'm gonna find it happening to me here and there: especially when I come home to America in a year's time. And until this place starts looking new and unusal to me again, I guess I'll have to rely on my grunts and gestures to get me through.
Peace-
Nic
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Aaron Brown
non-member comment
new experiences must be the real spice of life