Image by Fouquier via FlickrCultural Sensitivity: I was getting to the point about being sensitive, and appreciative about a new culture..And that's little to do with knowing the language, and more to do with knowing the culture...
Ha! Now I always feel that if you've lived in India, you could really fit in anywhere...there's so much of diversity that it makes one sensitive to a lot of cultures, food, habits, language..and most importantly the dos and donts of a place.
Last week my house had guests from Durham, and another student from Columbia, and they were staying with me....i was speaking to this Japanese friend from Columbia, who's lived in Tokyo, worked in Bangkok, MyanMar, and now prepping for the big job in UN New York. I loved the fact that she has done her homework with respect to cultural sensitivity of knowing a place. It's really good to know a place, and be sensitive about the things that are do-s, and don'ts...there's more to a place than the achitecture, monuments, and fun facts....Hawkers, street peddlers, people, mass hysteria..the image that she had of India after seeing some culturally bizarre movies were pleasantly shattered when I took her to DLF cybercity. She was pleasantly surprised to see Gurgaon, and the skyline; not to mention the kind of work people do while being in India..infact she's planning to work for a non-profit in Orrisa, andto know more about how UN operates in her field..Anyways- there's one thing to appreciate a culture as a bystander, and another point of embracing it, and integrating with it....
I returned from a trip to Zurich, and London; London did not come as a surprise, as it's like a regular big city, and a cousin of New York in so many ways- subway, modern art gallery, corporate hub, pubs, events, hoho buses and so much more... Zurich was surprising. It's an expensive city, and although I spent just three days in Zurich, I kept thinking about the challenges of being in the city. The people in the downtown seem modern (fashion forward) by leaps, and bounds; So if you do not embrace the fashion, you might look like you're walking in an antique museum, and get guffawed as a tourist...(Hoping that nobody thought of me like that) The city had a strange smell of money...An average starbucks coffee is way too expensive than many other cities in the world.. I really felt that Zurich had many immigrants, and people from such random places that it did not seem like a place where you could find something in common with the next person. Now- I could be totally wrong but atleast that's what I felt.
That leads me to another point! You either belong to a place or you don't? Are you a square peg in a round hole? If yes- then dont try too hard to fit in... Bauhnofstrauss seemed a little too artsy, commercial, fake, and pretentious..it was really beautiful, and fake..that really brought me to think about how integrated are we with the local culture, in a new place.
To cut the long story short, an expat haven would only become less confusing, and overwhelming if we make it tailormade or sensitive to our cultural needs..
