Have you ever experienced culture shock? Around 2 years ago, I visited Colombia for the first time. I had always heard that Colombians were notorious for being late and showing up at any given time, f

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Zach

Have you ever experienced culture shock?

Around 2 years ago, I visited Colombia for the first time. I had always heard that Colombians were notorious for being late and showing up at any given time, for better or for worse. Not only did I find this to be true but it was very frustrating for me the first few months. As an American, if someone is more than 15 or 20 minutes late we tend to think something happened, maybe that person has blown us off or they forgot, and we might send a text or try to call the other person. Colombians would not even blink an eye at this! Many people often showed up an hour or even an hour and a half "late" and walked in like nothing even happened! This was amazing to me. My silly one track American mind wondered how anything happened? How did anyone make plans? After awhile, I fell in love with their fluid perception of time and how they all seemed to live in the moment. If something happened, it happened. If not, it's okay, it could wait for tomorrow or next year or maybe never. Today, I think I've taken the best from both worlds. I still like to be on time but this has definitely changed my view of "time."

Have you ever experienced culture shock? How did it effect/change you?

14 déc. 2018 13:50

Commentaires · 3

You remind me of when I went to a language school in Florence which had people from all over. One evening we had arranged to meet outside the school and then walk to a barbecue that was happening just outside the city centre, about 7 or 8 of us sat outside the school waiting on this Colombian girl wondering if something happened to her. We called her, messaged her and got no response...so after an hour we just decided to go to the barbecue without her. About two hours after we were supposed to meet, she sent one of us a message just saying "Hey, I've decided I'm not coming so you guys go on ahead". No apologies or anything. After my rage subsided, I realised that the fact that she wasn't apologetic didn't make her rude per se, it was just that in her mind/culture there was nothing to be sorry for.

I don't know if I can say I've ever experienced culture "shock", because I think the cultural differences which have affected me most profoundly are the ones which require you to scratch a little beneath the surface. For example, the Italian appreciation of beauty and aesthetics really struck me as interesting. Beauty in all its forms...people, buildings, art, fashion, cars, food etc. In Scotland, and a lot of northern European countries, I think we're encouraged to think of the utility of things rather than the aesthetics. To give an example of this, I remember when we were kids and we were given food that we thought looked gross, our parents used to say "You eat with your belly, not your eyes". Whereas in Italy, the presentation of food is considered much more important.

So I've learned a lot from that, and in my own daily life I make a concerted effort to make things more aesthetically pleasing.

14 décembre 2018

Hey Zach! Honestly being late is my pet peeve, though it's normal for most people to be late in the Philippines too (particularly in the city). Well, I kinda forgive them for being late because the traffic here is horrible-it's not moving and it would literally take you an hour to get to your destination (without traffic, it would only be 15 minutes away). But still... if you already know that it's traffic here everyday then you should wake up early or leave at least an hour and a half earlier so that you would not be late for meetings. Being early shows that you value other people's time.

As for being culture shocked, well, it's funny to say that I got culture shocked within my own country. I went out of town with my cousins one time and I was surprised that the people in the provinces eat some food like chicken with their hands. In some provinces in the Philippines, they would practice 'kamayan' (literally to eat with your hands). I was curious about kamayan so I politely asked a girl who was eating beside me in a restaurant why they eat with their hands. She said that it's because it's easier to just 'himay' (to break food into bits with your hands) than to use utensils.

I am from the city and here we use utensils so I find kamayan a bit gross even if let's say, you washed your hands

14 décembre 2018