This weeks Cross Culture Question is “What was the biggest culture shock you have ever experienced?”
I was planning on writing about Japan because I live here and I'm trying to connect with the Japanese community here....But I have to be honest, the most intense culture shock I've experienced was not in Japan at all. It was in a country not so far away, a place where no facebook exists, and that I avoid mentioning by name for fear of getting denied entry in the future when I inevitably say something controversial. Let's not get into all of that...this is a post about culture shock!
Needless to say it’s a country I love intensely and respect immensely so nothing I say is looking down on anyone! I have more close friends from there than anywhere else actually. This is merely the perspective of someone who grew up in another place.
I was going into a bakery in the modern metropolis Hangshai (lol) where most people on the main streets are pretty well off, sophisticated, and dynamic, a place where people from all over this ultra large nation (and the world) go to make money, and where locals kind of roll their eyes at everyone. On some of the side streets and poorer areas though, people communicate in a way which I can only describe as lazy.
I was still a traveler then so it's before the lazy ocean city to the south that I stayed in for 4 years had seduced me into sticking around to experience the best and worst time of my life. (If you want to know more details about my life there feel free to contact me on discord).
I could understand the local language well enough. I had been studying and speaking non-stop while staying in hostels for the past 5 months, and so I am in this bakery browsing for bread. One piece of bread looked especially delicious, and while I could understand the language to a large extent, I could not always read messy handwriting.
"What's inside this bread?" I asked, recognizing other pieces as having pork or beans or custard inside.
"It's meat."
"Uh.....ok.....what kind of meat?"
"It's meat." The cashier said again, looking more and more annoyed with me.
"Ummmm....that means it's an animal right?....what kind of animal is it?"
"....." She looked really annoyed by now. "It's new."
"It's new?"
(angry face)
"So you don't know what's inside, then?"
"I know what's inside!" She was pissed.
I turn around at the young man behind me and ask "Am I saying this correctly? Can you understand me or is this a language issue?"
He laughs and says "I understand....I don't know what her deal is."
"So......what's inside?" I said, turning back at the cashier.
She ignores me, looking like she's about to rage quit her job...so I take a bite, because at this point, I'm ready to throw the bread at her and see if she bursts into flames.
It's tuna.
"It's tuna."
"Yeah, it's tuna." She says.
"What just happened?" was all I could think as I paid for and continued eating my tuna bread...
Needless to say, I experienced many things like this in the land of the Panda. Like the time I got into a taxi and said "Can you take me to ____ Village?" and the taxi driver said something like "That village doesn't exist." I laughed and said "No, I went there yesterday" and showed him the characters and he kept insisting it didn't exist. In the end he agreed to let me navigate and when we arrived he said "Oh....you said something else!"
It was as if half the people I met had logic that worked something like mine, and the other half had mash potatoes for communication skills. It wasn't just because I was a foreigner either. Some locals told me this kind of thing happened because of a lack of education but I felt there was something more to it.
As far as education goes, I can see that a bit though because there tends to be a “right answer” to most questions and so some people put their cognitive skills on the shelf til they get rusty.
After a long enough time and speaking to enough local friends about this kind of experience I realized that the woman at the bakery was doing something that some kids do when their parents are lecturing them (usually overly controlling parents that hit them or shout at them constantly) where they just tune everything out and go into auto-pilot where they can answer you without actually paying attention to what you are saying, in the hopes that you will go away. This autopilot seems to get less and less sophisticated as someone grows up. The auto-pilot is different from auto-pilot where I grew up or in Japan, where people will be shook out of it when they realize that auto-pilot is going to give them more trouble. They just don't want to give you their conscious attention or focus, probably because it’s all they feel they have any control over (my own analysis). This combined with the idea of losing face for not knowing the answer...it can lead to some really non-nonsensical interactions from time to time.
I want to emphasize that this doesn't characterize the majority of people that I met , and that there are tons of people with incredible EQ and IQ, and I have friends I talk to every day over there, some who are not very international or westernized AT ALL. I’m not the kind of person who insists everyone needs more western style education or values. Just more compassion.
The kind of person I mentioned was common enough that it really shocked me multiple times though. It’s the local equivalent of that crazy uncle everyone has, or the fast food cashier who much good going on in their life, so I don't judge them....but woooooooo it's strange talking to them.
If you are from there and have another explanation for this kind of behavior, I’d love to hear it. I’ve talked about it with a lot of friends and they mostly agree with me or insist that it’s a problem with the education...I don't know what goes on in other people's heads though, I can only guess.
