Moving to a new country or region has its pluses and minuses. With the right attitude and aptitude you can find more pluses in my opinion. However, many traits and foibles of the local denizens can leave an outsider confounded.
As Captain Haddock of the Tintin comics would exclaim - billions of blue, blistering barnacles! That right there is a point of distinction. When we moved to America some decades ago I began to notice that the larger culture was consuming local grown stuff. From food products to literature there was a above average bias on American. Except for the automobiles people drove. Here a lot of Japanese, Korean and German sedans did have a significant market share.
I can understand that America being a large place and home to majority of the world's Fortune 500 companies would produce a large number of goods and services that logically would also be consumed in the largest economy in the world. Right here at home.
But then for someone like me, who grew up in India I had access to and had made a concentrated effort to imbibe more than my share of things foreign. From fiction, in book or film form, to certain food groups not native to a desi growing up, from language skill to reading about world history, geography and comedy in excess of what was prescribed in the curriculum of the day, I thought knowing and enriching oneself would make one more adept at surviving. Tintin and Asterix from Belgian and French publishing houses respectively were important contributors in that regard, alongside a healthy dose of Pu La Deshpande's satirical rants.
Growing up in a land with everything to offer I think also inherently has a risk of taking curiosity away from the locals. Maybe that is why the local population often had a strange look on their face when I recited a joke or silly situation from above mentioned comics or stories. In return I had to learn traditions of this new land we now called home.
Thanksgiving Turkey was the bird based event that started us on the learning curve of things American. This gathering of the family at the table to eat (even today I consider it very bland food) the basic food groups that man encountered back when they harvested their crop and giving thanks to the nature around them was a solemn gesture.
Driving on the right side was a breeze having never had to drive a car in India (which drives on the left). Not having to clutch (which many of my then American colleagues also found odd) an automatic was a bonus.
Another American quirk we had to apprise ourselves with was the 'giving of the finger'. Much different than giving thanks as alluded in the above paragraph, this gesture was made as a way to express serious disdain by the fingerer to the fingeree. The procedure normally observed when one driver cut another off or made rude remarks in company, involved the offended person selecting the middle finger of the right hand and pointing it toward the sky while glaring at the offender. Not entirely sure of the origins of said behavior but some wise men and women are still researching where the monkey lines split off in Africa.
As Captain Haddock of the Tintin comics would exclaim - billions of blue, blistering barnacles! That right there is a point of distinction. When we moved to America some decades ago I began to notice that the larger culture was consuming local grown stuff. From food products to literature there was a above average bias on American. Except for the automobiles people drove. Here a lot of Japanese, Korean and German sedans did have a significant market share.
I can understand that America being a large place and home to majority of the world's Fortune 500 companies would produce a large number of goods and services that logically would also be consumed in the largest economy in the world. Right here at home.
But then for someone like me, who grew up in India I had access to and had made a concentrated effort to imbibe more than my share of things foreign. From fiction, in book or film form, to certain food groups not native to a desi growing up, from language skill to reading about world history, geography and comedy in excess of what was prescribed in the curriculum of the day, I thought knowing and enriching oneself would make one more adept at surviving. Tintin and Asterix from Belgian and French publishing houses respectively were important contributors in that regard, alongside a healthy dose of Pu La Deshpande's satirical rants.
Growing up in a land with everything to offer I think also inherently has a risk of taking curiosity away from the locals. Maybe that is why the local population often had a strange look on their face when I recited a joke or silly situation from above mentioned comics or stories. In return I had to learn traditions of this new land we now called home.
Thanksgiving Turkey was the bird based event that started us on the learning curve of things American. This gathering of the family at the table to eat (even today I consider it very bland food) the basic food groups that man encountered back when they harvested their crop and giving thanks to the nature around them was a solemn gesture.
Driving on the right side was a breeze having never had to drive a car in India (which drives on the left). Not having to clutch (which many of my then American colleagues also found odd) an automatic was a bonus.
Another American quirk we had to apprise ourselves with was the 'giving of the finger'. Much different than giving thanks as alluded in the above paragraph, this gesture was made as a way to express serious disdain by the fingerer to the fingeree. The procedure normally observed when one driver cut another off or made rude remarks in company, involved the offended person selecting the middle finger of the right hand and pointing it toward the sky while glaring at the offender. Not entirely sure of the origins of said behavior but some wise men and women are still researching where the monkey lines split off in Africa.
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