Place Travel: Experiencing Culture

The experience of being in another culture foreign from the one you usually find yourself is valuable on many levels.  It forces us to alter our habits and witness the values of others, as surreal as it may sometimes be. There is an internal tugging that goes on frequently, when differences are before you.  "I don't like this.... I don't like that" are frequently felt.  It is liberating to have the experience of necessarily detaching from these likes and dislikes in order to get through the day.  It opens our internal doors and windows and allows another breeze to blow through.

One doesn’t have to go far to “travel” to other cultures.  The Mall and Walmart are foreign cultures to many:  Chinatown-USA, a boyscout camp, an outdoor fish market, a truck stop.  Cultural dynamics are everywhere; family of origin, college campus’, places of worship.  All geographical areas have their unique and peculiar culture (shore communities, wooded rural places, mountain, metropolis’, poor, working-class, affluent).  Fast food restaurants, Whole Foods, Starbucks, food co-ops, hospitals all work hard at evolving a human business culture.  The lighting, the layout of space, operation procedures are all ways they intentionally attract customers.

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Our bodies, minds and spirits are challenged on an ongoing basis when on foreign soil. Experiencing differences is the norm. Differences of energy, foods, people/personalities, sounds of places,-- ordinary sounds like languages and indigenous insects/animals wake up intimate parts of myself.  I begin to open, have an internal expansion, not only to the outside, but to the inside.  I sometimes experience a closing, when judgments or criticisms are ever present in small gnat-y ways and in larger reactions. I travel with these openings/closings as I traverse these various terrains.  I’m “shook” up by the cultural details and impressions.

Most of us continually make choices to travel or not, to subject ourselves to other cultures. We often choose to not enter cultures that challenge our own well established internal ones.  Probably the most rich aspect of “space travel” is a recognition of my own internal culture.  I begin to notice the flexible and inflexible parts of myself willing and unwilling to shift to accommodate the differences. My energy changes depending on an internal defense to the outside or conversely, a welcoming that is available to the foreign.  The more I am aware of this internal culture, the better prepared I am going to these other places.  

I know there could be tension visiting my friend because he doesn’t care about what he eats, but I care about what I eat.  I want to allow him to have his food culture, while still respecting mine.  Ahead of time I decide to not talk about food or nutrition unless he asks me with genuine interest, to suspend the likely judgment I will have surrounded by his white bread and make sure I obtain good, whole grain bread for myself for breakfasts.  Low and behold, our affection and care for each other is able to survive our differences.  And we both eat what we want with only a few shared loving wise cracks in between.

What resources of our own personal internal culture are available to us, that we draw upon whether it be on a hot crowded train, standing-room-only traversing India’s countryside or sharing a semi-private hospital room with a non-stop TV watcher-roomate? The answer can never be, not to travel.  Traveling is inevitable.  Cultures collide, they are around every corner. Perhaps, Know thyself.  Accept what is.  Enjoy life.