When I went to Japan, India and Nepal and Thailand in the 1980s, Japan was a lot like the United States because of it's technology. However, the people I didn't understand because I didn't speak Japanese. The seemed very organized and regimented. But, they were always polite to me.
Then I went to Thailand which was still a little like Japan but much wilder to a western eye. Girls lived in hotels and men could live with them if they wanted to and they would be basically "Wives" or "Full time Girlfriends" for a week, month or likely even a year if they paid for it.
This was the first culture shock for me of Asia. Japan didn't shock me like this.
The next level of shock was Nepal whose people were very nice to me like Japan and Thailand (even though you had to be a little more careful in Thailand because it was a little wilder then.
Then I went to Nepal and the people seemed very sweet and I liked them very much and felt at home there with them. However, there still is a lot of poverty illness and death.
But, not like it was when I drove to India in 1985 in December. In India it was overwhelming to see people's dead bodies on streets. In the culture there then if someone died you couldn't pick them up unless you took responsibility completely for the body. The same with helping people. If you give people money more than once they expect you to hire them for life sometimes so this can get a little bit difficult for a westerner. So, if someone was begging you might want to give them some money but you don't want to be giving the same person some money every day or this can cause cultural problems of a kind we don't have yet in the U.S. that much.
So, I was completely overwhelmed by my experiences in India in every way. 4 months later I came home from India and it was the worst experience of my life. Because despite all India's problems it was warm. The people were warm and friendly to me and the U.S. was the opposite where people all hide in their cars and apartments and don't talk to each other. Whereas in India everyone wanted to talk to me and my family and make friends with us and come home with us and work for us. But, most of them didn't have birth certificates out in the country so they never could get a passport unless someone was bribed or something. So, this is a problem for all the people who aren't born in hospitals because they have no money.
Next Story:
This is a true anthropological story that I like to tell here at this site.
There was a native American man (this likely would be the 1840s or 1850s around there). He was out walking away from his family and teepee as he was a plains Indian. And he saw a wagon broken down. He had never seen a wagon or the kind of thing sitting in the wagon before. Then a man got up and beat on it's teeth. The thing screamed as the man beat on it's teeth in an awful way.
What was the thing the man was beating on: answer: A piano.
The native American went home and told the story of how one man beat this things teeth while it screamed while the other man changed the wheel on the wagon.
Whenever any of us experiences something new we can only describe what we experienced. However, it doesn't mean that we understand everything if we live in a different cultural context.
When I write often I feel sort of like this Native American trying to explain what I have seen during my life as a human being here on earth. But, I think I have an obligation to try to explain things as best as I can. Especially, because people tell me I'm good at doing this when many people are not.
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