What I learned from Culture Shock

There is a saying: "You can never go home again!"

This is about world travel when you are gone very long. How long will take you to never be able to go home again?

For some, it's one hour. For others, it's a month or two or three or four like it was for me and my family.

It's also likely true that some people are just so BLOCK HEADED and unfeeling or caring for others that no amount of culture shock possible would change them. However, also for this type of person there is a chance they would not survive world travel because they wouldn't be considerate enough of other cultures to actually survive anyway.

So, this is where the saying "The UGLY AMERICAN came from."

when you consider that only 25% of the American people ever get a passport this says something about all Americans: "We are isolationist and ethnocentric."

This is usually true only of very big countries because only very big countries can be that isolationist and ethnocentric and actually survive as nations.

There are really only three nations that are this isolationist: "China, Russia and the U.S."

The rest of the countries in the world have ethnocentrism to greater or lesser degrees but have had so many of their people killed for not being tolerant of other cultures that they are less ethnocentric than these 3 countries.

So, going in 1985 first to Japan, then Thailand, then Nepal and then India and then Nepal then back to Thailand, to Japan and finally home in April 1986 with my family I didn't expect "You can never go home again!" to apply to me.

So, to my horror! the worst culture shock was returning home to the U.S. to see how people hide from each other in cars, trucks, apartments, homes, jobs etc.

And because they hide from each other in this way they can never understand the world around them unless they travel to other countries.

People on both coasts here in the U.S. (because they are exposed to the most foreignors in shipping ports and Airports and people emigrating into the U.S. tend to be the most international of people in the U.S.

So, the most ethnocentric people of all live the furthest from the coasts and from major airports and might have never left their little town or hamlet ever.

So, this type of person although very quaint is also often a danger to themselves and others because of their ignorance about the REAL World.

Because without going some place and seeing it for yourself and meeting people there you really have no idea at all what you are talking about if you are talking about another culture you aren't a part of here in the U.S. and haven't lived in before.

But, joining the military to see the world often becomes:

"Join the army, meet exotic people, and kill them!"

Which is the main problem of seeing the world through the military.

However, it is now very expensive to travel much more than it was for people in the U.S. during the 1960s through 1980s. So in some ways I still traveled to India and Nepal in the Golden Age of World Travel for the United States and it's people.

So, I'm very grateful for all that I learned and this tended to make my children and I and my wife all world travelers much more than we were before this. All my children and god Children and Step children all have passports and have traveled all over the world since then in 1985 and 1986 when we were over in Asia for about 4 months time then.