Culture shock

 The most extreme culture shock one would think would be when I went to India and Nepal in 1985 and 1986 with my family. But, that wasn't the worst culture shock of my life. The worst culture shock of my life was coming home to California and the U.S. after 4 months away in Japan, Thailand, India and Nepal. 

Coming home to the U.S. was the worst culture shock I ever had to endure in my life.

I was horrified! Why?

Because we all hide in our cars and apartments and homes and don't talk to each other barely at all.

In other countries people are forced together by death and by life and the fact that many or most people don't have cars or trucks at all. I saw people riding on carts pulled by something that looked like a rototiller down roads at 5 mph for example. I saw people walking for miles through cities and in the country. I saw women walking in the country in India in groups of 10 or 12 so they could prevent rapes by unsocialized men who had never been to school a day in their lives which was very common then.

So, I was horrified at the coldness and the separation between people here in the U.S. People in other countries like India are much more alive simply because they could die any moment from almost anything.

So, there is this aliveness about places like India and Nepal where we visited and there is this living forever while dead kind of feeling I got when I returned to America once again.

So, the worst culture shock you might ever experience isn't going traveling the worst might be like I experienced coming home to the U.S.