Immersing Yourself in Different Cultures
in the world today there are 7.8
billion people seven continents and 6
500 spoken languages around the world
out of all that mess of people and
languages and places to live
there are people across the world who
think just like you
and just like me they have the same
thoughts actions and tendencies
even though they live in a different
culture i think immersing yourself in
different cultures is super important
because it broadens your horizons
and it doesn’t limit you to social
standards
i also don’t believe that you have to
fly halfway across the world to
experience a new culture
you could go 30 minutes down the road
and see how the amish live
you could go into a big city and see how
the homeless people live
see the homelessness problem you could
go anywhere
around you that isn’t like the place
that you live and you are immersing
yourself
inside of a new culture i think that you
can break down
a culture into three basic principles
the people
the way of life and the food the last
one’s kind of my favorite
i think in any small town especially
like here in hershey we live in
a bubble and this causes us to kind of
be
naive to what the rest of the world
looks like and
see the thing is you might be able to
see the rest of the world
through the lens of another person but
you won’t really get to experience that
for yourself
unless you see it with your own eyes
that’s what’s so powerful and dangerous
about
seeing the world through the eyes of
other people because while it’s super
easy with social media
and tv and all that stuff it’ll often
paint a picture
in your head of what these other
cultures are like that might not be true
but i think starting with
the people it’s really intriguing to me
to see how
other people think and their countenance
in these other parts of the world
i have been fortunate enough to go to
nine different
countries five continents and i’ve flown
tens of thousands of miles
and i think it’s really cool that i’ve
gotten to see all these parts of the
world and how
the people that operate for example in
europe
in england and in the czech republic
it’s it’s often like here in
america where at first the people are
kind of standoffish they’re a little
more closed off they’re not as
open to conversation whereas the people
in the south pacific like australia and
fiji
or in the middle east like egypt or
lebanon they’re a lot more friendly and
they’re a lot more open
to a conversation and they’ll even let
these
random strangers just inside their their
home because that’s how they bond that’s
how they show
appreciation that’s how they show love
and i think it’s really intriguing to
see how in these other parts of the
world like in
the middle east or in the south pacific
or in asia like
the people will literally give you the
clothes off
their back one time i was in egypt and i
saw this one guy
walking by and i really liked his
sunglasses so
i stopped and i said hey i really like
your sunglasses
and then immediately he didn’t really
speak
english super well but like he
understood what i said
and immediately he took his sunglasses
off and handed them to me
and i was confused because all i said
was that i
liked them but he wanted to give me
his sunglasses because he knew that i
liked them and he did this without a
thought he did this without
hesitation and he did this with no other
motive that’s just how the culture
operates
and i think this just goes to show how
in other parts of the
of the world even the more impoverished
parts they’re willing to give
they’re willing to show affection they
are willing to help
other people out more than in some of
these rich big
countries in the world now moving on to
the way of life it kind of ties in with
how
the people think and how they act but
this is this just
literally it goes back to the culture of
the place that you
are going to once again europe is a lot
like the
states where the people are promptly on
time
they don’t miss a beat you know they
follow a schedule they have these long
work days they have hours
but again like in south america
in the middle east and in other parts of
the world time
is almost non-existent so for example
one time when i was
in fiji i was there to do a church
service with my team
and we got there about 15 minutes early
you know to be
ready for when it starts so that we
didn’t just like spring ourselves on
the people who were hosting us but then
come to find out that there’s
a saying in fiji called fijian time
where a time for something to start and
end it basically does not exist
and it’s actually it’s really cool to
like see because the church service
started at 10 o’clock we didn’t actually
start church until almost 11 30 that day
and so it just goes to show that like
the people
value relationships more than time
because oftentimes the reason
that people are late is because they’re
spending time with friends they’re
spending time with loved ones
they’re spending time with their family
and they just know it’s that’s more
important than trying to stick to a
schedule
and i think there’s something really
beautiful about that fact because it
shows that in that part of the world
they really value
relationships one thing to realize as
well with
the way of life is what are the income
gaps
you see like here in the states you have
everyone from insane
poverty to mass mass mass wealth but
generally speaking the average person in
the states
is much better off than other people in
many parts of the world but on the flip
side
you go to a country in africa or in
the middle east and you see that they
are impoverished
like impoverished beyond impoverished
and it really breaks your heart because
a lot of times
they’ll have all these resources or
they’ll have all these things that could
accumulate their wealth but
the government in place and the
leadership
in place is corrupt and so that’s
another thing that really affects the
way of life and it also affects
the people but oftentimes you’ll see the
people they can
persevere a lot more through these
hardships than
the people in other parts of the world
they can still come out with a smile on
their face
the third thing i want to talk about
today is the food which is arguably my
favorite part
one of the most fun things when you
travel and experience a new
culture is getting to eat their
delicious food
and sometimes the food might sound a
little weird but it’s almost always good
so let’s say you’re one of those people
who want to experience a new
culture but you aren’t able to go across
the world or to europe or to africa or
to asia
you can go a 20-minute drive and eat
with the amish
and i’ve done this and it is such a cool
experience because you get to see how
their family works
they have these big families and they
all help out with the food and that is
their business is the food and they make
some of the best food you will ever have
i promise you
and then you can go to other parts of
the world like asia or
in south america where their food is
super good but it’s unlike anything that
you’ve had
it’s full of spices it’s full of flavor
and you get to eat a bunch of stuff that
you would never usually eat
just because you haven’t broadened your
horizons or opened your mind to trying
something new
and that all relates back to immersing
yourself in a different
culture and why you should do it when
you go and try to
immerse yourself in a different culture
you should go into it
observing these three points the people
the way that the people live and the
food that’s available to you