Category Archives: culture shock

Reader Friday-Bring Back The Face!

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(This post was born on my own website, and I thought it would strike a chord with the TKZ folks also.)

What’s the most recognizable part of the human body? The thing that defines who we are to each other? Other than fingerprints and DNA.

Our bodies have similarities. People are designed with two arms ending in hands, two legs ending in feet, twenty digits, a head, neck, and torso. Requisite musculature and frame to make everything work, surrounding and protecting our inner organs.

Aside from those born with health issues and anomalies, the human race looks and moves pretty much alike.

Except for the face. The human face. Infinite variety.

 

We could say the same about all species. But we, more often than not, cannot tell others of a different species apart by looking at the creature’s face. Perhaps individuals in that other species can recognize a face within their species, but evidence points to other indicators. Like the zebra baby who knows its mother by her stripes.

I had a disturbing dream last night. In the dream, I moved through groups of people—people who talked to each other. In an office, a hospital, a grocery store, on the streets and sidewalks. Everywhere I looked, people were talking to each other. Some argued, some spoke words of love, some asked those mundane questions we ask of each other upon meeting. Just everyday conversation.

But something was very wrong, as often happens in dreams. No one faced each other. Each group of two, three, or more faced away from each other, standing back to back as they spoke. I began to cry when I saw two of my friends speaking to each other, but not looking at each other. I thought, how sad. Is this where we’re headed?

 

Let’s bring back the face. Lest we forget what we look like to each other.

Your comments are most welcome!

 

Culture Shock

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We’re back Down Under for a couple of weeks and due to a bout of food poisoning (thanks Qantas…) and slow internet connection (we’re in rural Victoria) this is going to be a short post – but one that resonates with me as I struggle with culture shock of the strangest kind – my own culture!

Whenever we return home we find things that baffle us – things that after 16 years in America seem perplexing. This time it was the simplest act of turning on a light switch – who knew that Australian light switches are the opposite of American ones? That to turn on a light you flick down the switch, whereas in the US you flick it up. It took me a day of puzzlement and a belief that my mother-in-law’s house must have just been wired weirdly for me to realize that it was merely an example of cultural amnesia…yes, I had actually forgotten how to turn on a light! Add to this the whole time zone confusion – try explaining to your kids that they ‘lost’ a day traveling over the Pacific and it is now yesterday in America – and you have a recipe for family confusion.

So how can going home seem so strange? Like almost all crime fiction writers I enjoy examining the concept of the ‘outsider’ – the stranger who can observe things about a place, a society and a culture that others cannot see…but I never expected that I would feel the outsider in the place I grew up in, or that each time I return home I would find more evidence of cultural confusion. The simple act of turning on a light brought that home to me – and may provide rich fodder (I hope) for future books. But still culture shock in my own country is bizarre. Perhaps, however, I am not alone. Have any of you ever experienced culture shock going home?