It's been 6 years since my last appearance here and a lot of water has passed under the bridge, more like a billion cubits. I have grown up, I was grown before but trust me I have grown a lot more. I have completed a residency, chief residency and fellowship and actually moved from NY to a more idyllic less fast paced town in the Midwest in this time. The move has come with all of the culture shock that entails moving away from the North East and I have plenty to write about this. I transitioned from trains and buses to actually driving myself everywhere and recently completed a solo 7 hour drive with 3 brief stops to refuel and use the restroom. It seemed like a good idea then but several rarely used muscles showed up multiple days in a row to protest against being so abused that in concession to these muscles, any distance greater than 4 hours by road will automatically be upgraded to a flight. My regular driving distance on days when I want to escape the quiet of my town ...
I first wrote about culture shock here twelve years ago when I came as a student to the US for the very first time. And even after all this time, there are still things that shock me, even when I think I have assimilated into a culture very different from the one I was brought up in. I'll go back twelve years and then fast forward to present times. I arrived in Boston at the end of summer and thankfully got accommodation not too far from school which meant I could walk to school and did not have to commute. It also meant that I passed by people on the street every day and as a typical 'yoruba' gal greeted them with a cheery good morning. The first few times when my greeting was not acknowledged, I thought I had not greeted loud enough for me to be heard, so I changed the cadence of my voice which resulted in the exact same response- silence. It took me a while before I stopped instinctively greeting every being I passed on my way to school, but a few months later I had ad...
I posted the link to my culture shock II article on various forums I belong to and I got a number of responses I would like to share here. It was interesting to note that my experience was not unique to me and even certain geographic differences existed with respect to greeting. I think one sentiment that is unique to all the comments I received was that the 'no greeting' part of the culture rankled the most. As a friend put it- ''This is where the French differ. For them, greeting is a way of acknowledging the humanity of the next person. You cannot not acknowledge a person; it is a faux pas.'' Another friend said- "You talk and laugh with a colleague one day...the next day, you wave at them from across the walkway....and they look right past you... GEEZ!!!!. How does one live a life without "greeting" or at least a form of acknowledgement.... I'm still not used to it....😒" Other comments: "These are things I have experienced. T...
Happy Easter to you too
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