I experienced my first culture shock when I moved from Decatur, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama. These two cities are both in Alabama, but are totally different. Decatur is where I was born and raised. Decatur is now growing, but back in 1998 when I left it was pretty small and predominantly white. I considered myself being comfortable with black Americans because I am black myself even though I did grow up with predominantly white people and had a lot of white friends. Graduating from high school and attending college down in Montgomery, Alabama, which is a two and a half hour drive from home, was exciting but scary. I did not know anyone there. My parents moved me in and stayed with me that weekend. On that same first day of being in the new city, I decided to take a drive to Big Lots to look for some home and decor for my apartment. I met this guy who was working there stocking the shelves. He asked me out and with me being so young, naive, and curious, I said yes and took his phone number. We met at the Krystals down the street from my apartment. I told my parents I was going out to the movies, which I did. Upon arriving at the movies with this guy I knew nothing about, I began to feel a bit of anxiety when stepping out of the car, and seeing nothing, but black people. Don't get me wrong. I don't have a problem with black people. I am black myself. But I just was not used to going out and seeing nothing, but a bunch of black people all together all at the same time. I was surprised that there were no fights or shootings. I was very much relieved. Montgomery is just much different than Decatur. Montgomery is predominantly black, and the crime rate is much higher than Decatur. I had several different experiences to mention that took place in Montgomery, Alabama. I will just quickly mention one more. I was invited by my hairstylist to her birthday party. Upon arriving, I quickly found out that everyone at the party was gay and so was my stylist. I tried to be calm and cool and stay there and hang out with my hairstylist.
But I had to leave because a girl kept trying to talk to me and touch me, so I left.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Hi everybody, this Evan:
Today I will write about culture chocke because I experinced in hundreds of them since I was born and raised in , Egypt, different socity.
The hardest problem have faced me is the language. Speaking English was an obstical for me to deal was people around me, espesially in the beginning.
At least, it was hard for me to talk to the doctor to tell him what was hert me, and I had to take a friend with me to help me in translating eventhought this spouse to be a privacy conversation with my doctor. But I could not do anything except, trying to improve me English.
Now, I am working hard to be better in speaking the English languge.
Today I will write about culture chocke because I experinced in hundreds of them since I was born and raised in , Egypt, different socity.
The hardest problem have faced me is the language. Speaking English was an obstical for me to deal was people around me, espesially in the beginning.
At least, it was hard for me to talk to the doctor to tell him what was hert me, and I had to take a friend with me to help me in translating eventhought this spouse to be a privacy conversation with my doctor. But I could not do anything except, trying to improve me English.
Now, I am working hard to be better in speaking the English languge.
OTHER PEOPLES PERCEPTION OF ME!!!!!!
As you all know, both my parents are from Afghanistan, In today's times that culture is not a happy one to talk about because of the current situation over sea's. I'm sure everyone is familiar with what happened on 9-11-2001, well at that point when i saw the towers fall i had a bad feeling in my gut, I knew now that every ones views will have changed, but i did not think that it was going to be a situation where Marshall Law was going to take place. My perception was that people will obviously be upset and will look at foreigners in a different light.
On 9-13 I was living in Cincinnati OH. and that evening my brother and one of my female cousins decided that we were going to go out downtown to the bars. We arrived downtown and started to bar hop, well about three hours into the evening we had lost track of each other, while I'm looking around, i noticed that there were three men who were wearing cowboy hats and boots that were profusely starring at me, all the while I'm looking for my family that i had came with and could not find them. I stepped outside the bar to place a phone call to my brother when these three guys walked out of the bar and gathered around me. They proceeded to start calling me a "Sand Nigger" and camel jockey among other things, I asked them why they were trying to harass me and they answered, your people just bombed the towers. Before i could get anything out of my mouth all three of them were beating me to a pulp. I tried to defend myself but i had no chance, the most funny thing was that there were two police officers less then a 100 feet from where this was taking place and they did nothing but turn there cheek and walk away. I ended up with a broken jaw, three broken ribs and a broken ankle.
All of this taught me a very valuable lesson, my perception of how the world would take this tragedy was completely wrong, peoples prejudice comes out no matter what and that peoples ignorance were at its best. There is no prior thought process before people act and that event really saddened me because that was the beginning of many malicious attacks on the innocent, it as well taught me that racism is very much still alive and that even though as far as our culture has come, people still are quick to judge a book by its cover.
On 9-13 I was living in Cincinnati OH. and that evening my brother and one of my female cousins decided that we were going to go out downtown to the bars. We arrived downtown and started to bar hop, well about three hours into the evening we had lost track of each other, while I'm looking around, i noticed that there were three men who were wearing cowboy hats and boots that were profusely starring at me, all the while I'm looking for my family that i had came with and could not find them. I stepped outside the bar to place a phone call to my brother when these three guys walked out of the bar and gathered around me. They proceeded to start calling me a "Sand Nigger" and camel jockey among other things, I asked them why they were trying to harass me and they answered, your people just bombed the towers. Before i could get anything out of my mouth all three of them were beating me to a pulp. I tried to defend myself but i had no chance, the most funny thing was that there were two police officers less then a 100 feet from where this was taking place and they did nothing but turn there cheek and walk away. I ended up with a broken jaw, three broken ribs and a broken ankle.
All of this taught me a very valuable lesson, my perception of how the world would take this tragedy was completely wrong, peoples prejudice comes out no matter what and that peoples ignorance were at its best. There is no prior thought process before people act and that event really saddened me because that was the beginning of many malicious attacks on the innocent, it as well taught me that racism is very much still alive and that even though as far as our culture has come, people still are quick to judge a book by its cover.
perception
I was 18 years old when i found a girl that I liked .I perceived her as a honest person that was working towards creating a better future for herself. We went out for several weeks. After several weeks of going out i figured out that she had a small addition problem with weed and LSD. She had stopped with the LSD due to a bad trip but refused to totally stop weed.One day her sister called me, and she told me that she was not only cheating on me she had a fake ID and was lying about her age. I was shocked I found out the person she was going out with behind my back and we talked and it was confirmed so I left her.I was very surprised when i found out that she was cheating and she honestly left me very insecure but she taught me the lesson be careful with your trust.
How Shocking
I was home schooled for my first two years of high school. On my third year of high school which would have been my junior year I went to McGavock high school. Going from home school to public school was different.It went from doing what i want and when i wanted to do it to what they want and when they wanted it. The most shocking part was probably the transition from being home alone almost everyday then going to a school of thousands of people.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Culture Shock in a different World.
Well I have had many experiences of the nature that would consider themselves to be culture shocks but one definately stood out to me back in February 2006. I was a greeny and a gringo. It was a term that was given to all the new american missionaries that came to the mission in Rancagua ,Chile. My first day walking around in Chile I felt completly lost. But it wasn't just the fact that I was away from home and out of the country but also I didnt know spanish. People would laugh and smile and pause and make certain facial expressions that I was familiar with but I didnt know what they were saying. I had a companion in Chile who had been there for a little over a year so he could speak fluently with the chileans and every time I had the chance I would ask him what he had said. He was from Utah ,but spoke spanish very well. I asked him what the conversation was about and he would just laugh and tell me that they would give me a hard time for not knowing psanish very well at the time. Well it was a couple months later when I had an unforgettable experience and a cultural shock. What happened to me in this particular moment could happen to anyone anytime anywhere, but the location made the likeliness of the situation very high. I was with a different companion for a day to get to know another part of the area I was in and it was towards the end of the day. Time to meet back with my gringo companion. Well we were a little behind on time and so our pace walking down the street was alittle quick. I was so worried about being on time to meet with my original companion that I almost was running. Well no sooner had I finally caught sight of my companion and another missionary waiting for me and the missionary I was with that I heard a scream from behind me that said watch out( in spanish). I looked behind me as I kept on forward... The companion I was with was caught in a head lock with two guys who had a gun and were asking for our money. We shouted several times that we didnt have any money all we had were our scriptures and that was it. Our bibles were in big black bags that were bulky enough to appear to contain money so they robbers eventually decided to take off with our bags and I was scared stiff. The tone of skin on my face had changed to pale white. I was shaking and started to shout to the chileans in english ," hey get back here with my bag". What my bag also contained at the time were all my english books including my english bible so I didn't have anything english to read after that. I was so amazed at how this had all happened. I didn't have any english books to read from that day forward so of course I learned spanish as I could only read the spanish books I had after that. It was a culture shock because I wasn't aware of how desperate the people in poverty were. After that experience I was given alittle more of a backbone because I figured anyone who would do something like that to me agaqin would just be talking and not really intend to harm me and sure enough, I learned to live with such a strange culture according to my view of chileans. Obviously I am thankful to have made it out alive. I know how to defend myself now and I am fluent in spanish. So I grew from it.
She's My Co-worker?
Starting off at a new job can be pretty scary in itself, but not knowing who you may be working with is even scarier. I've been working for the same insurance agency for a little over two years now, and I feel like I'm very lucky to have such an eccentric co-worker.
My co-worker Hannah is something else, but honestly she's the reason why I am able to fully communicate with clients and my peers. Starting off I didn't know what to expect working for an insurance agency, but I felt confident enough to do it. I also, didn't know what to expect from my new co-worker, Hannah. Right off the bat she was extremely nice, loud and very expressive. To be quite honest I was thrown back, because I'm almost the complete opposite. It was hard to keep up with her. She had a lot of energy and a pretty hefty vocubulary; she's an English major from Lipsomb University. She's also a strong christian based girl. There would be times where we would carry on conversations, and I just felt like I couldn't keep up. She was using words that I never heard, she vividly expressed her emotions and she would even sing. I literally would just sit back. I felt indifferent, I wanted to be able to keep up with her, but mostly I wanted to really be able to talk about God with her. I wanted to snap out of always being the one receiving the information, and not giving it. I feel if she were a bit softer with her personality, I wouldn't of felt so afraid to come out and it would of sparked more of a gradual connection.
She challenged me in a big way. I felt the need to be have the knowledge that she has, to be able to communicate with someone like her. To be able to extend my vocabulary, and just the motivation to really be outgoing when meeting new people. I also wanted to be mentally able to communicate with very opposite people, you end up finding out that they're not so different. I feel like I could be thrown in any situtation, and come out successful.
My co-worker Hannah is something else, but honestly she's the reason why I am able to fully communicate with clients and my peers. Starting off I didn't know what to expect working for an insurance agency, but I felt confident enough to do it. I also, didn't know what to expect from my new co-worker, Hannah. Right off the bat she was extremely nice, loud and very expressive. To be quite honest I was thrown back, because I'm almost the complete opposite. It was hard to keep up with her. She had a lot of energy and a pretty hefty vocubulary; she's an English major from Lipsomb University. She's also a strong christian based girl. There would be times where we would carry on conversations, and I just felt like I couldn't keep up. She was using words that I never heard, she vividly expressed her emotions and she would even sing. I literally would just sit back. I felt indifferent, I wanted to be able to keep up with her, but mostly I wanted to really be able to talk about God with her. I wanted to snap out of always being the one receiving the information, and not giving it. I feel if she were a bit softer with her personality, I wouldn't of felt so afraid to come out and it would of sparked more of a gradual connection.
She challenged me in a big way. I felt the need to be have the knowledge that she has, to be able to communicate with someone like her. To be able to extend my vocabulary, and just the motivation to really be outgoing when meeting new people. I also wanted to be mentally able to communicate with very opposite people, you end up finding out that they're not so different. I feel like I could be thrown in any situtation, and come out successful.
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