Culture.
I believe culture is the accumulation of small things that are shared among a group that form together to make an umbrella like identity for all the participating groups.
In our case the Umbrella of a Pakistani Culture is our Islam driven principles, our national language Urdu and our lIve for our Flavorful (often referred to as spicy by our American friends) food.
In my observation the American Cultural identity would be of their love for Freedom of Speech, their Democracy and Pickup Trucks. A lot of pickup trucks.
A lot of the major differences might already have been discussed by my co-participants so I’ll focus on the little things I noticed. So in order to make this a cultural comparison I’ll write about all the differences whether they be geographical, social, political or just infrastructural that I have observed.
I noticed the pickup trucks because I like cars. Besides the obvious thing of having the steering on the wrong side, people here drive a lot more SUVs and Pickup trucks than in Pakistan. Also the Americans like to drink lemonade, wherever I went to get a drink there’s always a lemonade option available. I have never seen so many flavors of lemonade itself ever since I have been here. In Pakistan its either Pepsi or Water. One more interesting comparison I haven’t had a sip of Pepsi here, its not much on displays either relative to Coca Cola. There’s an obsession of having two doors to enter any building. Two is must. The walls are all cardboard made and very thin, so everything I could hear my neighbors and I’m sure they could hear us as well. While we are used to having concrete walls back home. There’s a norm of early to bed and early to rise which means early dinner. I find it very difficult to adjust to the dining timings. I have never had dinner with the sun out ever before in my life and that too food that tasted so bland. So going back to Pakistan I’ll first have to adjust to eating dinner when its dark outside and then also prepare for a spice hurricane. The Americans discussed money a lot. The somehow manage to cram in prices or dollars into at least half of the conversations I’ve had with them, which is very unusual in Pakistan and probably a cause why mostly I and most of my friends are penniless by the end of the month. We don’t consider the money so much. Also formal, that’s very rare. I repeat, very rare. It’s mostly shorts everywhere!
I could go on about the differences for hours and hours but the major shock that I got in terms of Cultural differences was the US as it is painted in the media is very different. It is not the moral leader it is portrated to be. It is still fighting some of its battles over Racism, Freedom of Speech and Gender Discrimination. At the same time being a subcontinental Muslim guy I expected some raised eyebrows if not direct remarks but that didn’t happen. There have been surprises for sure and I expect to keep learning more. This is growing to be an eventful journey.
Hassan Ali
