Found In Ceylon

Culture Shock, Shmulture Shmock

I returned to Sri Lanka four days ago, and not a moment too soon. I couldn’t wait to come back here and get my right hand dirty once again with rice and curry.

As if God had arranged the cosmos to satisfy especially me, I awoke from a jet-lag induced nap at the Beach Inns to a bustling wedding party of 250 people. When I tried to sneak out so I could go to the school, Surath, the inn manager caught me (actually he flagged down Thusharra, my three-wheeler driver, when we were already driving off), and insisted I eat lunch at the reception.

I say absolutely not. I’m not a wedding guest. No way. Surath demanded I come in and eat now.

I reconsider my position. It’s free food. I say okay. I am handed a plate for the buffet. I travel from the start to the end of the long table, stopping at each metal serving-bowl to slap down onto my plate a heaping of rice, fish curry, chicken curry, dhaal, bean curry, and papadam. At the end, I am exalted to find that there is a bowl of freshly-made brinjal curry, and this particular dish becomes the largest dollop on my very full plate.

Thirty minutes and a full stomach later, I walked through the gates of the school. I hadn’t even been back in Sri Lanka for twelve hours yet.

The first one to spot me was Udaya (now the only Udaya at the school; the other Udaya graduated last December). “ADAM!” he screamed in sign. Soon, twenty-five boys of all ages were running up the path to where I was standing, hugging me, slapping my back.

I want to write that the boys were weeping with happiness, rapturous with adoration, but that would be a vile lie created only to achieve some cheap dramatic effect. However, the feeling was definitely there, at least inside me.

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“So, was it weird to be back in the States?” “Did you have any culture shock?” “What did you think of all this America stuff?” you asked.

The short answer is: A little. Not really. Fast, clean, and easy-to-buy/consume!

I realize the romantic idea of volunteering in a third-world country evokes images of mud huts, bare-breasted mothers bathing babies in plastic tubs of water, engorged bellies of malnourished children, human- and beast-powered locomotion (rickshaws, oxen carts), antiquated superstitious medicine men dancing in the middle of a ring of lit torches chanting away devil spirits.

In fact, I’m pretty sure all of this actually happens if you go far enough inland. But the reality of my volunteer experience is that I live mere kilometers away from one of Sri Lanka’s largest cities (the 8th, to be exact). Almost all modern conveniences (albeit often of a second-rate quality) are available. I can buy contact lens solution, batteries, travel packs of Kleenex, or whole USA turkeys at the supermarket. I can ride in brand-new American-, Japanese-, or Chinese-made cars. I can hop into any of a dozen clothing stores on the Dharmapala Mawatha (main street) and grab whatever shirts, jeans, or underwear I wanted. Within one day, I can get digital prints of any photograph I’ve taken. DVD rental (often with CD-writing and DVD-writing services) line the streets. If I actually felt like it, I could get a cell phone with 3G (internet and multimedia) service, and my father just sent me an e-mail saying WiMax should be installed in Matara anytime now.

The challenge is remembering who has access to this modernity and who does not.

In all, I’m not quite divorced from the modern world as one may think–both an upside and downside of globalization, I guess. What mattered more to me when I was in America for one brief week was not what was available, but to whom it was available.

But I hate to get into this mode of, “But look, you fat, greedy, bourgeois American/English/Australian, even if you’re poor, you still have so much and they have so little.” So back to the culture shock question. There were three things I especially took note of:

Dogs
I had my luggage and a two-foot-tall drum piled up on my cart at customs at the Detroit airport. Suddenly, I was aware of the presence of a creature at my foot and looked down. I almost cried out when I saw the beagle’s wide, round eyes looking up at me, daring me to touch him, pet him, play with him. Never before had I seen such a beautifully-groomed and well-fed dog. It wasn’t until I was halfway bent down to tug his ear that I noticed he was wearing a harness with the U.S. Homeland Security insignia on it.

A drug-sniffing dog! I realized. As if confirming that conclusion, he proceeded to sniff my bags, and then walked to the cart behind me.

A similar situation happened when I had the chance to cuddle with my cousins’ dog, Maizey. This large Labrador had climbed onto the sofa next to me so I buried my face in his fur, grabbing tufts of hair and ear and skin wherever I could. Soft, luxurious fur. I couldn’t see any ribs sticking out or any bald patches.

Any visitor to Sri Lanka beyond Colombo will see hundreds of stray, mangy dogs sporting deep grooves between each rib; all of them various shades of mutt brown; all their fur rough and greasy to the touch; sad looks on their faces as they nosed through polyethylene bags looking for scraps of food much like the cows do, too. In those first few weeks, I never thought I’d get used to them, but apparently, I did.

Suddenly I was met in America by healthy, happy canines. Dogs with purpose. Remarkable!

Cars
Almost everybody has a car. They all glide so effortlessly along the interstate or Woodward Avenue whether it be rainy, sunny, or snowing. I could barely make out the existence of a sidewalk on the northbound side of Woodward in Bloomfield Hills–was that really a sidewalk under the unplowed snow, or was there nothing but mud and grass?

Privately-owned automobiles have just recently become an upper-middle class item in Sri Lanka; it is indeed something if you own one, and certainly no more than one per family! I feel embarassed to see three or four cars outside homes, but being an American myself, I know it is a necessity given the vast distances in suburbia and the poor quality of public transportation. But boy, you need cars for everything.

Shoes And The Unhelpfulness Of Nordstrom Salespeople
I was in Nordstrom looking for shoes to go with my brand-new, unknowingly-purchased-in-Colombo-for-way-more-than-it-costs-in-America Cerruti 1881 suit. And I don’t know, every shoe I tried on hurt. It felt like I was walking on wooden soles barely held together by strips of leather. Why would people wear such uncomfortable shoes? I thought.

With each pair of shoes, I would walk up to my father in another part of the store and ask him what he thought. These black shoes with pointy toes–this season’s fashion–looked so alien to me–where were hell were the toes?–that I couldn’t discern if they looked good on me at all. I kept trying to ask the salesperson for his opinion, but he just nodded his head one way or another. I told him they hurt, and he shrugged.

Maybe it was from an extreme attack of jet lag or the fact that my feet were just plain hurting from going back and forth in different pairs of hard shoes, but after about 45 minutes of indecisiveness, I went into the bathroom, sat down on the toilet, and started weeping. You know how sometimes you’re so dead-tired you just laugh or cry for no reason? That happened to me.

It was the stupidest thing to be sniveling over, and I didn’t even want to. What, was I now incapable of buying a pair of shoes on my own without my father’s help? But after a few minutes, I didn’t feel so tired anymore, so I left the bathroom, went up to the unhelpful salesperson and told him that I was sorry but I wouldn’t be buying a shoe today, and went over to my mother, who was also looking at shoes.

She took one look at me and asked, “Have you been crying?”

What, me, crying? Of course not! What, we’re here at a fashion-conscious adult Disneyland! No crying here, absolutely not. Okay, maybe a lit–no! I’d be embarrassed if I actually cried here, haha. Quick, talk about something else! So, what do you think of that Segolèné Royal? Ya think she’ll win or what?

I told her no, and that I was just very tired, you know, the jet lag and all. I’m curious, Mom, did you believe me?

When Liz arrived the next day, I told her what happened. As I have said before, I always know she can be relied upon as a provider of sage advice (even more in this situation because she had been to Sri Lanka), and she did not fail me this time.

“Oh, it’s simple. Nobody was really helping you, and you were feeling very alone and tired.” She pointed out that in Sri Lanka, people were just absolutely falling all over themselves just to help us cross the street or buy something at that store (preferably their friend’s uncle’s mother’s store) or being their grinning, head-rocking helpful selves.

In contrast, at Nordstrom, I had to cope with the icy stare of a middle-aged salesman, who looked at me while I was in between prospective shoes, as if to say What’s wrong with you, you dumbfuck? Don’t you know what Cole Haan shoes are supposed to feel like? Of course they’re supposed to hurt. Get your act together, good god!

So it was as simple as she said: I was just feeling alone and helpless. Thanks, Liz, for summing that up for me.

Other tidbits I noted were the astonishing variety of food and cuisines available–for better or for worse, Sri Lankans basically eat rice and curry two or three times a day, every day. Stuff–like, anything–is so easily accessible and available, something that was not lost on me as I walked through downtown Royal Oak and Birmingham. Books, pens, movies, cheese; you don’t have to be hopping among a dozen stores or sending friends to Colombo just to find that one item. People over there certainly have easier shopping experiences (with the exception of the shoe incident, of course).

So, yeah, that. No major culture shock here. Maybe it was because I knew I was going back so soon; maybe the world is really that homogenized now; maybe it works in one direction (USA to Lanka) but not in the other direction.

Who knows? All I know is, I’m so happy to be back here. I’m not finished with this country yet.

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