Cultural Variance
Posted on 26. Sep, 2009 by Ruda in Society, Unrelated Musings
It’s really surprising how much you can notice around you when you come out of yourself. If you can leave the thoughts about your own life and day-to-day chores, your mind is able to soak up and give new meaning to so many things that you might have missed before.
I’ve been visiting India almost every summer since moving to the US in 1998, but when I was there this summer, I noticed a lot of things that I had missed before. It was probably a result of the changes my mind has been undergoing in the last couple of years.
The thing that struck me the most was the vast cultural differences that exist between the social classes in India. Now I might have known this at some level before, but I probably only knew it as a dry fact in my head and not something real or observable. In America, a person earning $30,000 a year and a person earning $300,000 live similar lives. Of course the latter has a lot more luxury, but they are exposed to the same TV shows, they both drive cars, enjoy central A/C, and if they were to meet on the street, they could probably carry on a conversation with each other pretty well.
Now consider this image, on a busy street in downtown Bangalore, there is a new nightclub that’s just opened and there’s a massive crowd of young Indians waiting outside, busy on their cell phones, adjusting their designer clothes, and sporting the latest looks from GQ. Directly across the street, there’s a building under construction that has just shut down for the night. Sitting at the 1st floor windows, are some of the workers that have just finished. These are people that make about $40 a month for their labor. They’re sitting and looking at the crowd assembled outside the nightclub. These workers don’t know why the club goers are dressed so weird, they’re trying to understand why everyone is trying to argue with the doorman to get in. This is quite different from the small roadside huts that they will go on to have a few drinks at. The alcohol the workers drink come in plastic packets, they don’t speak English, they don’t know about the economy. The two groups of people that are 15 meters apart from each other, from the same city in the same country, wouldn’t be able to carry on any type of conversation whatsoever.
It’s hard to describe the image, especially since I can’t convey the feeling I got when I realized this difference that exists. It’s hard for people in America or other developed nations to understand I suppose. If you have spent a lot of time traveling, I’m sure you’ve noticed this, and if you’re planning on traveling, keep en eye open for this, it really is quite startling when you first realize it.
