Culture Shock
Several months ago, as a part of a course that I took, I was asked to describe the biggest areas of culture shock that my wife and I faced in India. At the time, we had been here less than 3 months. Now, after 7 months, we have truly fallen in love with India, its people and culture. There are so many things we will miss when we leave – the food, the music and dance, the colorful dress, the lilting accent, the approach to life and resilient spirit, the warmth of the people, the rikshaws, the friends we have made and the ministries we are privileged to be a part of… Yet these three things remain the most difficult and disturbing aspects of life in this land:
1. Poor Sanitation. Standards of public cleanliness in India are very low. The streets are used as dumps, every river or little creek we have seen is completely filled with trash, and the water is somewhere between grey and black. The smell of rotting garbage and human feces is ubiquitous. On a typical ride to work, I see 15 men urinating, 10 children squatting naked to defecate, and countless people (usually men or boys) spitting and scratching their “family jewels” in public. My wife has been to 32 countries—many of them poor ones—while I have been to 11, but neither of us has ever been to any place as dirty.
2. Hinduism. We love the Indian culture in general, but continue to find Hinduism a little bizarre and almost incomprehensible. To us, worshipping the popular deities would be like reading Greek mythology and then deciding to worship Zeus or Prometheus. These characters, who seem to be drawn out of ancient soap operas, often seem unworthy of veneration. It is, by and large, unlike anything we have encountered before. Between the two of us, we can relate to atheism, agnosticism, secularism, Judaism, and somewhat to Buddhism as well. The closest thing to Hinduism we have experienced is in some aspects of the “New Age” movement in America – but this is a highly Westernized version without the temples and idols, and we still find it hard to appreciate. Indians exhibit intense religious devotion, but the objects of that devotion often seem unworthy of it. Every time we pass by a temple or see a picture of a Hindu god, we can’t help but to be disturbed. Perhaps that’s a good sign.
3. Extreme Poverty and the Caste System. What we call poverty in North America would be considered middle-class here. We have never seen, elsewhere, the sort of grinding, crushing destitution that exists here. Mumbai has neighborhoods where apartments cost $1 million, and it also boasts the largest slum in Asia. But the poor are everywhere, often entire families living on the street. On almost every rikshaw ride, we are approached by street children begging for food. And Bombay is wealthier than most of India. Nearly all societies have prejudices and different socioeconomic classes, but for rigidity, pervasiveness and oppressiveness there are few things like the caste system anywhere else in the world today. The sheer size of the problem, the frequent failure of Christians to oppose it, and the manner in which caste makes itself oblivious to most of those who see it every day, can be tremendously discouraging.
When we examine the things that about a culture that strike us as bizarre or wrong, and then ask which of these things are due to Christian conviction and which are merely our own preferences, the results can be quite revealing. Because if I were to be perfectly honest, I would have to admit that it is #1 above that disturbs me the most on a daily basis. While God certainly wants us to care for His creation and to value beauty in our surroundings, if we ask which of these offends God the most, the answer would easily be #2 (that which causes alienation from Him), followed by #3 (that which degrades human beings made in His image). I may be slow at times, but thanks to God’s patient, persistent love, I am learning to love India as He does.
Labels: India
posted by Scott M Roney | 2:41 AM
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