Sensory Clash

It's Saturday. I slept in and dreamt of places I've been and those I hope to visit soon.
Met a wry Brit the other night. It was an awful evening, I dragged myself out even though I wasn't in the mood for socialising, in the hopes of meeting some women to chat to since I'm the only expat woman in our NGO and I really enjoy the company of women! Instead it was a huge sprawling mess of men -- the 'security' types (ie. mercenaries replete with flak jackets and butch weapons), old hands too know-it-all to listen to anything anyone else has to say and locals, which made for an awkward and totally un-fun get together. To top it all off the Governor showed up. So we all sucked on...if you've been reading this blog you'll be able to guess...greasy kebabs and rice, in deathly silence.
At first I thought it might be the lack of everyone's favourite social lubricant, since the most exciting beverage on offer was 7-Up (pretty damn exciting in these parts actually). Then I put it down to the lack of gender diversity. Eventually settled on the truth, locals and expats do not a merry party make. Sad but true in my experience.
Anyway, back to the Brit. He'd only been here a few days and is on a very short one month contract. He lives luxuriously in Zimbabwe, some of you might be surprised to hear that's an option in Zim, but it is...especially if you're British. What's changed.
His insight into Afghanistan: "It's so joyless. Life's too short."
Today I feel the same way.
In an effort to elevate my mood I've been making mental notes about different sense memories I have of all the places I've lived in and visited and how they often clash culturally.
For example:
In Japan people consider it terribly polite to slurp noodles as loudly as possible (including spagetti, which is after all just an Italian noodle, apparently kidnapped from China by early Italian explorers. Eaten with chopsticks and served sprinkled with nori in Italian restaurants throughout Japan. Attached a pic of some Udon Slurpers in training) . This put J and I off eating at ramen and soba restaurants, because culturally we've been programmed to find that rather nauseating.
In Malaysia I kept thinking the country was suffering from terminally blocked drains, until I discovered the same reek emanating from a bowl of food. The culprit: black shrimp paste, made from the brains of prawns...I had no idea they had brains either! At least not enough of them to use as a delicacy.
In America people would rather sniff, loudly and frequently, than blow their noses. I remember sitting through lectures, and worse exams, stifling the impulse to wretch.
Here in Afghanistan people find the sound of high pitched female voices very attractive, I often have to turn down the volume before my brain splits into teeny tiny fragments.
And in South Africa people think that bits of raw dried meat (biltong) are absolutely delicious ;) Even though I'm a vegetarian, I have to agree! And that's the wonder of belonging to a culture. It defies logic.

Comments

ACG said…
The sniffling nose thing is so true. It drives me crazy as well, but I have sit through many, many lectures and exams where all I wanted to do was take some tissues out of my bag and pass them around.

Very interesting observation...

Cheeers,

Anna.
Charisse said…
So as an American, you're not immune!
Cool. We're all in it together :)

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