I live in New York, and the conference was 'next door' in Ohio, and yet we even noticed differences there. Same country. Same language. Same weather. And on the surface the same culture. But differences at every turn.
Here are some of the differences we noticed:
- 'Traffic calming'. We think we finally inferred what this meant. The street through the housing development leading to the church had signs announcing 'traffic calming'. We think that was warning us about the traffic 'humps', which sort of look like squashed 'speed bumps'. Unfortunately, traffic calming doesn't work on people from NY. Clearly we too have been impacted by the normal rebellious condition of New Yorkers. We kept asking each other whether we were feeling calm, and finally gave in to the temptation to drive fast over the hump just to see what would happen. Nothing. We didn't bottom out. We didn't fly through the air. I didn't spill my coffee. Apparently, people in Ohio take it sincerely when you tell them to be calm, while people from New York get rambunctious.
- Food. Our first meal in Ohio was at a restaurant whose menu proudly listed Fried Cornmeal Mush. Trust me, that's just not something you would see in New York. Not at a restaurant, at least. It's true that my mother used to make it (and it's pretty good if you put enough butter and maple syrup on it), but I always thought she made it up. On the other hand, it seems that none of the waiters in Ohio have ever heard of club soda. My friend even tried explaining that it's like soda without any flavor. She finally found one waiter who thought that maybe he had heard of it. And then there was the restaurant that served strangely flavorless grilled skewered beef. We finally decided that it had been boiled. And none of us even dared to try the objects that purported to be bagels.
- Furniture: I'm not sure if this really counts as an Ohio difference, but it was a new experience for me. When we checked into the hotel I was eager to see if the extra bed we had arranged for would be in our room. The bed was there, but it was vertical. It had straps to keep the mattress and bedding from falling off. There wasn't enough empty floor space in the room to set the bed down.
I wasn't sure what to do, so I asked the front desk to take care of it. But when we returned to the room at about 10:30pm, it was still vertical. I had this sudden image of the sleeping arrangements that the astronauts used on the Apollo missions, sort of a hanging cocoon. - Friendliness. Everyone we met in Columbus was really friendly, not just in the church, but even out in the wild. For example, the woman who checked me through the security screening in the airport not only hoped I would have a good flight, but wished me a happy mothers' day. I'm not a mother, but the thought was nice.
Do you see what I mean? Even someplace as similar as Ohio and New York has cultural differences. So if we add differences of geography and climate and race and ethnicity and language and history and economics and education, we're really going to have to rely on God's grace to teach us to see what's important, and not get hung up on the stylistic details.
1 comment:
I recall how when going to eat at a midwesterner's home, when you are asked if you want more of something, it's considered impolite to say yes. There's no need to worry if you really do want more; you will be asked again, and even if you say no repeatedly, more will be dumped on your plate. Try that in New York and you'll go hungry.
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