Reverse first time experiences

Digital Drifter

OK, since lots of people have posted about their first time arrivals
to India, I thought I'd post how an Indian felt when he first stepped
on foreign shores. What follows is something which is neither in any
particular order(chronologically speaking) nor accurate, as some
events are seen in retrospect over the last 5 years.

First flight into Zurich, stopover. antiseptic feel to the whole
airport; far too quiet and eerily gloomy(early morning, April time).
Herd mentality kicks in, follow the crowd going somewhere. reach the
shopping area and relieved to see Swissair desk. At least know where
to come when I want the connecting flight to Chicago. Wander around,
use the toilets and promptly lose my bearings. Panic attack and then
slowly follow some crowd and finally make it back to the swissair
desk. resolve to keep within running distance of the damned place.
Order tea and look stupidly at the vendor for sugar & milk who nods his
head at a basket containing some stuff. Still look stupidly at him,
who exasperated, thumps the stuff out of the basket to me. Get into
the flight and try my first wine. <yechhh>. stick to orange juice &
water.

Land at Chicago, see my FIRST GUN. Stare at the policeman's holster
and like Calvin 'Monkey heads, monkey heads for dinner; we're having
monkey heads for dinner?' the same thought keeps running in my head
'he's got a gun, he's got a gun, that's a real gun'. Get into a
United flight where a disinterested flight attendant says welcome &
other inanities in a flat monotone that no one seems to mind.
embarrassed that I still can't figure out the seat buckle,
co-passenger helps out & then goes back to reading his magazine. Pass
through immigration and notice that traffic is running the wrong way,
not the left hand way. :-) Over the next few months continue go &
stand at the wrong side of the car door & bus stop.

Eat my first Mac. Notice the portions are huge and am unable to
finish the smallest coke cup. Amazed at the amount of salt, pepper &
ketchup I've used to consume 1 bun with some lettuce in it and fries.
Oil smells funny. notice staff are /all/ chubby kids with a stoned
look, repeating everything in voice which is uniquely teenage 'yeah,
whatever'. Amazed at the waste I've generated for a bun & fries.
Notice that for the remainder of the trip, I seem to be going to the
garbage bin more often with huge bags full of food waste.

See obese people, I mean huge people, really can't stop staring. What
the... stare intently at what they order and how ridiculous the
portions seem compared to their girth. A wander in Walmart shows
trousers of 44,46,48 waist sizes and I don't doubt that for a moment
there is a requirement for them. It's summer and I see the first girl
up close & personal, next to me on the bus, dressed a little
er...ummm... shorts and tank top. Takes a /lot/ of effort not stare
down the neck. Sweat the whole trip to office. WTF am I supposed to
do? I say, this should be defined as 'torture'! How on earth am I
supposed to behave? /Never/ seen the pair of them, real, within 2
feet from me. There should be some mandatory cultural acclimatisation
training for these sort of things! Seriously[1]. Now, here in the
UK, the first week, a girl dropped some change in the bus, bent over
showing thongs rising over her trousers; all eyes locked on to the
fact, rested and then swung up, staring stonily ahead. I liked the
look on all the old ladies when it happened. Classic!

'You've never eaten Jell-O before?' makes me step back a bit when I
point out and ask about it in the office cafe. No, it's that bright,
phosphorescent orange stuff in it, I lie, what's that, I ask the cafe
waitress? Another one, 'chai?' makes me stop. In the midwest, in a
small town, 'chai' from a 50+ year old lady? turns out the brand of
tea is some '-chai'. I tell her, it's hindi for tea and she
immediately goes into paroxysms of delight telling her friends about
what she just learnt i.e. 'fancy that, I know Hindi!' aaargh!

Accents. fcuk, doesn't anybody speak English at all? Face aches from
smiling and grinning stupidly at someone who's speaking in a language
we both know but can't u'stand each other. In the UK, even worse,
everybody speaks differently. Finally, buck up enough courage to say
I didn't u'stand, to which the other guy /also/ doesn't u'stand
because of /my/ accent. checkmate. resolve to speak slowly and
clearly. Clearly the level of humour in the UK is miles above the
USA. & better informed too. Even the cab-drivers are snarky 'we're a
taxi service, not an oracle' upon asking them about an event. Resolve
to watch more TV to adjust my ears.

The noise, the noise or the /lack/ of them. It's so quiet that I get
up at 4am in the morning when I hear someone drive , park, lock &
check the doors of the car. The bus used to pass through a college
and watching the students, it struck me that few were conversing
amongst each other every day. I've seen more at a funeral. No wonder
the music gigs are always full, the only licensed place to scream your
head off. The personal space thingy is getting to me! Every trip on
a bus, train, plane is like a final trip to a death camp. Even worse,
I'm beginning to prefer it that way! :-)

Kids & teenagers, the same aimless wandering on both sides of the
pond. Only, it seems a little less aggressive here in the UK[2] but
that's just my opinion. Every adult I talked to in the US & UK had a
low opinion of kids. & yet, & yet, 2 months back, a kid helped a
semi-blind woman to the correct bus late in the evening. watched it
all from the shadows, an unselfconscious act from the kid to an
unrelated lady and who then, promptly went back to the more important
business of necking his girlfriend. I was happy for that kid for no
apparent reason, lucky girl, I thought.

Went to the River-Fest[3] and hugely enjoyed the different bands
playing along the riverfront in each cafe. The Beatles look-alike,
reggae, R&B, and the blues-metal(if there be such a thing) were a
smash hit and had a huge crowd listening to all of them. The chap who
was doing his reggae/R&B bit had the crowd in a lather, they simply
couldn't have enough of him. Somehow, for all the concerts/stage
plays I'd been to, that River-Fest weekend is the only one which comes
to my mind first. For someone(myself) who's culturally deaf, that's
pretty impressive. Another impressive feature is the queue for buses,
trains etc.! First time, my eyes goggled to see it actually work here
in the UK. Did I just see a queue form automatically in an orderly
manner, to patiently wait for the door to open, people to get out, and
then an orderly procession file inside? Are these people on Prozac or
drugs or what?

Rationally speaking, I should, no make that, I want to stay in any of
these places but I know I don't want to. There is simply too much
order for me to take it. Without looking, without seeing I can tell
how the next street will look like, how the next mall will be like,
how the car park will look like. That is everything to look forward
to /and/ nothing to look forward to. & that's what scares me.

Before you start throwing brickbats at me, remember these happened to
me, quite some time back and the opinions were mostly what I had when
I landed for the first time. Now I'm a bit older and still, /not/ as
wise as I would want to be.


Footnotes:
[1] Now, don't go doing a shrink-job on me; exactly the way you felt
when you saw a man sh***ing on the street but only....pleasanter. :-)

[2] even given the ASBO act & the TV shows showing errant kids.

[3] Can you guess the place, now?

kaushiks

That was one long post DD. My first trip abroad was to the US and it was most extraordinary for me.

1)
Even before I left india, my friend had told me a few things. One thing he mentioned was that when we stand in queues Indians tend stick really close to the person before him, fearing that someone would come and squeeze in between. He said westerners get very offended if you stand too close.
I got down SFO and was waiting in the immigration line.
This is what I was doing as I realized later :
I had my trolley to my right and I squeezed real close to the lady in front of me. I had great trouble manouvering the trolley because, it is very difficult to steer it if it is not directly in front of you. But I was doing it and my hands were beginning to ache. Thankfully, the lady turned around and gave me a very nasty look and I remembered, Oh! my God, I don't need to sqeeze right behind after all. After that I put the trolley in between us but still it took me a couple of weeks before I lost the fear that a bunch of people may come in between and beat the queue.


2)
I stepped out on the road early morning in Sanjose. The first time I am outside India. There were clean roads, buildings and lots of open spaces but no people anywhere. I really felt like Captain Spock in StarTrek. I somehow figured I shouldn't just cross the road. then I saw the first homo-sapien on the road. There was a black girl who was pressing some button, waited and then crossed road . I couldn't figure out exactly, so I just decided to follow her. She was muttering something to herself. When I was in hearing distance, she was saying something like "All these fu..ing assh.. ..." and some such thing. she suddenly turned around and yelled at me, "Why you followin me maan" and she went on. I bolted for life. I just wanted to get out of there and not get caught for some stalking or something. A car just whizzed past me near a turning as I was not looking. Then I saw a bus stop and went and stood there watching what others were doing and figured a few basic set of rules for pedestrians.

The funniest part was when I entered the office. However, I should probably keep this short and post more later.

markhyd

You've just summed up in a few sentences why so many westerners love India. I was living in the UK for 2 years, and every town i came to I knew what to expect from the main street, a few Boot's and Dixons, a Currys or two, Topshop, Mango, the same feckin shops everywhere. The same bars, the same restaurants, sterile and identical. I hate cities in general, it's like the people there are on rails, going about their daily routine like robots. My home country's getting the same way, everyone's starting to follow rules, obey the speed limit, drive on the correct side of the road, etc. it's depressing.



anyhow, excellent post, very, very insightful look at western culture.

Shiver me Timbers

Wonderful stuff DD, you've surpassed yourself. 5*

seventies'hippy

A Good Thread DD,,,,,,,,,,,,
The other side of the coin

lobo

A very interesting thread.

I tried to queue a few times in india, tried to look at the people around me so they would think "that man has been standing there longer than me so he deserves to be served first"......
Worked once in moussourie when we were buying a train ticket, the other times had to jump in with the rest.

robing

very funny and true We tube travels know exactly how much space is ours Reminds me of the classic goodness gracious me sketch of going for an english . Indian group going to an english restruant and Asking for the blandest thing on the menu

skell

[quote=markhyd]You've just summed up in a few sentences why so many westerners love India. I was living in the UK for 2 years, and every town i came to I knew what to expect from the main street, a few Boot's and Dixons, a Currys or two, Topshop, Mango, the same feckin shops everywhere. The same bars, the same restaurants, sterile and identical. I hate cities in general, it's like the people there are on rails, going about their daily routine like robots. My home country's getting the same way, everyone's starting to follow rules, obey the speed limit, drive on the correct side of the road, etc. it's depressing.QUOTE]

That is the same paragraph that grabbed me too, because it is exactly how I feel! I think it perfectly sums up the one thing that attracts so many of us to India; it's just NOT BORING!

Bigzero

DD, terrific post!

keep it up!

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phantom

That's the most interesting thread on IM as of yet.. IMHO.. .. keeping in mind the way the facts are being told.. a definite 5*

Layman

My first trip was to London. The main thing that struck me was that the streets were sooo quiet. The vehicles were moving fast but quietly, no honking or rattling unlike in India. There were dust-bins every few yards, so there was no litter on the streets.

My next trip was to New York. I was used to Western culture in India (through movies and serials), and did expect to see people driving on the right side of the road. However, it was a minor surprise to see that you had to push the electric switch upwards to switch it on (in India, you push it down to switch it on) and the other way to switch it off.
Here's a list of things that I found different from India:
1. Despite there being several hundred people (if not several thousand) in an apartment complex or office building, the streets were clean, with no litter.
2. People in the US seem to fall under two categories: either fitness freaks or extremely fat.
3. Female waitresses! It is rare to find women waitresses in India.
4. People kissing in the open. This was more so in the UK than in the US, where people seemed to be kissing everywhere - on the streets, in the tube, on the escalators... the best kissing strategy I found was on the escalators which were really long and slow moving in some Underground stations. The boy and girl would stand on different steps (so that they are of the same height) and lock lips till they had to get off the escalator.
5. People in the US generate a lot of garbage - the shopping bags, cartons, bottles etc. I shudder to think what would happen if Indians were to generate the same amount of garbage (per person) as well.
6. Toll-free numbers. It is a pain to go through the various automated options before getting to a human being on the other end of the line.
7. Women in general seemed to be well 'filled out' with good figures. In comparison, while Indian women may have good faces, their bodies are either skinny/flat chested or fat. However, US women looked older than Indian women of the same age. Same is true for children too.

kaushiks

That para by DD made me realise, why westener might like India. When I went to Yosemite from Sanjose, every city was exactly alike. When the car stopped and we wanted a break, the same food chain restaurants, same roads. I guess its all too organized not to be monotonous.

markhyd

DD, surely the gun you saw in Chicago wasn't your first gun, any airport in India is swarming with men carrying AK47s, old rifles, compact looking machine pistol thingies, etc.

Shotguns at ATM machines really scare me, the guys look like they've gotten about ten minutes training with the things.


Seriously good thread though, i wish i could sum up my feelings about different cultures as you have about the US and UK.

Digital Drifter

Technically true but you /do/ know that these guns have /only 1/ round chambered and that's it? & when was the last time you ever heard
/in India/, the security guard actually shooting a robber in a bank/shop etc.?

Compare that to a gum chewing /and/ not-so-worldly-wise policeman who'll shoot on the first provocation? this shoot first and then worry about Questions later is an attitude that I do not subscribe to.

lobo

I was shocked at teh bank guards with shotguns and security guards with ak 47's in india.
I agree with layman as a generalisation the indian women seemed to be very skinny or fat. The teenage girls seemed to be skinnier and put on weight as they are older.
Maybe marriage has something to do with it

Same could be said for the indian men I suppose

The indian women on tv were stunning though (if a little to white, some were whiter than me!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I have kissed many times on the escalators its nice to be the same height and show affection for each other.
As for it been in public Its almost like no one else is there ,they dont matter its just me and my girlfriend.

The high streets been the same is true, i miss the chaos of the indian cities.
They may be dusty, dirty and noisy but they have character.