Thoughts on "Transculturalism"

Back in Ann Arbor, my head pastor talks a lot about the concept of transculturalism. Instead of trying to be multi-ethnic by simply increasing the population of certain ethnic groups (we're predominantly Asian) and leaving it at that, he's talked about developing a culture of jumping between the lines of people's backgrounds, worldviews, and differences. As people are better able to transcend the natural barriers that people of varying ethnic groups have when they first interact with each other, our pastor is believing that we will naturally become a more multiethnic church that reflects the true spirit of multiculturalism.

One of the difficulties of transcending different cultures and interacting with people that might be different from one's self is that there are likely to be a lot of awkward moments, which in the future might deter us from ever associating with people that might make us feel uncomfortable. For example, when I first met Dr. Mandi the other day, I asked her "what kind of doctor she was." She responded as if it was the most ridiculous question she had ever heard. Her response, "I'm a medical doctor!" after which she mumbled a couple things in her Naga language. In the US, it's perfectly normal to ask people what kind of doctors they are, but I guess in the culture of Indian medicine, it seemed like a outrageous question to ask. I have a feeling she didn't understand the kind of answer I was expecting. Even in some everyday interactions with people at work, there are always instances where the way I say something doesn't make sense either because of my word choice or flow of language or vice versa - sometimes it's hard to understand what people are saying through an Indian accent or through their choice of words (think: British English). This can be particularly troubling in the cases when my boss is trying to tell me something important or my taxi driver is saying "I don't know where you live!"

Even though there are a lot of awkward moments in these attempts to face transculturalism, there are also a lot of moments where I remember interacting with people of different background being some of the most significant moments in my life. For lack of a better description, I would call these instances "golden moments." I guess a quick definition of a "golden moment" would be an occurrence where there was a significant sharing and exchange of life between two groups of different background/culture.

When I was in western China last summer, a group from my team visited a Uyghur market bazaar one afternoon and decided to eat lunch at a girl's family stand. She was very friendly and even asked us where we were from. She made us a simple noodles dish and then served us this awesomely good donut pastry that wasn't being served anywhere else in the bazaar. We didn't think anything of it at the time, but as we continued to see different parts of the city over the next couple of days, our little team of people decided to keep going back to that girl's stand in the bazaar. Time and time again, she was overjoyed to see her new American friends come back for a meal and some donut desserts. We eventually shared our background and why we were in western China, and learned some about her - she'd been working at the stand since she was eight or nine years old. On our last day in that city, we decided to bless her and her family by buying them a whole bunch of fruit and going to the local Kodak shop and printing out a full sized picture of a family portrait we had taken for them. As we presented it to her family on the last day before leaving that city, it was one of those moments where you realize on both ends that there was a significant exchange of "life" in the previous days' interactions. That is what I would look forward to in a "golden moment." There aren't necessarily found at the flashiest tourist attraction or in the five star hotel, but more often than not, in the realms of the lives of everyday normal people, who are carrying on more or less with life as usual when you run into them.

And those kinds of experiences are what I'm looking for here in India. Maybe it will come with the people at work. Maybe the people at the local market. Maybe with people at the hospital or people that I live with. Where ever those moments are to be found, they are a big part of what makes an overseas experience meaningful and memorable. I'm guess I'm just keeping my eyes open for now.

(Pictures from last summer)

These donut things were really good


Our little team when we visited one day after it rained


The girl's family when we gave her our last batch of fruit and family portrait