Culture Shock

I have lived in Jamaica, Yemen, Tanzania, and London. I have spent a great deal of time in Kenya, Uganda, Jordan, and Palestine. I have dated, been in relationships, even done both in multiple languages. I have taught all kinds of students, eaten all kinds of foods, even managed to listen to lots of different kinds of music. I have a Master's degree in Multicultural Education and I have published manuals on cultural diversity. I thought I was ready for anything, inoculated against any type of cultural shock. And true to form, the only place I suffered it was in the place I least expected it. Ooooklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain...........

I left Indiana to go to Oklahoma for college. I knew it was a good distance away, and that there might be some differences, but hey, it was still America. Thirty something years later, I think I might have been wrong about that. As I boarded the plane, my expectations were limited to cowboys, Indians, howdy, and heat. I didn't know I would have to learn a new language.

When I got off the plane, I walked past a very big man in a too tight shirt standing behind the counter of a fast food counter. He was the biggest man I had ever seen. My stare, and possibly gaping mouth, caught his eye and he smiled broadly, saying "jeeeeeetjetbiggin?" I stared harder, jaw dropped lower, as he repeated louder and longer "jeeeeeeeejetbiggggin." At this point I was frozen in my tracks, petrified as it were. His smile faded a tad to a look I often reserve for a three year old that is trying but not quite there yet. I was saved by a stranger, perhaps name Hermes, who stopped, looked at me knowingly and said "the man asks did you eat yet big one"? Wow! In seven years, I am not sure I picked up this language, something that has made me very sympathetic when dealing with ESL (English as a Second Language) students elsewhere.

Well, I hadn't eaten yet,  andI made my way to my parent's house (they had moved there a year before while I was in high school) and surprised them. I didn't tell them I was coming, or that I was planning on attending a local college. They were so excited, they took me out to dinner. My step-father told me about a famous restaurant, Big Ed's, only a few minutes away. We jumped in the care and sped off. We arrived at a small place, nested in a strip mall with a big sign with a big guy (yes, Ed) looming over the threshold. We went in, sat down, and my step-father ordered the specialty for me, a giant cheeseburger and fries. The deal was if you could eat it all in 45 minutes, it was free. I had never seen something like that before, and I was a little aghast. I looked around the room and saw several giants digging into their challenges, families and fans cheering boisterously. It wasn't Texas, but everything and everyone was bigger here.

My dinner came out on a giant pizza pan, The cheeseburger was really eight cheeseburgers topped with every condiment imaginable between two layers of bread that could have each doubled for a hubcap. Wrapped completely around this culinary colossus were about a hundred giant french fries. I wasted a few minutes of the 45 just staring at it. I eventually tied into it, and actually got it all down except one large slice of the cheeseburger. The patrons clapped politely, and Big Ed ambled over and patted me on the back saying something I couldn't understand. I was in the Land of the Giants visiting the Twilight Zone. As we took the scenic route (no such thing in Oklahoma City then) home, I noticed a dozen all-you-could-eat places, and I nearly got sick.

The next morning, I woke early and picked up the paper - it was not my habit to do so, but there was a big picture of a bottle of whiskey and man and a much younger woman holding it. I was intrigued. It turned out that the State Supreme Court was entertaining a case dealing with the inconsistent drinking age law in Oklahoma. It seems the legal aged for women (girls) was a lower than that of men. I assumed it was because women matured faster, the article provided a different attribution - it postulated that there were many men who married much younger girls, and the happy couples should be allowed to go out on the town together. I honestly thought it was a joke. It wasn't. I was even more perplexed the first time I went out for a drink, fully expecting to see a crop of teen aged girls. I got to the first bar I could find and confidently strode in. I was halted at the door and accosted for my membership card. I explained that I didn't have one and was refused entrance. The club was not private, it was just a mechanism to get around another quaint drinking custom of the day - liquor by the drink.

It was illegal in Oklahoma to sell liquor in a public bar, that's correct, you heard it right. You had to bring your own bottle in and then you paid for the setups. Your bottle went behind the bar, and somehow the honor system made sure it only feed you. In a private bar however, you could but it from the bar, therefore a lot of public bars behaved as private ones by creating a membership scheme which also brought in a lot of extra revenue, ie, membership fees. I asked about all of this that night when I found a bar that would let me in for a small fee. It was explained to me that it somehow had to do with the fact that Oklahoma was "smack dab" in the middle of the bible belt. I didn't understand the connection, and was doubly astonished when I heard that they allowed totally nude dancing in the state. Peering through the opaque glitter of the neon lights filtering through my drink, I tried to pull it all together. I could bring in an under aged girl, an open bottle of whiskey, and we could both watch nude exotic dancers, then perhaps finish off the evening at a swanky buffet place on our way home, waking up early of course to go to church. I was confused.

Besides the language difference, and the obtuse drinking etiquette, there were other issues that perpetually perplexed me. Coors beer was Keeeers beer there; everyone wore cowboy boots whether or not they had ever sat on a horse; the most popular dish at the college canteen was Frito Pie, a big would-be casserole constructed with the ascending layers of corn chips, chili, shredded cheese, and jalapeno peppers in that order; 572 Baptists to every Catholic (I counted!); a delicacy called Chicken Fried Steak; an annoying plethora of country and western radio stations; and a Mexican restaurant on every corner, adjacent to, off course, the Baptist church who eyed it closely having heard illegal Mexican aliens were all Catholics (extra-terrestrial aliens and Catholics were counted equally on the state cesus I believe).

I never culturally assimilated in Oklahoma. I didn't hate the place, I just never understood it. Every time I returned to Indiana, or any other state north of Oklahoma, I felt like I had landed back on Earth. Honestly though, I have never travelled anywhere else where I have been that "alienated", not even the remote village in Yemen where I lived  for two years. Today, when people ask me about my travels and if I ever experience culture shock, I sometimes just look at them and reply "jeeeeeeeejetbigggin?"

Pranks

I don't sit around planning pranks. Occasionally, they just sort of come to me. More often than not they fail, but some work out gloriously. Here are four pranks I have pulled over the past thirty years that have been fun and/or ironic.






"Friend" "Four"
While in Yemen, the Peace Corps headquarters in the capital arranged a one-year check-in conference for my group. We came from all over the country to the western sea port of Hodeidah for three days of sessions and bonding. We stayed at the Al Borg hotel, a very nice spot with good food (I was particularly fond of the lentil soup). It was a high rise hotel near downtown and not far from the beaches, a great place to get together. We roomed together in two's and three's. We all arrived a day early, and we were soon planning a pick up football game on the mud flats outside of town. As we were moving from room to room to gather recruits, I stopped by Steve and Eric's room to see if they wanted to play. Eric was 6'7" tall and a former semi-pro basketball player, quite an athlete. Steve was a world travelling laid-back zen master poet, sort of. I am still not sure what Steve is. Anyway, Eric agreed and Steve declined. Steve went into the bathroom and Eric and I devised a quick little gag (I should mention that Eric was a gentle giant, a very large hippie). I was quite surprised Eric went along with it actually. We moved an end table up against the door of the bathroom. The idea was that after we left, Steve would have to struggle to get out of the bathroom. We didn't bargain on two things however; 1)the end table was too heavy for Steve to move, and 2) Steve's really poor command of Arabic. He ended up locked in the bathroom for 4 hours.
After a few minutes struggling with the door and yelling, Steve realized we had left and no one inside the hotel would hear him. He managed to pry open the very small bathroom window and get his head out. The window faced the back alley, and there wasn't much foot traffic. The only people who passed by were local Yemeni with no English. When Steve first noticed a passerby, it hit him that he didn't know how convey his situation in Arabic. He realized he hadn't learned the word for "help" or the words for "fourth floor." He thought for as second and bellowed "Sadiq, arba." This is Arabic for "Friend, Four." Unfortunately, Steve had to repeat this appeal to about 20 quizzical sojourners before one thought to go inside and complain about the odd American yelling unintelligible things from a small window. We felt very bad that he spent his day in there, but he was a good sport. By the time we returned six hours later, Steve had been freed, and he had learned the Arabic world for help.
"Your Mini-Bar Bill Sir"
It was at another conference/reunion in Yemen, that I got to pull my next prank. Once again, it was a crime of opportunity. We were staying in a much fancier hotel, the Taj in Sanaa. Again we were assigned roommates, and there was a great deal of shuffling as various volunteers bargained to switch rooms for more "romantic clusterings." A group of us were about to head out and play basketball. We had quite a collection of athletes in that Peace Corps group: 1 college basketball player, 2 college football players, 1 college high jumper, and 1 college soccer player. We were always outside playing something from our early days in training to the sporadic reunions years after we left Yemen. The best athlete by far was Greg, a former starting linebacker for UCLA. Greg was a tough California surf dude. He was also smart - an English major. Greg was fun loving, and usually up for anything. With all that going for him, he had one fatal, exploitable flaw - he was a bit cheap to say it mildly. We were all gathered in the lobby by the bar waiting for Greg to come down to join us. We sat on comfortable benches facing the front desk. I sat there, bored and a bit irritated from waiting when a terrible idea came to me. I walked over to the house phone and called Greg's room. Now I will not try to emulate here the really horrible Indian accent I employed (the hotel was owned and operated by Indians), but it must have been convincing. I identified myself as Rajid at the front desk, and I proceeded to tell "Mr. Bolin" about all the missing items from his mini-fridge and that he needed to rectify the situation before I left my shift. Greg argued with me earnestly, then accepted my invitation to come downstairs to settle the matter discretely. I walked back to the group, got their attention and said, "wait three minutes and watch what happens at the front desk." True to form, Greg appeared shortly thereafter and made a beeline for the front desk from the elevator. We had front row seats. We couldn't hear him, but we could see him gesticulating from behind, and we could also see the sincere yet confused faces of the front desk staff. Greg flailed his arms about for a minute or so, then caught on something wasn't right. All of a sudden, he spun around to see ten of his peers rolling around on the lobby floor. I did go over and offer my apologies to the staff later who did not seem to understand the humor in the event. Sadly, Greg passed away four years later. Right after finishing his MBA, getting a job on Wall Street, and becoming engaged, Greg was struck by a car that had lost control on a California curve while he was bicycling.
"Tasmanian Devils"
When I was in college, I lived in a doubly abysmal place - it was a fraternity with a group of football players: every mother's nightmare! It was pretty raucous there, and we all learned how to patch drywall. Alcohol, testosterone, and suspect intellects do not a good party make. Periodically, someone would introduce a foreign element into the environment that would have devastating effects. For some reason, one resident thought it would be fun to bring a cattle prod to the house. Five fights and $1000 in damages later, it was discarded. Then there was the dartgun. I won't go into that. Not everyone in the house was big and rowdy, but most learned how to defend themselves. One such reluctant warrior was Mark who stood 5'8 and weighed 130 lbs soaking wet. I don't know how we started a feud, but it quickly escalated to a war. I personally think Mark overcompensated due to his slight stature, and that he was the more unreasonable combatant....
I remember noticing that things were getting more serious about halfway through the feud. I had broken into his room and put Icy Hot in his underwear. I got the salve from football practice, but it took me three days to find the rubber gloves - I wasn't going into his drawers drawers unprotected. A few days later I opened my door to find I no longer owned sheets, pillows, or bedcovers. I thought I had smelled something burning in the back when I came in that day.
It was an unwritten law that you could not discuss or confront your adversary about these issues, you simply continued until one capitulated. I had underestimated Mark. I waited until Mark went home for a long weekend, then rigged a small bucket of all ready turning milk to dump on his head when he walked through his door. I wasn't home when he tripped the trap, but I smelled that awful stench for a week. I was on my toes constantly after that day, expecting the inevitable retaliation. It didn't come for awhile, so I thought I had prevailed. At least until I heard the upstairs smoke detector going off. I was downstairs in a meeting when the alarm sounded. We all rushed upstairs to see a gentle plum of smoke coming out from under my door. I rushed through the doorway to find a large barbecue grill sitting in the middle of the room. On it sat my prize possession, a stuffed Tasmanian Devil doll engulfed in flames. I tried to rescue it and burned my hands. When the chaos subsided,I realized that I admired and feared Mark now, but the feud had gone public and I had to make a statement. I had lost a friendly devil and gained a malevolent one. I waited three weeks.
Mark had some weaknesses - he had a prissy young girlfriend and two very conservative evangelical parents. I waited for the confluence to occur then I struck. Actually, I sort of created the illusion of the confluence, but that is a technicality. Mark's girlfriend would often spend the night, and they went to elaborate lengths to conceal the fact, although we all knew. Once every few months, Mark's parents would come to the house and he would make us clean up and leave when they arrived. As I mentioned, he had two nice weaknesses.
I waited until his girlfriend spent the night on a Saturday. I woke up at about 5:30am and I unfolded my simple, brutal retort. I made a very lovely pattern of thumbtacks outside his door, took out the hallway light bulb, and banged on his door. I did my best to muffle my voice and declared "Mark, your parents are here, they are downstairs." I waited a few seconds to take in the commotion inside the room (I actually think he knocked her out of bed) before I rushed back to my room. I jumped in bed and counted to ten. When I got to seven, I heard his door open, heard him hopping and grunting, then heard him crash to the floor. A few seconds later came the haunting bellow - "Morschesssssssssssssssss." The feud ended there that morning as I gentley pulled out a dozen or so tacks from all over his body with my pliers.
"Johnny, June, and Me"
When I was working in Jamaica, I often volunteered on weekends at the SOS Children's Village outside of town (Montego Bay). I helped them start up a Boy Scout program, and arranged some local camping trips. It was a lot of fun. One day, as we were hiking out into the hills, we came across a very nice house. I asked one of the teachers who was with us who owned the house. He looked at me with surprise and said, "Why Johnny Cash of course." Evidently, Johnny Cash had purchased the house and was often in residence. He and his wife June also supported the Children's Village. I thought that was very neat, and mentioned it to the school director when we returned. He cheerily told me what great people the Cash's were, and that he would introduce me to them the next time they came to Jamaica. Very neat indeed.
Sometime later, I mentioned to a fellow volunteer that I might get to meet Johnny Cash and she got very excited. She lived nearby and was often over visiting. It turned out that Johnny was her favorite musical artist. I was pleased with her reaction and vowed to let her know if I ever got the chance to meet him so I could possibly include her. That was mid-March. A few weeks later, that magnanimous sentiment turned a bit more perverse.
It was the 1st of April when I decided to exploit her love of all things Cash. I was living in an apartment complex, and I had friends several floors below who had a phone I occasionally used. This was well before cell phones, and as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I could not afford my own landline. My friend, the fan, was over with some other volunteers, and we were cooking a joint meal. I had made arrangements with my phone friends a few hours earlier to help me orchestrate a very simple plan. On cue, one of them came upstairs to see me to tell me that Johnny Cash was on the phone for me. I looked up, my hands wrist deep in some concoction and I casually asked his biggest fan in the room if she could take my call. She went nuts, screaming for directions to the apartment. My phone friend left (he went and hid down the hall) and I sent her down to take a message. My phone friend's wife was in the apartment, had locked the door, and had turned on their very loud shower. When my surrogate got to the apartment, she knocked several times, tried the handle, then heard the shower. Evidently she pounded and screamed (witnessed by the subsequent neighbourly complaints) and soon came running back upstairs. She burst in the room, out of breath, and I heard something to the effect of "Door, Locked, Johnny, Shower, Help."
I looked up from my culinary task and calmly said "Imagine that, Johnny Cash calling me on the first of April." She nodded and began to rant again, pretty much the same chorus. I repeated my statement twice before everyone else in the room had suffered too much and were crying with laughter. She still didn't get it, she thought they were laughing because she couldn't answer an actual call from the legend. Finally, I asked what day it was. She told me Tuesday, I said "no, what is the date?" Then it dawned on her. Her face was already red, then it turned very pale as she slumped in a chair. She looked up, called me a bastard, then smiled and asked me what was for dinner.
Almost a month to the day later, I got a call from the Children's Village telling me Mr. Cash and his wife were in town and I could meet them that afternoon if I hurried. Ironically, my friend was out of town, and I rushed over. I met the Cash's and they invited me and the senior staff to lunch. It was a great time, but I could never get my friend to believe that I had met them. I had forgotten my camera in the rush, and she simply believed I was sadistically piling on the torture.
Years later, I would come into my living room to see my three-year old daughter sitting in the middle of the room listening to the stereo. As I rounded the corner, I heard her sing perfectly, "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die." I vowed never to deceive her about anything "Cash."