your references are illusions

"i guess culture shock is more powerful than anyone realizes. i really felt like i was drowning. i've never felt like that before, like being in a place with no references. where what you thought were references are illusions." kimberly, the american in thailand, bangkok 8.

i'll admit--i'm a little obsessed with culture shock. i love the interaction of cultures and the necessary dissonance that occurs. i love the way it rocks your perception of reality. i love the way it makes you question all of your assumptions and presumptions. don't get me wrong--it's a bitch to live through. but if you can hear the gospel in the midst of it, it's more beautiful and multi-dimensional... more dappled, as gerard manley hopkins would say.

last week i read bangkok 8, on recommendation from krissy. a nice little murder mystery, with insights into thai culture and buddhism thrown in. or maybe vice versa: a fascinating study of thai culture and buddhism and the way the west has affected them with--oh yeah--a murder investigation thrown in. observation: other cultures seem to have a much better understanding of themselves than americans do. i think it's because we're young and so many cultures combine to make us who we are.

here are a few quotes from bangkok 8 on the east and the west:

actually, the West is a Culture of Emergency: twisters in Texas, earthquakes in California, windchill in chicago, drought, flood, famine, epidemics, drugs, wars on everything--watch out for that meteor and how much longer does the sun really have? of course, if you didn't believe you could control everything, there wouldn't be an emergency, would there?

there will be a massive shift of power from West to East in the middle of the twenty-first century, caused not by war or economics but by a subtle alteration in consciousness. the new age of biotechnology will require a highly developed intuition which operates outside of logic, and anyway the internal destruction of Western society will have reached such a pass that most of your resources will be concentrated on managing loonies. there will be tv news pictures of people fleeing from supermarkets and pressing their hands to their heads, unable to take the banality anymore. the peoples of southeast asia, who have never been poisoned by logical thought, will find themselves in the driver's seat. it will be like old times, if your timeline stretches back a few thousand years.

and one on insecurity:

i note that he has chosen the theme tune from Star Wars for his ringing tone, whereas i myself opted for 'the blue danube' (thereby demonstrating that i am no more than an impostor in western culture, a naive tourist anyway, with the musical taste of a grandmother; i can't think why i didn't choose Star Wars, which i actually prefer).