Now, I know we have only been in an Indian culture for
a little over four months, but is it fair enough to say that we feel a little
more Indian everyday? (And feel it even more when you return to your heart
culture.)
We landed a little over a week ago back on American soil,
and, honestly, we have new gut reactions to do things. Turning out onto an
empty road in a car sends quick panic signals to our brain to figure out which
side of the road is the appropriate one to drive on. My first thought when I
hold my glass under the tap and then take a drink is that I’m going to be sick
the next day.
As we stay here, we find more things that are so different
from our new culture. Everything feels so opposite here. Water is dependable.
There are so many wide-open spaces. There is rhyme and reason to the roads.
People don’t stare at you for long periods of time. There are churches—very
large ones—on every corner. The streets are clean. The only animals we see wandering
around are occasional deer. We see a lot more defined parts of ladies’ bodies.
Guys and girls touch. The language we hear is not unintelligible background
noise. There’s no such thing as bargaining. People generally don’t cut you in
line when you only leave a foot of space. Fruit and veggies can just be rinsed under
a faucet.
All these things were normal to us once, but now there is a
new normal. And it comes from a culture situated in the opposite hemisphere. We
cannot even fathom what even one more year will do to our cultural ties.
Many people have asked us, “Does it feel really weird to be
back?” And at first the answer was: Yes. But after the first day or two, the
answer became, “The weirdest part of being back is that it doesn’t feel weird
to be back.” We have found ourselves slipping not only back into more American
clothes but also our former way of living. We hope that we are able to slide
back into our Asian culture just as easily. But isn’t that a strange thing?
Feeling like two opposing cultures are both your own? Does anyone else share
these feelings?
We remember that Jesus was bicultural too, being both fully
a member of heaven and a member of this earth. Our experiences give us a small
taste of what Jesus must have felt like when He came to this earth, being
naturally from a different way of life, yet fitting into this world because
that was what He was made to do. And then going back to His homeland, taking
with Him the memories of this earth and the life He shared on it. It fills me
with joy that He did and that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to
sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every
way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of
grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us
in our time of need.”
Our prayer is that we are also able to bless the people in
this new culture that we have stepped in to, even as it changes us in the
process. May He use us to magnify His name in all that we do as a bicultural
family.