I am from India. I came to this country about eight weeks back.
The lay of the land was almost as advertised. Beautiful homes, beautiful roads, beautiful people. I had always looked at this world through a screen, and now here I was, living it. At first glimpse, everything felt exactly the same as often projected in movies or television. The subtle underlying differences were not so visible initially. But as I spent a couple of weeks here, they became quite apparent.
The most obvious one is that I’m not an American. I differ from Americans in cultural, behavioral, physical and sometimes psychological aspects. My accent is different, my skin color is distinguishable, and my mannerisms are conformed to the society I was brought up in back in India. The first and foremost struggle I have to tackle is to mold some aspects of my personality so that I can ease my transition from internationalism to Americanism.
Don’t get me wrong. The reason I intend to do so is not because I want to forget my own personal beliefs and values. They represent my individuality and I would give anything to retain them. The real reason of doing so lies in the fact that I don’t want to feel like an outsider. Even now, when I am interacting with people here, I feel like I am at the periphery, looking inside, only observing and not contributing. The ultimate goal of most internationals flying halfway across the world to this country is to feel accepted not only with, but despite, their individual traits.
There are some other subtle differences too. For instance, I have seen Americans to be quite disciplined and polite, at least here in the South, anyway. The default mood that people seem to be in is an essence of being content. Consequently, it feels good to talk to such people because then their positivity travels unto you and makes you feel calm and relaxed about yourself. Also, people are very hard-working and the best thing about them is that they always strive to become something more than what they are, and not just survive to stay the same.
I could go on and on about this, but I’ll close now by stating the first few things that I’ve learned from Americans in the short time that I’ve been here: be happy, be polite, work hard and most of all don’t just survive — thrive!