Culture Shock
Posted in Society, Travelogue on 07/15/2009 02:27 pm by Daniel HaganIf you’ve never left your “comfort zone”, you’ve probably never experienced culture shock. Culture shock is quite simply when you find yourself in an environment where people act differently than you’re used to acting. It can be as big as going from America to Japan, or as simple as going from Boston to Virginia. The geographic version of culture shock is the easiest to understand and the most commonly experienced. But when you work in an insular community, espescially one with rigid social rules, you can experience culture shock too.
In my case, I spend time on military bases as part of my job. Most of the time, the bases seem just like working at any other big organization. But sometimes there’s the unexpected culture shock that hits you from left field.
Yesterday, I left work and jumped in the car. It was about 95 degrees out, so I had the AC turned all the way up. There was a red pickup ahead of me as we left the parking lot, and when he got up to the road he just stopped. After a few seconds, I was resisting the urge to honk at him “Boston style”. But as it dragged on, I finally decided to drive around him. I had no idea what he was doing, and didn’t really care.
As I pulled alongside him, I noticed he had his window down and was waving at me. Thinking he needed directions or something, I rolled down my window. I couldn’t hear what he said at first – I had to turn down the AC too. As soon as I did, I realized what he was saying. “The music’s playing…”
On military bases, the base PA system will play music at the end of the day, normally 5:00pm. When that music plays, everybody on base stops what they’re doing and listens until the music finishes – if you’re driving, you stop in place on the road and listen. It’s definitely surreal the first time you get caugh up in it. I had been caught in it before, but because of my AC I didn’t hear the music while I was sitting in the car. Fortunately, I only made an ass out of myself to that one guy instead of the whole base! But having to conform to unexpected social norms is eerily similar whether it’s in a foreign land like Japan, or just around the block at a military base…
07/15/2009 at 4:22 pm
Why is it important to hear the music? WEIRD!
07/15/2009 at 10:48 pm
Turns out this is a remarkably hard phenomena to Google – most searches turn up articles about the various military bands, not the music played on a daily basis by most bases. I did finally find this article in the Colorado Springs Gazette from 2005 that mentions it.
I don’t think it’s the music per-se, so much as the whole “military discipline” thing? Not really sure!