Culture Shocks Galore!

Landing at our apartment, the first floor of an old ramshackle house owned by an old couple who lived on the ground floor, we found a spacious, but to our eyes, weird place. The 'kitchen' was just a counter at the end of the corridor with a stove/range, a sink and frig and some shelves stacked in it and just off the bathroom! The very idea of cooking next to a bathroom was anathema to us - years later, I have had to cook even in bathrooms when on budget travels! The floor boards creaked and already in September it was pretty chilly. It was nearly a mile away from the office, but that did not seem a problem at the time. Anyway, we realised that for 80 $ a month rent, it was a good deal, and furnished at that!

Foreign students at large US university locations get a lot of very handy support from both the varsity groups like the Foreign Students Welfare Association, or whatever it was called, and their own national associations if they are around. One got briefing materials from the former where to buy or rent essential goods and importantly, a set of utensils and even linen and overcoats one could use while one laid by enough to buy for oneself. This facility is quite regularly used by new foreign students. In turn, when the students leave, they donate such items to the same groups. We decided to make full use of these offers -we got some basic utensils, and an overcoat each, rather shapeless by now, but anyway, one takes the coats off on reaching one's destination. Of course we soon had to get some supplies apart from the regular shopping for veggies, fruits and dry culinary items.

Our first major brush with 'Americanisms' was on such an early incursion to a store - it was after a bewildered wandering aisle after aisle, our first experience with self-service, that at the check-out I remembered and asked where I could find a torch. There was a puzzled look on the shop assistant's face, and we went back and forth as I tried to explain what I wanted. Finally, in desperation, I said, by then convinced that she was either a moron, or that the US was much less civilized than I had been led to expect, 'you know, it is a thing you hold in your hand, and when you press a switch on it, in a flash, the light comes on'. At that instant, the light came to me in a flash, and I exclaimed ,'what I mean is a flashlight!' Much relieved, she echoed, 'Oh, a flashlight, why didn't you say so in the first place?'

But the major shock for us was that the university demanded all foreign students to undergo a language proficiency test. I, felt especially insulted that my request for a waiver due to my English language and literature masters degree and university teaching experience in India was not heeded. The actual test was so basic that we had to rack our memories to write the correct answers - the kind that normally we would automatically use in either conversation or writing. Such as 'where' or 'were'; 'that' or 'which', or 'bare' or 'bear', depending on the context and the rest of the phrase. Fuming, I completed that test and then there was a vocal one - understanding spoken English, and speaking into a device some sentences that were written out. The tester said at the end in a satisfied tone that I had a score of 1. Curious, I asked what would it mean if one got 0 or 2. She said, the lower the score, the better it was, and zero meant an American accent while 1 was an equally intelligible and 'acceptable' one. I congratulated myself inwardly on not achieving a zero, for with my leaning for the English of 'Ye Olde England', I had no great penchant to sound or speak like an American. Ramu too came off with flying colours, obviously, and we then could turn to other immediate concerns.

He soon landed a part-time assistantship under a professor of economics to do some comparison of Indian and Japanese finances, and also enrolled in a public finance class that semester.