Man Hug…Misunderstood

It is always amazing on how things are understood differently based on ones cultural background and upbringing. Being a dude from India I know it is quite common for boys, even grown up adults for that matter, to hold hands or even casually wrap hand around the shoulders of friends while walking on public roads. No one finds it unusual in that country and the setting.

Why am I talking about this now?

Here’s the situation. One of my colleagues had a minor stroke recently and was out of action for a couple of weeks. We were fortunate that these were minor strokes and he had his family around to take care of him immediately. All my colleagues were so concerned about him. He was eventually cleared to get back to work and he showed up promptly at office today, thanks to his loving wife, he got tired of her being over protective and wanted to take a break. I was so happy to see him back in office and I gave him a “Hearty Man Hug”. Another colleague of mine standing right behind me says “I am not gay, so I’ll just shake your hand”. I know he said that in a lighter vein and didn’t mean to be hurtful to me or anyone for that matter.

It sounded very funny to me, at that instance, given that I have so many friends, boys to be precise, that I must have held hands with when I was a kid and even in college. That’s when this thought crossed my mind as to why one should be “Culturally Aware” while exhibiting affection in the public. This is precisely the reason why I had to dump a couple of pink shirts I had when I moved from India to the USA.

Immigration, culture and language

I was working late in the evening this Friday ( nothing new there :-)). I had misplaced my iPhone charger. I was trying to figure out if I had left it in one of the conference room as that’s where I have been spending a lot of time. It has been an unusually busy December so far. Which is a good thing from work perspective. Anyway, as I mentioned, it was late in the evening and there wasn’t a single soul in the office. I bumped into one of our house keeping persons, a janitor, whom I’ve seen in the past but except for a courteous nod, we’ve never spoken.

This time I wanted to ask him if he has seen a charger that I misplaced, unfortunately he doesn’t know English. We tried hard to communicate, me waving my iPhone in front of him and pointing to another power cable etc. it took a while for us to eventually get on the same page. He signed he hasn’t seen any and I moved on. After grinding out another couple of hours and cranking out few more slides for an upcoming presentation next week, I got on the road.

I turned on my radio and Kai Razdal was announcing the new deal that he EU leaders reached on Friday to save the euro. While listening to how the world economy is stinking and how the world leaders are not able find a solution, my touts floated around a bit and went back to those couple of minutes where I was speechless in front of the house cleaner in my office.

Europe, a land of culturally diverse nations is trying to unify economically and otherwise. Their common currency is euro and common language has got to be English. Here I am, a temporary migrant to US trying to communicate with another migrant. While it is essential that all the migrants maintain some of their cultural roots despite the country they live in, isn’t it necessary that we all learn a language that we can communicate. It may not be necessary, if you happen to live in the same country, to learn a new language but shouldn’t prep learn the language if venturing into a foreign land where communication becomes and essential tool to get employment and other necessities.

I think I am blessed that way by being born in India. We have no option but to learn English in order to communicate among people from different states. I think you will not find that culturally diverse environment anywhere else in the world. Indians have built so many temples and cultural centers in US, one would hardly miss the home land, but they all happen to speak English, thought it could be funnily accented at times.

I remembered a story on NPR about the state of Pennsylvania trying to save 100s of millions of dollars by not printing all government and public services forms in spanish. No wonder the economy is making every one to cut corners, but we immigrants can definitely help by learning the language of the land, if not for the cost savings, but at least help out other  human beings by communicating in a common language and not having to resort to the sign language that our fore fathers have dumped thousands of years ago. We should help our own cause and not push the locals to become more defensive and close minded.