Tripping Over Culture

My first two attempts at crossing cultures were pretty pathetic.   They both occurred one immediately after the other.  I tripped over one of them quite literally.  While with the other, I managed to trip up figuratively.

I learned to play soccer for one year – and one year only.  That’s it!  I did it for the sole reason to go on a soccer mission trip to Mexico.  There was no other reason.  I wasn’t skilled, but I could run. I didn’t start, but I was a warm body.  I didn’t really know what it meant to go to another culture either.  I had no cross-cultural training.  I just knew I wanted to travel to another country.  And, I’d learn a sport – and willingly trip and fall on my face from time to time - in order to do it. 

As the team drove from Michigan through the heart of the country to Texas and into Mexico, I was excited.  I had just returned from my second summer at camp in Colorado, and I was heading west – again.  Okay, technically it was southwest. 

If you asked me at the time, I would have given you three reasons for joining the team.  Certainly, missionary outreach was one reason.  Exercise and playing a team sport was another.  But, neither reason was the main motivational force.  They paled to the third reason.  Simply put, I wanted to play so that I could travel.  Without the “carrot” of a trip to Mexico, I would have never tried to play soccer.

Ironically, I hadn’t even been out of the country once before I was already concocting a second international experience.  Now, this one was really “outside-my-box”.    

As I approached my third and final year at the Bible school, I must have been feeling hospitable, risky – or just addled.  Maybe a header from a soccer ball rattled my brains.  Whatever it was - it was definitely out-of-character.  It was also outside of my realm of life experiences.  Up until that point in my life, I could count the number of times I had been to an ethnic restaurant – on one hand. And, two of those times were at a Taco Bell. 

Cross-culturally, I was inexperienced, and green.  But for some reason, I requested an international student to be my roommate. 

In the fall of 1974, my perception of an international student, and reality was to collide in a spectacular way.  I was not prepared for “Intercultural Communication 101” – nor was I prepared for Yasu.

I had moved into our dorm room a couple of weeks early - before the start of the semester, so that I could go on the soccer trip to Mexico.  I made one particular assumption, in a long string of them that was fundamentally erroneous.  I assumed that the international student was “poor” and that he would only have a suitcase or two.  So, I felt that it was okay for me to encroach a bit on space within the dorm room.  I. Was. Wrong.  Yasu broke open my stereotype of an international student. 

Yasu was five years older than me, and he was an accomplished musician.  In fact, he was the leader of his own Christian rock band in Japan.  He came to the states to study the Bible for a year.  He had connections with Maranatha Music and the Jesus movement in California.  He was active and driven.  I was 19, passive, and cross-culturally very naïve. 

As a result, I did a “head-on crash” that landed me right smack dab in the middle of culture shock. 

When I returned from Mexico, the dorm room looked very different from when I had left.  Guitars, amps, and music accessories dominated more than his half of the room.  The flow of visitors to the room was like a revolving door.  This guy knew everyone.  I couldn’t believe it.  And, I learned a valuable lesson about making assumptions about people. 

In my interaction with Yasu, I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say much.  In fact, I tended to avoid much interaction with him because I was intimidated by “our differences”.  I didn’t know how to handle it.  It was my first one-on-one cross-cultural communication experience.  And for the most part, I failed miserably.  God used Yasu to show me that I had a lot to learn about interacting with other cultures.

    

Yasu, and some mutual friends, eventually formed a band and played casual gigs nearby.  I became a “de facto roadie” and ran the soundboard.  (It seems that I had more of an affinity for music than I thought I had.)  In the process, I got exposed to the world of musicians, soundboards, set up/tear down, recording studios, and even television studios.  Needless to say, a bond began to be formed, which deepened when Yasu met a girl and had questions about dating.   The answers must have been mostly helpful, since they were married within the year.  

God somehow instilled within me a desire for an international roommate.  I certainly don’t know where that came from, but God used Yasu profoundly.  My interaction with him, as well as the trip to Mexico, started to open my eyes about crossing cultures.  I had made a fundamental assumption that I was a “have” and he, from another culture, was a “have not”.  In reality, it was the other way around.  I needed his input and interaction cross-culturally to raise my own cross-cultural awareness and sensitivity.  I needed what he had to offer me. 

Yes, I tripped badly over culture, but fortunately I was able to get back up and try it again.

And, just so you know, my story with Yasu doesn’t end here.  Stay with me.  It picks up again about ten years down the road.

Next Time: A Sudden Fork in the Road.