Hello USA! Our family is taking a short break from France; we will be in the states all summer. We
arrived in Charlotte on June 2, after a (thankfully) uneventful flight across
the Atlantic. The next day, as Greg and I were running some errands, he asked
how I felt to be back in America. I described it as “comfortable, like wearing
sweatpants.” Greg laughed and suggested that I adopt this as my new code name
for the general feeling of returning home: Cultural Sweatpants.
Think about it – when you wear sweatpants, you’re usually
not very concerned with how you look. You’re not trying to make a good
impression, you’re just dressing for your own comfort. Sweatpants are relaxing
and cozy -- you can get away with slouching and being blissfully lazy while
wearing them. It’s the same thing with your home culture. You don’t have to
think about figuring out the rules of society because you’ve known them all
your life; it’s the way you grew up. So no matter how long you’ve been away
from home, you can easily slip right back into the cultural dance.
Having said that, there are a few things about my home
culture that two years in Europe had caused me to forget about….things that I
noticed as if for the first time. First and foremost is good ol’ Southern
Hospitality: just the friendliness of people in general. Strangers will often strike up a
conversation or even flatter you with a compliment out of the blue while you’re
in line together at Wal-Mart. That just doesn’t happen in France.
Other things I noticed were annoying rather than pleasant.
For example, the tendency for retailers to overcompensate for the oppressive
heat by blasting the A/C so cold that you have to bring a sweater with you even
though it’s 98 degrees outside. Noisy restaurants and the lack of sidewalks and
good public transportation are among the other annoyances. Still, these pale in
comparison to the terrific “ahhhhhh” experience of easing into those comfy
cultural sweatpants. The ability to understand and be understood is a glorious
feeling indeed.
