Reflections on culture shock

Since we got here, I've been surprised to find that I'm going through a mini-culture shock experience. It pales in comparison to the total bewilderment and disorientation I felt when we first came to India, but I'm not blending in as smoothly as I expected I would. I've experienced reactions from people that run the gamut from extremely friendly and welcoming to outright hostile, and I'm finding just the amount of attention I get whenever I go anywhere to be a bit overwhelming. I am doing my best to respond with polite friendliness and be firm in refusing to buy whatever people are trying to sell me without being cold, but it is a challenge sometimes, and it can be exhausting. Honestly, it has been a nice break to spend the last couple of days just hanging out in our hotel room. I think all three of us needed it.

Here is a sampling of what I have experienced in the week and a half that we've been here:

The good:

- People have gone out of their way to help us get to where we're going. This is especially true when Jill and I travel alone, and I know we would not have made it to most of our destinations without local help. Without expecting anything in return, people have helped us find the right bus, told us when we got to our stop, and helped us flag down passing buses (which is nearly impossible, it seems).

- A lot of people have been very friendly and welcoming to us. People introduce themselves to us, ask where we're from, and just tell us "Welcome to India!" and let us go on our way. When we go sightseeing, we are swamped with people wanting to take their picture with us, which I think is really cute and flattering, especially when little kids run up to us with a big smile on their faces and ask to take their picture with us. It's adorable.

- People often gave up their seats on crowded buses for me and Jill. One time, a family managed to squish us into some seats in the middle of their group, then offered us some of their snacks. We didn't speak their language and they didn't speak ours, but I was really touched by such a friendly gesture of goodwill to a couple of total strangers. It made me reflect on how we treat foreigners back home, and feel ashamed.

The bad:

- Inability to communicate with people, even people who speak English, can be frustrating. For example, when I was at an internet cafe writing the last blog post, my internet stopped working. When I told the guy about it, he told me to switch to a different computer. I told him I couldn't, because I was working on something, so I needed to get the internet working again on the computer I was on. He told me to turn it off and back on, and again I explained that I couldn't because I was working on something. He then came over and switched off the computer. When I angrily tried to explain that I had just told him not to do that and why, he just started laughing at me.

- When we were at the cave temples in Ajanta, we were pretty appalled by the behavior of the Indian tourists. They traveled in big family groups, usually with several small children, who ran around the caves shrieking. Even the adults often behaved like children: making noises repeatedly just to hear the echoes, running their hands along 1500-year-old, painstakingly restored carvings.

- The first time I slept on the lower berth of a train, a few minutes after I'd closed my eyes to go to sleep, the man sitting across from me started snapping his fingers in my face to wake me up. It turned out that a gust of wind had blown my kurta aside, revealing part of my (fully clothed) outer thigh, and he wanted me to cover myself. Later, a family with a baby and a toddler came and sat in our compartment. The toddler walked over to me and started hitting me with her fists and tugging on my clothes, while I had my eyes closed and was clearly trying to sleep. Her mother sat within arm's reach, watching the whole time, and did nothing to stop her, so this continued for several minutes until the little girl got bored and decided to stop on her own. After that, the woman in the middle berth above me decided she would rather sit on my berth than lie down on her own, so she just sat down and scooted back, pushing my legs out of her way. Unsurprisingly, I only ended up getting about 2 or 3 hours of sleep.

- The second time I was in a lower berth in a train, sitting and reading, a guy in his early 20s came up to me and asked me about my Kindle. That was fine, but he then continued to try to talk to me for the remaining four hours until his stop, asking me generally inappropriate things: he asked if he could borrow my Kindle; he asked my full name so he could add me on Facebook (without telling me his name at any point); after I gave him my name and he added me, he went over my Facebook page out loud, asking me to confirm every piece of information on it; he asked me three times to accept his friend request, which I told him the first time I would but obviously couldn't do it right then because I had no computer or phone; he asked several times for Jill's full name so he could add her (of course I said no); he asked for the name of one of my other friends so he could add them (again, I said no); he asked my date of birth; and when he ran out of things to ask me, he started reading off my Kindle screen. Example:
Him: Chapter two.
Me: Yup.
Him: Chapter one is finish.
Me: ...Yup.

Example 2:
Him: 72% complete.
Me: Yup.
Later...
Him: 74% complete.
Me: ...Yup.

The ugly:

- One time a woman crossed the sidewalk to punch both me and Jill on the arm, hard. She said nothing, and we had done nothing to provoke it.

- I have very nearly been spat on several times. Not intentionally, it's just that people spit all the time here, which is gross. It's something I already knew, but I'm finding it difficult to get used to again. Same with littering and public urination, which people do everywhere.

- Once, when Jill and I were trying to get back to our hotel from the bus station, we had a lot of difficulty getting a fair price from the auto-wallahs. After much arguing, we finally agreed on a price with a driver whom we'd previously walked away from, and then he proceeded to laugh at us and brag to the other drivers that he'd gotten us to agree to that price. While he was driving us back (if you go directly, it takes about 5 minutes), he stopped to get gas. After that, he stopped again to take a piss by the side of the road. When he came back, he wiped his hand on my pants. Then, about 30 seconds after he had started driving again, he slowed way down and demanded twice the fare we'd agreed on, and argued with us for several minutes about this before finally taking us back to our hotel. It was pretty scary actually; Jill and I were readying ourselves to either defend ourselves or jump out of the moving vehicle in case he refused to stop unless we agreed to pay him double. It ended up working out okay, except that for some reason he grabbed my hand when I was giving him the money.

This is just a small sampling of the interactions we've had with locals so far. As you can imagine, it's a bit overwhelming, and has often left me feeling frustrated and irritated. But, although it's a bit difficult, I am trying to embrace the challenge, and will ultimately be better for it.