Culture Shock

When I hear the words 'culture shock,' many images and personal experiences come to mind. For instance, my brief stay in the Philippines where there is intense poverty combined with startling beauty, going to Europe for the first time and taking in the incredible history and architecture, or my trip to Narita where I attended a Buddhist prayer ceremony at the second largest Buddhist temple in Japan. Being a flight attendant, I had the great privilege of experiencing a vast array of cultures in a very short period of time. This being the case, perhaps my view of 'culture shock' differs from that of others . . . but why don't you be the judge. Let's rewind a few days. A co-worker of mine is studying abroad in Germany next semester and he's required to complete a culture shock project. From what I gather, the purpose of this project is to take the individual out of their cultural 'comfort zone' and give him/her an experience that will prepare him/her for the shock of living in a foreign country (however brief the stay may be). I thought this sounded like a great assignment with a lot of potential. Immediately I started thinking of the possibilities. Two hours north is the largest Hindu temple in the Midwest, a four hour drive south and you're in the last existing fully-functional German village in the country, and four and a half hours driving southeast and you arrive in Chicago, which boasts an impressive Chinatown amongst other cultural delights. With so much 'culture shock' available locally, you can imagine my surprise when I heard what my co-worker had finally decided on. He was going to go to the local gay bar. Now don't get me wrong, I don't expect everyone to have the same experience of gay bars that I've had, and there are definitely some cities where the gay bars would most certainly cause culture shock (I don't think I can legally tell you what goes on in the gay bars in Amsterdam). But in a town of 55,000 people, the local gay bar is little more than a townie dive that plays Cher. He might as well go to a Mexican Restaurant, the result would probably be about the same. Perhaps I'm too harsh and should give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, maybe he's had little to no experience with gay culture, in which case this will be a borderline eye-opening occurrence for him. What actually upsets me about the whole situation is this: the supposition that gay culture is still on the fringe of mainstream society. People, particularly Americans, still hold the view that homosexuals are deviants (disregard the Amsterdam comment), and that our culture consists of sex, disease, trashy music, extreme narcissism, and a dose of good interior decorating/fashion advice. Well, guess what, it's not the 80's anymore. The rest of the developed world welcomes gays with open arms, a cultural move that America would do well to follow. South American and European countries want gay men and women to live within their borders, enjoy the benefits of marriage, and pump their 'pink money' into the economy. Unfortunately, equality has never been at the forefront of this great country of ours . . . quite the contrary in fact. In America, you have to prove you can live a middle-class, picket fence life - only then will you be accepted as part of mainstream society. So there's my beef. On the flip side, this project gives me a good excuse to go out on a weeknight and drink with my co-workers, so maybe I shouldn't be complaining at all.