By HH Mohrmen
An individual’s identity is not just defined by their appearance, name, or education; it is also deeply influenced by the upbringing and culture they experience. Culture shapes not only how a person lives their life but also their worldview. The traits and perceptions people hold about life and various issues are largely influenced by the culture they belong to. Culture plays a crucial role in shaping the lives of individuals and the communities they are part of. Culture is the representation of the collective behavior and characteristics that are unique to a group of people.
No Man is an Island
People around the world have distinct cultures and ways of life, which differ significantly from one another. An individual’s life is thus influenced by the culture of the place where they are born and raised. No man is an island; each of us is shaped by the culture of the area we grew up in. The African has a saying, ‘it takes the whole village to raise a child,’
When a people living in a distant place visit a region where the culture is different, they naturally encounter some conflict. The food might be different from what they are used to, the language may be unfamiliar, and the way of life may vary greatly. In such situations, one can feel out of place or awkward when encountering a lifestyle different from their own. The challenge of adapting to a new way of life, communicating a foreign language, and eating different kinds of food can be overwhelming.
Blindly Grabbing the Opportunity
When an opportunity to study abroad presented itself early on, I seized it without much thought—why wouldn’t I? Without even giving it a second thought, I decided to embark on a one-year training program in a foreign country. I was young and naïve and I didn’t try to understand the place I was headed for. On hindsight I also realized that, unlike the present where information is available at our fingertips, even if I had wanted to research the destination or the journey, there wasn’t much I could have done in 1989, living in Jowai. The entire Jaintia hills district had only one library serving the entire region, and it wasn’t well-stocked with resources.
It is also true that at that time, my only interest was in traveling abroad. I didn’t consider the challenges I might face living in a different culture. I had no prior experience of traveling abroad, and in fact even within the country, I had only visited a few cities, mostly on guided study tours. This trip was a new and unguided journey for me.
Preparation (or lack thereof) to Travel Abroad
I had never studied in private schools; having attended government schools through high school then continued and completed my education at a government college. I spent a year studying science at St. Anthony’s College in Shillong before realizing that studying science wasn’t for me. I had never studied outside the state, and my knowledge of the world beyond was limited to what I learned in geography lessons and from reproducing maps during exams.
My knowledge of Great Britain in particular was limited to what I had heard, as Shillong was often called the “Scotland of the East.” I knew about sheep and wool from commercial geography lessons. My interest in poetry introduced me to William Wordsworth, the Lake District, and the Daffodils. The Beatles sparked my interest in Liverpool and the Cavern Club, while my love for English literature familiarized me with Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, the Thames, the Royal Family, and Buckingham Palace. That was the extent of my knowledge about the country before I embarked on my journey to the UK.
Birds of a Feather Flock Together
I didn’t have many friends, and even those that I had were not equipped to advise me on how to prepare for life in another country. They had barely finished high school and had never left their hometowns. The farthest they had traveled was to Shillong or Guwahati. Jowai, in the late eighties, had a population of just over twenty-eight thousand, a few high schools, and only one college. A small-town boy who could barely speak English and knew nothing about the outside world, I embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to the UK with no preparation.
The Culture Shock Began in My Own Country
My culture shock began the day I boarded my first flight to Calcutta for my student visa interview at the British Embassy. On hindsight, the incident in Calcutta was a prelude to the cultural shock I would later experience.
During my visit to Calcutta for the visa interview, Sheba Travels, which arranged my visa and travel, had someone waiting for me at the British Airways office near Russell Street. He was supposed to take me to the Consulate and assist with the interview process. However, I went directly to the British Consulate at Ho Chi Minh Street, which was not far from Russell Street, while the agent waited for me at the Airways office. The poor man must have been beside himself, thinking I was lost in Calcutta. The confusion was my fault; I hadn’t paid close attention to the instructions and ended up losing the agent. I had the British part correct but my mistake was instead of going to the Airways office, I went straight to the Consulate.
When Ignorance is Bliss
Fortunately, I had my passport and all the necessary documents with me, and since I already had an appointment for the interview, I was allowed to enter the Consulate. Meanwhile, the agent, unaware of my whereabouts, informed Sheba Travels in Shillong of the situation. Back then, communication could only be done via landline, and long-distance calls, known as trunk calls. Even those were challenging due to limited connections.
Arrangements were made for me to stay at the Meghalaya House on Russell Street, a place familiar to me from a previous excursion with the team from the Kiang Nangbah College, Jowai. In the evening, my relatives from Jowai and Shillong called Meghalaya House, and they were relieved to hear that I was safe and had completed my interview successfully.
The Interview that wasn’t really an Interview
At the visa office, the young British officer, likely in his forties, asked me several questions that I struggled to answer. Having been educated in government schools and colleges, I could barely speak English, and this was the first time I had ever heard a native English speaker. The man must have been frustrated, as he had to repeat his questions several times for me to understand. Fortunately for me, he couldn’t deny me a visa because I already had full sponsorship for my studies and living expenses in the UK. Perhaps he didn’t see me as a threat to his country (immigration policies were less strict then), so he concluded the interview. But before letting me go, he said, “I don’t know how you’ll manage to study in England when you can barely understand English.” To which I confidently replied, “I’ll try.” I was glad I could at least understand that.
The beginning of the voyage
When the day of travel approached, friends and neighbours came to bid me goodbye and on the day I left home some members of the church came in a bus to Guwahati airport to see me off. My international flight was from Delhi to Heathrow and in Delhi I was helped by my cousin Dr Rica who was then studying medicine at the Lady Hardinge Medical College, Delhi and Judy Pariat who accompanied us from Jowai.
I was supposed to study at Manchester and if people asked me I would not even be able to locate it on the map. Some may call it over-optimistic but it was really a blind trust that something good is waiting for me on the other side of the horizon which took me to Heathrow. Looking back I realized that trusting something good will happen has helped me embark on a new journey, charter unknown territories and embrace the challenges in my life.
The funny part of the journey was, during the eight hours air trip, I did not use the restroom to ease myself because I was not able to locate the toilet. Yet that was not the funniest and the most challenging part of the journey for me.
When the menu was presented to me, I could not even decide which food to order. A simple task as ordering food in the aircraft was also a big challenge for me. I didn’t know anything that was in the menu, though the image of the food looked sumptuous, but it was all Greek to me even if it was written in English.
Now if I don’t want to starve, I would have to eat some way or the other. I randomly picked any item on the menu and fortunately guess work came to my rescue. I selected the item in the menu by swirling my forefingers round and if the tips of the two fingers touched then it would be the bull’s-eye and I would select the item. We started in the evening on a British Airways flight from Delhi, so it was dinner to begin with. And it was a guesswork dinner for I don’t even know what I was actually ordering, but it served me well because I quite liked the food.
The rest of my journey would need another column. But that’s how life it. It offers us surprises that we need to be willing to accept and embrace.