Can the twain meet between two cultural opposites?<\/p>\n
Let me say that I love my wife very much. She is sweet, kind,
\nbeautiful and I can't imagine my life without her. That's without
\nquestion.<\/p>\n
It is true, however, that we are different in many ways. For
\nexample, she is a woman and I am a man. In addition, she is
\nIndonesian and I am Canadian. We haven't been married all that
\nlong, but I know we'll be able to rise above our differences.
\nAfter all, men have married women before and the marriages have
\nsurvived. And people from different races and cultures have been
\nknown to get along. Haven't they?<\/p>\n
Women differ from men, you know. Not in everything perhaps,
\nbut certainly in some pretty fundamental ways. Men and women both
\nenjoy sports. In that, they are similar. Women though, consider
\nshopping to be a sport. Big difference, there.<\/p>\n
There are also some differences between men's and women's
\nsenses of humor. I say with the greatest of respect however, that
\na man's sense of humor is generally subtler and more refined than
\nthat of a woman. Women, for example, don't think The Three
\nStooges are funny. Really.<\/p>\n
Most women, I am afraid, would fail to find an in-depth
\nconversation contrasting the relative merits of Shemp versus
\nCurly to be less than edifying. I know it's hard to believe and I
\nhesitate to make that observation, but I have actually seen women
\nleave the room after less than an hour of debate on that very
\nsubject.<\/p>\n
I have a suspicion that the logic circuits in our brains are
\nwired differently. Here's what I mean. Suppose a man goes into
\nthe office on Saturday to catch up on some work. On the way home,
\nhe picks up a romantic movie that he couldn't care less about,
\nbut he knows his wife wants to see.<\/p>\n
When he gets home in the early afternoon, tired but looking
\nforward to spending the rest of his truncated weekend with the
\nlove of his life, his beloved is sitting on the couch staring at
\na magazine. She refuses to acknowledge his presence or even his
\nexistence.<\/p>\n
For the rest of the day he begs her to talk to him; he
\nsuggests they watch the romantic (shudder) movie, she sniffs
\ncontemptuously; he apologies for being away; she glares with
\ndisgust; miserable, he sleeps on his lonely side of the bed, she
\non hers.<\/p>\n
Eventually, perhaps the next day, she explains. It seems that
\nshe loves him very much; in fact, the entire performance was
\nintended to communicate that fact. The cold, silent treatment
\napparently was her way of making him want to spend more time with
\nher. To a woman, this actually makes sense.<\/p>\n
The cultural differences are something else again. There are
\npieces of esoteric knowledge that one is expected to be familiar
\nwith and not knowing them is seen as a deliberate attempt to
\ninfuriate one's Indonesian family. Here's another hypothetical
\nscenario. The bule husband is at home on a weekend. He's watching
\nTV and having a beer and a snack. The beautiful Indonesian wife
\nand her mother walk in the door, fresh from an afternoon of
\nsports.<\/p>\n
They see the poor man and start shrieking. \"Oh God!\" they
\nscream, \"What are you doing?\"<\/p>\n
Shaken, the bewildered husband looks around desperately for a
\ncobra or a tiger. The mother in-law leaps toward the husband,
\nwrestles the durian from his hand and hurls it into the waste
\nbin. \"Do you try to make my daughter a widow?\" she demands.<\/p>\n
\"But, but, but...\" he replies eloquently. It seems that durian
\nmay be delicious, it may smell like a dead rat, but apparently it
\nhas one other unique quality that everyone knows about: it will
\nkill you if consumed with beer...even Indonesian beer.<\/p>\n
Or how about this? A fever resulting from a bout of influenza
\nor a bad cold raises a nagging thirst. The poor patient naturally
\ndrinks several glasses of fruit juice. Vitamin C content for the
\nvirus, liquid to cope with the dehydration and cool to bring the
\ntemperature down.<\/p>\n
Makes sense, right? Wrong! It is apparently another suicide
\nattempt. More secret knowledge: to drink anything at less than
\nabout 30 degrees temperature when you have a cold is to make it
\nworse.<\/p>\n
It's fine to go surfing and then lie on the beach to dry. But
\ntaking three steps from the car to the house in a light rain is
\nto be avoided like an insurance salesman. You're supposed to
\ncover up and sprint like drain cleaner is falling from the sky.
\nIf you don't, you'll catch something that will only permit you
\ndrink 30 degree liquids for the next week.<\/p>\n
I have swum in a piranha-infested river and bumped up against
\na seven-metre anaconda in Venezuela. I have a scar under my left
\neye from shrapnel I caught in Beirut; I have base jumped, bungee
\njumped and rappelled, snowboarded in the Andes, SCUBA dived under
\nthe Arctic ice-pack, eaten tarantulas with Amazon headhunters and
\nstepped on a rattlesnake.<\/p>\n
But for sheer adrenaline-pumping, bowel-churning, white-
\nknuckle terror, I have never encountered anything that compares
\nwith a casual drive in downtown Jakarta. My Indonesian wife
\nthinks I'm a big baby. Do you think there's any hope for us?<\/p>\n
-- Patrick Guntensperger<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/can-the-twain-meet-between-two-cultural-opposites-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }