So while Grace was in surgery, I spent much of my time online looking for fellow Couchsurfers to hang out with while I am here. If you don’t know what Couchsurfing is, check it out: http://www.couchsurfing.org/ I got a few responses, including one inviting me to a get together that night. Sweet! After getting Grace all squared away for the evening on Saturday, it is time to head to the get-together. I head outside, jump in a tuktuk, and start heading towards wherever this place is. The driver stops a couple dozen times along the way to ask directions (a standard practice here in India where all the streets have at least two names and the taxi drivers don’t know any of them), and eventually, through whatever stroke of luck, I make it to my destination. I knock on the door, and I am greeted into one of the smallest rooms ever. Apparently they call it the 71 club because the entire apartment (including the bathroom and kitchen) is only 71 square feet. Fortunately no one lives there, and they just use it for hanging out sometimes, but it is still a freaking tiny space to cram 10 people. We all drink some booze, our host cooks some great Indian foods, and we sit around talking into the wee hours of the night. We talk about the cultural differences and similarities between our countries, world politics, and ourselves as individuals.
Apparently India is more like a bunch of countries clumped into one and unified by their mutual hatred of British rule. The differences in food, customs, language, ethnicity, and religion are significant; comparable to the differences between, say, France and Germany. While many dishes are the same in name, the differences in oils used, rock salt versus sea salt, and other differences originating from climate make the foods make for particularly different tastes… so much so that people from different regions cannot stomach the foods from other regions. I guess I just find this a little surprising, coming from a culture where foods of many ethnicities from all over the world are so widely available.
The differences in language are also a little surprising. India has two official languages: Hindi and English. This apparently has little effect on what languages people actually speak. Any given person might speak anywhere between one and seven languages. Generally the more educated the person, the more languages they will speak. Each region has its own native language, and the majority of people in that region use it as their primary language, but this is far from the rule though. Several of the Couchsurfers I met hold English as their first language and know enough of the other languages to get by. On the other hand, many of the people on the street know only the local language (Tamil) and speak neither Hindi nor English. This is quite a contrast to other countries I have visited; where there was one predominate language. There are enough people who speak English in India that learning another language is far from a necessity, but just in case, I got the Couchsurfers to teach me some basic phrases in Tamil. I learned some of the most important things such as “how much” or “where is the bathroom.” They also saw fit to teach me some of the ever important cuss words. For all you haters out there: Wota.There is also allot of sexism and male domination within Indian society, similar to that in the US during the 1950’s. We talk about this to great lengths and our host starts into an argument with one of the other Couchsurfers (I think he was just giving her a hard time) about traditional Indian women and their role in society. It’s like stepping back in time. Welcome to India.
Apparently India is more like a bunch of countries clumped into one and unified by their mutual hatred of British rule. The differences in food, customs, language, ethnicity, and religion are significant; comparable to the differences between, say, France and Germany. While many dishes are the same in name, the differences in oils used, rock salt versus sea salt, and other differences originating from climate make the foods make for particularly different tastes… so much so that people from different regions cannot stomach the foods from other regions. I guess I just find this a little surprising, coming from a culture where foods of many ethnicities from all over the world are so widely available.
The differences in language are also a little surprising. India has two official languages: Hindi and English. This apparently has little effect on what languages people actually speak. Any given person might speak anywhere between one and seven languages. Generally the more educated the person, the more languages they will speak. Each region has its own native language, and the majority of people in that region use it as their primary language, but this is far from the rule though. Several of the Couchsurfers I met hold English as their first language and know enough of the other languages to get by. On the other hand, many of the people on the street know only the local language (Tamil) and speak neither Hindi nor English. This is quite a contrast to other countries I have visited; where there was one predominate language. There are enough people who speak English in India that learning another language is far from a necessity, but just in case, I got the Couchsurfers to teach me some basic phrases in Tamil. I learned some of the most important things such as “how much” or “where is the bathroom.” They also saw fit to teach me some of the ever important cuss words. For all you haters out there: Wota.There is also allot of sexism and male domination within Indian society, similar to that in the US during the 1950’s. We talk about this to great lengths and our host starts into an argument with one of the other Couchsurfers (I think he was just giving her a hard time) about traditional Indian women and their role in society. It’s like stepping back in time. Welcome to India.
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