Endeavoring into a new country is not what you would call comforting. thrilling perhaps, but you can’t be comfortable until learning more about the country and it’s cultures, until then you feel, and are, an outsider.
Before even landing in your destination you need to come to terms with the fact that if you want to learn about the culture and the country you’re visiting, you need to be in the right mindset; this is where you throw away the notion of being a tourist and take up the name of a traveller instead. There are many differences between the two, but the main deciding factor of what group you are a part of is how you immerse yourself in the culture you have come to visit, and this is obviously where a traveller triumphs over a tourist; they look at how the people do things differently to themselves, and then why they themselves do the things they do; they try to involve themselves with the people by questioning on what they do, how they do it, and why.
To take that idea further, to become a global citizen, we look at how these differences can become a part of ourselves, what we can use so that we can grow as individuals and become more aware of not only the culture we have visited and how it has and is affecting us, but also how our country of origin or home country has pushed us into living in specific ways with a list of etiquette and rules to follow, and how we can use those to look and work with other cultures and countries of the world
South Korea has been my living quarters for 2 weeks and through that time I have come into contact with many contrasting rules of thumb as I have travelled through the city of Seoul; while you walk around everyone mainly stays to one side of the path saving the trouble of bumping into people oncoming towards you; phones are mainly kept silent out in public, and the voices of conversation are notably quieter and much more personal than over in the west, stopping interruptions and annoyance of other citizens. Just these two examples on their own show a strong distinction between two culture on opposite sides of the globe, and although their ideas may seem alien to us, they can at least be seen as understandable and almost better in some ways; the traffic is a great example where it is organised chaos with motorcycle couriers allowed to travel along pavements, traffic to go through red lights with no penalty and a strict time and area where pedestrians may cross; but it works in a way that allows the whole city to work like clockwork, with a single deviation from this set of rules due to ignorance or stupidity would cause the whole network to go down.
Immersion is a skill that is learnt through doing, by embedding yourself in the culture.
Wincing The Days Away 