This is my first unsolicited guest post, which is rather exciting. Even more exciting is that Angelita's article is coming from a part of the world that I have never been to nor know much about. (She also cites The Paradox of Choice, which is one of my favorite books and definitely recommended reading.) She was great to work with, and very gracious as I was super busy and often late in getting back to her. That being said, I'm glad how this turned out: I really enjoyed her essay and I hope you will, too. I am still very open to guest writers, and if you think you have a story and experience to share, please email me and we can get working on fleshing out your ideas to the fullest potential!
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The Russian Experience: How My Time Abroad Changed My Perspective
When I was an undergraduate student a few years ago, I decided to take a semester to study in Russia. I had been studying the Russian language for a few years, and so I figured I should put my knowledge to some good use. However, what I didn't bank on was how much it would change my perspective on several different things, not least of which was my relationship to consumer goods.
It would be trite to say that America is a consumerist society mired in the acquisition of material goods. And whenever anyone said something to that effect, I always thought it was more of a stereotype than anything. However, when I went to Russia, I realized that there was more truth to the stereotype than I had ever imagined.
One difference that I encountered was the fact that no one kept tabs on anything. The Russian students I hung out with were very serious about sharing. When I was in college in America, there was always talk of "I got you the other day, now you owe me X." Not only did this notion of debt not surface among my friends, but whenever I told a Russian friend, "Hey, I owe you a meal; thanks for helping me out with this or that," he or she was not only dismissive, but actually confused. "What do you mean?" they would say. "I did it because you're my friend; you don't owe me anything." This idea that everyone has a share in everything, that when it comes to things ownership is irrelevant, is even reflecting in the language. "My" is often omitted in phrases like "I lost my key," and when you say "I have an X", the literal translation is "I am next to an X".
Another distinction between Russian and American students that I noticed was a profound respect for both the arts and sciences. Where I studied in America, if someone was studying hard sciences, he or she knew or cared little about things like literature, art, etc., while if you were a humanities student you didn't dabble in mathematics or physics. In other words, knowledge in America is considered to be black and white. You're either interested in one side of it or another. Most of the Russian students I met, however, drew inspiration from various fields, even if they were focusing on one in school.
One of the most refreshing differences I encountered was the fact that there was far less choice in terms of brands and products. Trips to the grocery store were simplified ten-fold simply because I wasn't being inundated by millions of different varieties of the same exact product. Of course, there were a few varieties, but not nearly as many as I was accustomed to in America. When I returned home, I had become so used to the simplicity that I found it frustrating to even step into a superstore such as we have. This reminded me of a recent book I read called "The Paradox of Choice". It was not until I experienced the alternative in Russia, that I saw author Barry Schwartz's theory--that too much consumer choice actually can cause anxiety and inhibit our ability to choose--in action.
This is not to say, however, that Russia doesn't have its fair share of problems, or that its culture is perfect or even preferable to American culture. However, it was a truly eye-opening experience in that it made me see my own way of living in a different light. What's more, spending six months in Russia also did much to dismantle the popular image I had of Russians as cold, suspicious people. And I think it's precisely this destruction of stereotypes that makes living in a different place so valuable an experience. If you have the chance, I think everyone should spend time abroad, no matter where you go.
This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: angelita.williams7 @gmail.com.
3 comments:
Interesting!
Your paragraph about sharing really struck a chord with me. On my floor at college, we shared a lot, and without the idea of owing people who shared with us- we would use excess credit on one person's meal account to pay for someone who didn't have as much, just so they could eat with us, and anything we didn't want, but that was still useful, went out on the drinking fountains, where it became public property until someone else claimed it or it had sat there too long and was disposed of. Probably the ultimate in sharing on our floor was how we would occasionally buy donuts for the entire floor- two or three dozen usually did the trick.
What shocked me was when I was telling someone who went to another college about this, and he started asking me questions about how it worked and how accounts were kept, etc. I couldn't understand where he was coming from, and he apparently was having trouble understanding where I was coming from. I find this especially ironic because he's a self-proclaimed socialist and the school I went to is full of free-market libertarians, on my floor, they were the ones that "got" sharing.
I'm not totally sure why my floor was able to pull this kind of collective attitude towards sharing off. We were certainly close, as you can tell from the motivation to pay for someone's meal in the cafeterias just so they could eat with us. That had a lot to do with it, probably- since we were close, we trusted each other not to try to rip the collective off, and so were generous. We also had a lot of MKs, who probably brought in a lot of the original sharing ethic in the first place. As for All-American, hard core free-market believers buying into the sharing ethic, I think a lot of it probably had to do with the way it was usually the upperclassmen who did the most sharing. Freshmen were expected to be the poorest students, or at least the ones with the least resources, and so the upperclassmen, seen as leaders on the floor, did the most sharing, often to the benefit of the underclassmen. People tend to be suspicious of sharing when you ask them to do it without proving it works first, I think, but they tend to "get" it when they benefit from you sharing with them and then realize that you don't consider them to owe you anything. Ironically, this ends up with them sharing more.
Anyway, yeah, very interesting post. It got me thinking… Thanks for guest posting!
Loved the blog, it is beautifully written. I'm a regular reader. im quite the traveller so i cant wait to go to russia.
You may be interested in some of my blogs and articles on my blog:
http://davidhatton1987.blogspot.com/
@David - Thanks for the kind words! Hope you are able to make it to Russia soon!
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