Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Blink Twice

Sitting in the airport in Amsterdam on my way to Paris, I thought of Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, which I read a few months ago.

Gladwell shows that many of the decisions we make happen in a split-second -- the blink of an eye -- and that they shape how we see the world and how we react to others.

Although those kinds of knee-jerk reactions can lead to prejudice, they can also be an important mechanism for self-defense. Especially when in a foreign country.

But, sitting in the airport, I realized that my "blink" response was not working. The people I was watching as I waited for my flight to Paris were mostly Europeans and some Japanese. When I looked at them, I could make very few if any "snap" judgements because they were sending all the wrong signals. Wrong, that is, to American eyes.

Sizing someone up in a "blink" requires both people to share a common culture, the same set of reference points. Clothes, behavior, hairstyles, etc., all the little clues that make "blinking" possible weren't there. Or they were there, but they were in different combinations, different packages, different sequences. Did the Japanese woman's dyed blond hair mean the same thing in the US as it did in Japan -- or in the Amsterdam airport? Did the t-shirts with messages mean the same things to Europeans as they did to Americans? I found that I had to blink twice, or more, to even begin making sense of the people I saw.

All this reminded me that living in another country means giving up a kind of comfort not only with language but also with the ability to think on your feet about your surroundings. It requires a bit more concentration to "get" the world around you, if that understanding ever fully comes.

Of course, the difference is part of why we travel. But anyone who has travelled knows that it is hard work.

1 comment:

Gbuns said...

Perhaps we should practice our "blink" techniques on inanimate objects while in foreign territories.