Sally will be ministering in concert today. Come and worship the Lord!
Bat Zion Messianic Congregation, Duncanville, TX
You Know You’re a Los Angelian (Angelonian?) Living in Houston When . . .
Since moving to Texas a few months back I continue to be surprised by the intense differences in the daily lives between peoples who speak the same language but live in different parts of the country. My dad asked me for a few words to sum up these daily examples of shock and awe:
You know You’re a Los Angelian Living in Houston When:
1. You start to use the words “like” and “y’all” in the same sentence. (i.e. “Ya’ll should, like, totally come ‘round again.”)
2. Cracker Barrel.
3. Forget Where The Sidewalk Ends . . . you’re perpetually searching for where the sidewalk begins.
4. You are weirded out by the immense berth cars give pedestrians in residential neighborhoods. [Read more…]
Interstate Culture Shock
I’ve been to a lot of places in my life. As a kid, I traveled all over the United States with Mom and Dad. I’ve been to Mexico twice on Youth Group mission trips and over to Ireland, Northern Ireland, Germany, and Austria with Mom on her travels.
You’d think I would have experienced culture shock in any of these settings. Of course, it was funny to learn that “pants” means underwear in Ireland and that Germany has so many one-way streets that it’s hard to get anywhere on time in a car. But I did not experience real culture shock in these places. It was closer to culture novelty—a strange one-off happening—because I wasn’t going to stay very long.
I first experienced culture shock in Seattle. At the end of 2007 I moved from Los Angeles to the perpetually overcast city where rain comes in about ten more varieties than you might have thought possible. There I felt each difference, no matter how superficial, to my core. This, after all, was where I was going to live for a really long time.
