Parker asked a question that comes up for me sometimes: "What was the most significant cultural change that you noticed?" I see everything here through my cultural mindset coming as a Midwestern, middle-class, white, educated, urban-dwelling, cis woman, US American (born & raised) in a legally recognized relationship, with other identities and formative experiences at play as well. With that in mind, I think that what I recognize is what has changed in how I move through the world, feel I'm received, and sense of how I communicate. This may or may not give accurate insights into the culture I live in. In dwelling on this question again, I remembered a list my partner, Chris, and I wrote up a few months ago. We categorized our perceptions into two categories:
Below is the two lists we generated. Hopefully, these differences we noticed will give some insights into cultural differences and similarities we've found in terms of the way we experienced US American culture in our daily lives in Cincinnati, OH, prior to moving here and the ways in which we currently experience Moldovan culture as US Americans living in Criuleni, Criuleni. A New Normal:
Same Stuff, Different Country:
As I know these lists are both long but the individual entries very brief, please feel free to ask questions. Returning to the original question, not one of the "A New Normal" aspects sticks out as overwhelmingly significant in a unique way. More so, the adjustment is around all the many small differences, around coping with an unexpected difference amongst a sea of seemingly familiar experiences. The "hard" days are when multiple differences compound each other when I'm wanting the comfort of my old normal. The "hard" days are when I think I know what I'm doing, and suddenly feel very foreign because of a norm I didn't realize was different. The "hard" days are when I think of my cultural norms as some how intrinsically "better", instead of just different.
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Rebecca LehmanHealth Education volunteer serving at Boris Dînga Middle & High School in Criuleni, Moldova. Archives
May 2017
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