My time here in India has allowed me to change my routines and establish new habits that I've been meaning to practice for longer than I'd like to say. The vegetarian diet is forcing me to try new foods, eat more vegetables (duh), and most importantly, pay more attention to the things that I'm eating. My less intense work schedule here has allowed me to start working out regularly, sleeping normal hours, and develop my social life to the point where I almost have too many options! (Side note: Coke Studio at Blue Frog last night was awesome - one band was an Indian Hootie & The Blowfish, the next was an Indian Dave Matthews Band, and the final was an Indian Earth Wind & Fire. You should be jealous.) It's a little sad that it took me getting to Mumbai to make these changes in my life, but at the same time I understand that it's a lot easier to make changes when your surroundings are new. That's one of the reasons I love to travel so much - when I'm in a new location, I end up doing a lot more introspection and self evaluation than I do when I'm in my usual places doing my same old routine. I still have plenty of time before I get back to Chicago, but I'm already brainstorming ways to make sure I keep these new habits going when I'm back...
Some behaviors that I'm picking up here are less intentional than the ones I described above, however. These are India-specific quirks that I've adopted without even realizing it. One of these is the omnipresent Indian head bobble. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, there is a gesture here that involves a person shaking their head from side to side. Instead of turning your neck to shake your head "no" like we do in the states, this is closer to being like a bobblehead doll, where the neck doesn't turn but the head still bobbles. The meaning of this gesture is ambiguous, but usually means something along the lines of "yes" or "I understand." Sometimes it's dismissive - as in "yes I already understand what you're saying so shut up already." Sometimes the gesture serves as positive reinforcement - similar to someone nodding along as the other person is saying something they agree with. On other occasions, it just signals that the conversation is over. Only this week, I realized that I've started doing my own head bobble along with everyone else! I'm not sure why this happened - maybe it's part of some Darwinian programming that makes me mimic the behavior of others around me. It's more likely that I've started doing it as a way of communicating non verbally to compensate for the fact that I don't speak Hindi and am not always able to clearly provide verbal cues. Either way, I hope you will all forgive me if I do some head bobbles in front of you in the months after I get home - I'm sure it will go away with time :)
Another new habit I picked up will meet with less understanding in the states, however. I've started interrupting people! Before you start thinking that I'm becoming a rude person, let me explain. There is a different cadence to conversations that happens over here. People will speak more forcefully than they do in the states about topics that don't necessarily require forceful communication. After all, if we're talking about where we're going to dinner tonight, it's not like it requires raised voices or heated debate. But in some cases, I've noticed that people will keep talking and talking until someone interrupts them. Instead of staying their ground and continuing to talk anyway, most of the time the person will allow the interruption to serve as the end of what they were saying, and they let the next person speak. This happens more with some people than others - it's not ubiquitous here, but it certainly is a more common way of communicating than what I'm used to. My manager is one person with whom I have to use this tactic - he will keep talking and talking to the point where he's just repeating something he said 2 seconds ago. I have to interrupt him or else the calls would go on for hours! I try to be polite about my interruptions, but my western sensibilities make me feel uncomfortable with it. This is definitely something that I'm going to have to watch about myself when I get back home...
The last new behavior I've noticed recently is that I've become more comfortable with sharing certain types of personal information. There are some topics of conversation here that would be considered taboo in the states that are just normal here. Asking someone their age is an example - people don't bat an eye about asking others this question. People are similarly less cautious about asking for academic information - it's not considered rude to ask someone what their GPA or GMAT score was. One of our colleagues even asked Ami to send all of her business school essays. These essays can be very personal things - I've never requested any from another person! Just this week, one of my drivers here asked me what my salary is. I was totally shocked and gave him a lame answer like "oh I don't know the conversion into rupees." I'm not going to tell this guy how much I make! Anyway, these types of questions are just normal here (although some of my Indian friends even agree that salary information doesn't have to be shared). It was only yesterday that I noticed that I've picked up this behavior. A future Booth classmate of mine posted to our Facebook group that there is an invite-only Booth event for prospective students in Mumbai, and if we message him then he can probably get an invitation for any of our friends or colleagues. I contacted him with my friend Priyanka's name and email address, asking him to get her an invitation. He responded saying sure, but that he needs information about her academic and educational background to send through to the admissions director when he submits the request. Instead of reacting like I would in the states (e.g. telling him the name of the college she went to and the name of her current employer and title), I take a more Indian approach and give him her critical stats in addition to the basic information. She had sent me her CV, so I had all of this information at my fingertips and wanted to make sure that she got an invite. My reason for providing this information is that I assumed that the admissions director wanted to make sure that the candidates were in the right stratosphere for applying before they would be given an application. My future classmate replies by saying thanks, but that was way more information than he needed. Whoops. My bad. Turns out the admissions director just wants an idea of the demographics of the people who will be coming to the event. When did I become a person who overshares??? Maybe it's the blogging...I'm becoming more comfortable with blindly sharing personal information over the internet. Sure, that's as good an excuse as any.
Some behaviors that I'm picking up here are less intentional than the ones I described above, however. These are India-specific quirks that I've adopted without even realizing it. One of these is the omnipresent Indian head bobble. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, there is a gesture here that involves a person shaking their head from side to side. Instead of turning your neck to shake your head "no" like we do in the states, this is closer to being like a bobblehead doll, where the neck doesn't turn but the head still bobbles. The meaning of this gesture is ambiguous, but usually means something along the lines of "yes" or "I understand." Sometimes it's dismissive - as in "yes I already understand what you're saying so shut up already." Sometimes the gesture serves as positive reinforcement - similar to someone nodding along as the other person is saying something they agree with. On other occasions, it just signals that the conversation is over. Only this week, I realized that I've started doing my own head bobble along with everyone else! I'm not sure why this happened - maybe it's part of some Darwinian programming that makes me mimic the behavior of others around me. It's more likely that I've started doing it as a way of communicating non verbally to compensate for the fact that I don't speak Hindi and am not always able to clearly provide verbal cues. Either way, I hope you will all forgive me if I do some head bobbles in front of you in the months after I get home - I'm sure it will go away with time :)
Another new habit I picked up will meet with less understanding in the states, however. I've started interrupting people! Before you start thinking that I'm becoming a rude person, let me explain. There is a different cadence to conversations that happens over here. People will speak more forcefully than they do in the states about topics that don't necessarily require forceful communication. After all, if we're talking about where we're going to dinner tonight, it's not like it requires raised voices or heated debate. But in some cases, I've noticed that people will keep talking and talking until someone interrupts them. Instead of staying their ground and continuing to talk anyway, most of the time the person will allow the interruption to serve as the end of what they were saying, and they let the next person speak. This happens more with some people than others - it's not ubiquitous here, but it certainly is a more common way of communicating than what I'm used to. My manager is one person with whom I have to use this tactic - he will keep talking and talking to the point where he's just repeating something he said 2 seconds ago. I have to interrupt him or else the calls would go on for hours! I try to be polite about my interruptions, but my western sensibilities make me feel uncomfortable with it. This is definitely something that I'm going to have to watch about myself when I get back home...
The last new behavior I've noticed recently is that I've become more comfortable with sharing certain types of personal information. There are some topics of conversation here that would be considered taboo in the states that are just normal here. Asking someone their age is an example - people don't bat an eye about asking others this question. People are similarly less cautious about asking for academic information - it's not considered rude to ask someone what their GPA or GMAT score was. One of our colleagues even asked Ami to send all of her business school essays. These essays can be very personal things - I've never requested any from another person! Just this week, one of my drivers here asked me what my salary is. I was totally shocked and gave him a lame answer like "oh I don't know the conversion into rupees." I'm not going to tell this guy how much I make! Anyway, these types of questions are just normal here (although some of my Indian friends even agree that salary information doesn't have to be shared). It was only yesterday that I noticed that I've picked up this behavior. A future Booth classmate of mine posted to our Facebook group that there is an invite-only Booth event for prospective students in Mumbai, and if we message him then he can probably get an invitation for any of our friends or colleagues. I contacted him with my friend Priyanka's name and email address, asking him to get her an invitation. He responded saying sure, but that he needs information about her academic and educational background to send through to the admissions director when he submits the request. Instead of reacting like I would in the states (e.g. telling him the name of the college she went to and the name of her current employer and title), I take a more Indian approach and give him her critical stats in addition to the basic information. She had sent me her CV, so I had all of this information at my fingertips and wanted to make sure that she got an invite. My reason for providing this information is that I assumed that the admissions director wanted to make sure that the candidates were in the right stratosphere for applying before they would be given an application. My future classmate replies by saying thanks, but that was way more information than he needed. Whoops. My bad. Turns out the admissions director just wants an idea of the demographics of the people who will be coming to the event. When did I become a person who overshares??? Maybe it's the blogging...I'm becoming more comfortable with blindly sharing personal information over the internet. Sure, that's as good an excuse as any.
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