A new continent and a new perspective on life

By Annie Rose Ramos

A marriage is hard. A marriage between a person and his or her country is even harder. Just like any other marriage, it involves lying, cheating, fidelity and love. To pledge your whole heart to any person or country, like one does in a marriage, is to give of yourself and participate in all the other has to offer.

But what if, in the instance that you find something better -- what would you do, pack up and leave? Of course not. You cannot abandon a marriage and a commitment to a source of love, family and nurturing. So, you do the next best thing: change, seek to better the union for yourself and everyone involved.

For these past five months, I have taken myself out of my comfort zone in my hometown of Los Angeles, and have been happily studying abroad in Italy and London. I went to experience a different way to live my daily life and fill it with a different kind of culture, society and people.

Seeing and participating in another country's culture made me appreciative of what I have and allowed me to learn about what I could have. Let's put it this way: Waking up to a man singing outside my window in Italy, going to bed after leaving the local pub, and talking to the locals in London hardly left me missing my life back in the red, white and blue.

Some say that it is difficult to relate this experience of studying abroad to those students who chose not to go abroad, were unable to go or haven't gone yet. Even though they may be willing and ready to listen, conveying an experience like study abroad to somebody who has never experienced it themselves can be difficult. The ability to convey an alternate way of life to another person who has not experienced it is nearly impossible.

I can just see myself on the night I arrived home from London, talking to my parents who have never been out of the country except to visit relatives in Mexico. I would tell them the basics: You drive on the left side of the road; I could legally buy as much alcohol as I wanted; I took a public bus to work; and there was absolutely no Mexican food whatsoever.

Perhaps it is too superficial of an incident to analyze, but by the time my fifth relative got blurry eyed when I tried to explain that "pissed drunk" did not mean a really angry drunk, I began to think that we, as Americans, are egocentric: firmly rooted in the mentality that we have a perfect society, uninterested in any alternative lifestyle.

I never knew there was any other way of life before I traveled abroad. As the leader in the technological and financial world, America seemed to be the ideal, but I was ignorant of alternative ways of life. I didn't see the possibility of integrating school lectures with conversations, indulgence of food with beauty and art, exercise with jogging along the countryside, or the entertainment of a night of television while conversing with neighbors over gelato or a pint of beer.

In America, the things you own earn you respect. By living the way we do, we are forfeiting another way of life.

Even Pope John Paul II expressed concern on the topic. According to author Peggy Noonan, Pope John Paul II "shared his concern about modern culture, specifically the culture of the West." The former pope expressed his "reservations about modern culture that included the observation that it tends to separate man, to atomize us, to break us down into small parts of small spheres instead of lifting us as vibrant elements of a larger whole."

Junior Hilaire Foust, who traveled to Italy to study abroad, admits that, in America, "everyone is out for his/her own," in a way that is different from Italy, where the lifestyle is "more relaxing, less rushed and people enjoy each other's company." A nostalgic Foust even remembers an honorable tradition in Italy where, "if anyone made a toast, you had to look into each other's eyes while making it," a custom that illustrates a country of people with the confidence to "enjoy every moment," said Foust.

In America, those without a job are reduced to nothing, washed up onto the curb and left to beg for money on the corner. But junior Matt Moore, who ventured to Australia this past fall quarter, said the situation is different in other countries. In Australia, there is "structural employment, where the government pays you a comfortable living whenever you happen to be unemployed."

While teaching in Italy, Santa Clara political science professor Timothy Lukes said that "the U.S. gives up a lot for reality."

I suppose one does not realize, or care to realize, until visiting a foreign culture that appeals to your senses -- where sight, smell and sound become so much more apparent and significant -- that we are deprived from anything. In America, we enjoy our little world of plasma televisions, SUVs, text messaging, instant messaging, Netflix and fast food. But differences are good; they pronounce the beauty of innovation and the uniqueness that our American culture holds. Differences challenge all of us to think beyond what we know.

Annie Rose Ramos is a junior English major.