Learning to Leave America

So last Saturday, I left the East Coast of America for the first time. After a very long and trying trip, I finally made it to Schwäbisch Hall, Germany. My German was good enough to get me from one place to another, but I’m here predominantly to improve my language skills. Thus far that has been the hardest part: being surrounded by people who speak little to no English. For once, if I’m speaking English with my friend on a train, then I’m the annoying foreigner you think might be talking about you in Spanish. It’s weird and to be honest, paradigm changing. I’m devoting this post to my travels because I’ve honestly come to believe that spending time in a foreign country, not as a tourist but as a citizen or longer-term visitor, is an important part of anyone’s life journey.
Being around people who see you as the foreigner makes you conscious of your own idiosyncrasies. But more importantly, it helps you to recognize the wonderful fragility of human culture and life. It’s renewing. It has helped me to realize the beauty of locality, the delicateness of our own customs. You learn things about other people that you had no idea could exist. At the same time, you come to know yourself by being surrounded by people who aren’t like you.
None of this means that the process is painless. It’s very uncomfortable being around a bunch of German people who can tell you’re American because you have an accent or because a friend of yours wears “American-style” clothing. My German is not very good and so I often find myself lost for words, looking like an idiotic foreigner, asking questions like I’m an uneducated child. But those experiences are what teach us. You see; I’m not a flag-waving patriot. I like America. I’m happy I live there. I have no plans to move away from the US permanently any time soon. But being in Germany has made me happier to be an American, yet made me more appreciative of others and their ways of doing things. And it’s important to view others as subjects and not just objects of our humor or our indifference. Every person in every culture is a unique being who, although subject to societal forces, is ultimately free. Seeing foreigners do their own thing helps ease one into that perspective, helps to make objects into subjective actors. I’m still a proud American and I still think German breakfast is incredibly unfulfilling, but now I’m coming to recognize God’s creation in its uniqueness. That may sound corny, but it’s the truth: there are differences and similarities, but at the end of the day people are people.