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GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? ... with apologies to real internationals Pin
Richard MacCutchan12-May-20 3:40
mveRichard MacCutchan12-May-20 3:40 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? ... with apologies to real internationals Pin
Sander Rossel12-May-20 4:46
professionalSander Rossel12-May-20 4:46 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? ... with apologies to real internationals Pin
Richard MacCutchan12-May-20 5:32
mveRichard MacCutchan12-May-20 5:32 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
fd975012-May-20 6:18
professionalfd975012-May-20 6:18 
QuestionRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
ZurdoDev12-May-20 8:22
professionalZurdoDev12-May-20 8:22 
AnswerRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
Nelek12-May-20 11:12
protectorNelek12-May-20 11:12 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
ZurdoDev12-May-20 11:58
professionalZurdoDev12-May-20 11:58 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? PinPopular
kalberts12-May-20 13:15
kalberts12-May-20 13:15 
On the other hand...

When I was high school age, I spent a year in a US family. Part of the experience was giving presentations in various groups about how it was to be a seventeen year old back home in Norway. At that time, Norway had a single TV channel, a fact completely out of the mental reach of the kids.

So what did we do, evenings and nighs?
We went on trips, walking or biking. Maybe fishing.
Maybe to the movies, but that was only in the weekends.
So what did you do otherwise?
We visited each other and sat down discussing. Talking.
Talk??? Did you talk, every night???

That is what I remember in particular "Did you talk, every night?"
It made no sense to them, even for upper-teenage kids to spend time talking, disussing. The value of whetting your ideas and thoughts against an opposition, coming to terms with your own thougts, seemed to be a more or less completely unknown value to them. They didn't understand why I valued it highly.

There were physical elements quite different from what I was used to: I was familiar with washing machines, so they caused no problem, but I was shocked to learn that wintertime, the sofa and chairs was pulled back from the outer walls, away from the frost. If there were insulation in the walls at all, it certainly was only a fraction of what I was used to. We clinged to the huge central oil furnace, staying away from outer walls and windows. (This was in Minnesota; blizzards were certainly not uncommon!)

My shock over missing insulation (and several similar things) I did not proclaim loudly, but filed in my archive: That's how they do it here - rather than insulating, they keep a really huge oil furnace and pull all the furniture away from the outer walls at winter time. Crazy, in my eyes, but if that's how they want it... Actually, it is not too far away from the washing machine: Your Norwegian host family takes you on a two week mountain trip, with no washing machine in the tent. Up in the mountains, what to you prefer: Go on in your dirty clothes, or wash them in a bucket at the cabin?

That is what student exchange programs are for: Telling how large the cultural differences may be, even between supeficially quite similar societies. I was shocked how primitive building constructions were in the US Midwest; American kids coming to a higly developed country as Norway may be shocked by how primitive we are when we go out in nature. Dont' be shocked by anything, either way! Just observe that "OK, so that's the way it is done here". Or from the other side: "Oh, so you do not know how to handle this. I'll show you!"

I was also shocked by some of the opinions I heard, regarding racial minorities, members of other churches or beliefs, statements about politicians, or whatever. I had to ask myselv: Are these really cultivated people, the way I consider myself to be?

A generation ago, when I was in the US as an exchange student, you might easily get the impression that the main purpose of e.g. AFS (American Field Service) was to bring non-US students to the US of A for a year to teach them how great American culture is, for the exchange students to bring that message home. I didn't go with AFS, but with YfU, Youth for Understanding, which were early at sending students the other way as well: US kids spent a year in a non-US culture (maybe not even a Western one!). Today, two-way exchange is far more common in all the exchange organizations. Yet the fraction of US youth learning to know a non-US approach to the world is so small that it unfortunately has epsilon impact.

I strongly promote that today, the primary responsibility of the student exchange organizaions, like AFS and YfU, should be to bring US students out, rather than bringing foreign students in to the US of A
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
Nelek13-May-20 8:49
protectorNelek13-May-20 8:49 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
willichan13-May-20 19:49
professionalwillichan13-May-20 19:49 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
hur10forcer1014-May-20 4:10
hur10forcer1014-May-20 4:10 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
willichan19-May-20 8:51
professionalwillichan19-May-20 8:51 
AnswerRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
kalberts12-May-20 12:08
kalberts12-May-20 12:08 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
ZurdoDev12-May-20 14:38
professionalZurdoDev12-May-20 14:38 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
kalberts13-May-20 0:30
kalberts13-May-20 0:30 
QuestionRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
ZurdoDev13-May-20 1:19
professionalZurdoDev13-May-20 1:19 
AnswerRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
kalberts13-May-20 1:51
kalberts13-May-20 1:51 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
ZurdoDev13-May-20 1:54
professionalZurdoDev13-May-20 1:54 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
techie00713-May-20 2:08
techie00713-May-20 2:08 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
Sander Rossel13-May-20 2:19
professionalSander Rossel13-May-20 2:19 
AnswerRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
fd975012-May-20 21:25
professionalfd975012-May-20 21:25 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
ZurdoDev13-May-20 1:19
professionalZurdoDev13-May-20 1:19 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
kalberts13-May-20 1:53
kalberts13-May-20 1:53 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
ZurdoDev13-May-20 1:55
professionalZurdoDev13-May-20 1:55 
GeneralRe: Mickeysoft, y u do dis!? Pin
kalberts13-May-20 4:08
kalberts13-May-20 4:08 

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