One of the things that drew me to teaching in a foreign country was the opportunity to experience another culture. To do so interests me on its own merits, but even more interesting is having an understanding of the expectations and behaviors of other people as a basis to comment on and critique those of my own culture.
It turns out I'm gonna get a head start on the commenting and critiquing part.
Western Culture, and the U.S. in particular, has a really skewed definition of the word "need." I bring this up because, with my departure less than two and a half days away, I have actually begun to plan what I will pack. I was discussing these plans with someone who told me, "you need two pairs of swimming trunks."
No. Just no. A "need" is something like protection from the elements, or food to eat and water to drink (unless your diet includes a few specific species of cactus, in which case water to drink becomes a luxury). If a fisherman falls out of his boat, then he needs to swim, but even then, he doesn't need swimming trunks. He's not going to improve his chances of survival by stopping to change clothes in the water. The only time people truly need to swim is when they find themselves unexpectedly in water too deep to wade. If one of my flights makes a water landing, then I will need to swim, but at that point, my trunks would be in the fuselage of a ruined airplane, and hopefully I would not, making them useless to me anyway.
Any sort of planned swimming excursion is recreation. Recreational swimming is by definition unnecessary, and does not qualify as a need. It might or might not qualify as a want. A mutual acquaintance of mine and this person's defended the statement as being colloquial and understood to mean that I would want to take two pairs of swimming trunks. If that were so, though, I do not think this person would have become irrationally angry when I said, "I don't think I'll take swimming trunks. I don't really enjoy recreational swimming," and even angrier when I suggested that if I change my mind, I will probably end up wearing out some athletic shorts (which I will be taking plenty of to wear around the apartment), and that I could swim in the ratty old ones. No, there are people in this country who think that it is absolutely necessary to have swimming trunks. And that's just the most ridiculous example. There are plenty of things people think are "necessities" that others are perfectly capable of going their who lives without.
Sorry, but that's messed up.
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