Meeting with Khalifa #4

I’m not sure what to write about for this past meeting with Khalifa. Our time was cut short by a meeting I had previously promised a friend and, consequently, the topics I have to write about are quite limited.

The only subject we had time to talk about was what we both do on weekends. At first, I thought this train of conversation would just turn into small talk and be a mutual waste of time. Much to my surprise, one of Khalifa’s favorite past times is “watching and laughing at drunk people”. I found this hilarious for multiple reasons and inquired further. Apparently, he regularly selects random locations to smoke at with his friends, and then they make fun of intoxicated strangers. I felt like a certain aspect of this discussion was probably lost in translation, but we were laughing too hard at some of his experiences for me to figure it out. I asked Khalifa why he didn’t drink, and he responded by saying he did not like the way he acted when he was drunk, and that he would rather laugh at others making fools of themselves. It seemed to me like he probably had a bad experience with alcohol in the past, but I decided against pushing any further and changed the topic.

I asked him why he came to the United States to learn English in an attempt to try and keep the conversation going. As a proud American, I fully expected to hear an answer along the lines of: “because it is the greatest nation in the world”. Much to my surprise, he had a difficult time formulating a reply. This difficulty did not stem from a lack of vocabulary, but rather a drought of sentiment. He eventually settled on the response that he had family in the area, so logically it made sense. Initially, this baffled me. Thinking back on this experience now, it was completely arrogant of me to expect the answer that my mind thought he would give. I fully believe that I live in the greatest nation on the planet. Why shouldn’t he believe the same about his homeland? I’m shocked and a little ashamed at how ethnocentric my initial response to this happened to be. I guess this type of realization is one of the main reasons behind having a conversation partner, but it was a lesson I thought I had already learned a long time ago. It scares me how malleable our perception of the world can be. Beliefs and opinions tend to be so much more ephemeral than we make them out to be.

I think that ethnocentricity is a major problem at private schools like TCU. Despite what some statistics may say, it’s hard to believe that it feels like there is any sort of demographic diversity on campus. Ironically, this was probably the most prevalent culture shock for me when I first arrived at TCU. I grew up attending public schools in neighborhoods that were extremely socioeconomically diverse. It frightens me how quickly I’ve become complacent with my surroundings. I believe that understanding where other people have come from is the most successful way to communicate and work with different individuals. I know I’ve said this before in a previous blog, but I firmly believe we are products of our environments. The ability to keep an open mind, elucidate, and understand the backgrounds of one’s peers is key in any sort of relationship.