What is Culture shock?

[OxOx]

Originally Posted by 20yrsinBranson

ALL the gas stations close about 9 pm so you risk running out of gas if you need it later than that (on Sunday, many of them close at 7pm).

Another "culture shock" experience came when, around here, everything is about who you know. Again coming from a big city environment where you never new anybody, around here, everybody knows everybody else (and their business), so if you don't play the good-old-boy game and get to know folks, you will never get anywhere. This also includes going to church. Where I lived before, nobody knew or cared where you went to church. Around here, well, it is very important, politically speaking.

It's definitely a different world.

You are so right. I remember traveling at night and almost running out of gas, not being able to find a gas station open. That is why I love Phoenix so much - at 3 Am you can find anything.

it gets very dark in spfld too. You can be in someones back yard on a moonless night and hardly see your shoes. In Phoenix everything casts shadows at night from the ambient lighting.

In spfld and the area you are being watched. If you are anybody of any importance word gets around.

Quite literally, the first few months I lived there I was out on the street working on my car. SOmeone drove by and honked. I thought it was an angry honk (coming from Phoenix) because I was out on the street sticking out. I flipped them off. The very next monday, a truck driver whose last name was Buffington said something literally like "My mothers hair dresser, said her grandsons uncle, was talking to his fiancee and she told him that her sister was driving by you while you were working on your car and she honked to say howdy...and you flipped them off. is that true?" I realized 2 things real fast : 1) honking is how people say howdy when driving 2) whatever you do will get around town FAST.

[Junk Bond]

Originally Posted by OxOx

You are so right. I remember traveling at night and almost running out of gas, not being able to find a gas station open. That is why I love Phoenix so much - at 3 Am you can find anything.

it gets very dark in spfld too. You can be in someones back yard on a moonless night and hardly see your shoes. In Phoenix everything casts shadows at night from the ambient lighting.

In spfld and the area you are being watched. If you are anybody of any importance word gets around.

Quite literally, the first few months I lived there I was out on the street working on my car. SOmeone drove by and honked. I thought it was an angry honk (coming from Phoenix) because I was out on the street sticking out. I flipped them off. The very next monday, a truck driver whose last name was Buffington said something literally like "My mothers hair dresser, said her grandsons uncle, was talking to his fiancee and she told him that her sister was driving by you while you were working on your car and she honked to say howdy...and you flipped them off. is that true?" I realized 2 things real fast : 1) honking is how people say howdy when driving 2) whatever you do will get around town FAST.

Whatever you do will get around your social circle fast. You can live in Springfield/Branson your whole life and not meet a person or even know they exist. Generally Catholics and Protestants are pretty much segragated social circles and not much communicative. The police are a different matter as well as some churches of the same denomination communicate. As I recall I could pretty much keep as private a life as I wanted while I lived there. A person's perception of you however is another matter. Depending on your lifestyle, the car you drive, place you live will have people sterotyping you all over the place but thats true anywhere. I just found that lots of people had all kinds of assumptions about me because of my outward trappings and lifestyle (surf bum) which was more a reflection of my socioeconomic status and my day job than anything.