So Tuesday I went to the Raffa Raffa activity and it was pretty cool. I'll admit, I was a little skeptical when they told me to start making animal noises...but it worked out in the end. Anywho, I like that the activity puts you in a different environment and then allows you to analyze your own behavior. Automatically I was of the impression that my dog-barking-pig-squeeling trade culture was the way of life, but then we went into the other "tribe". I wanted to relate things to what I understood, like trade/competition/or power. However, because I was trying to understand based upon my small perspective, I was limited and couldn't appreciate the ways of this new culture. They were different, and that was fine with me, but it wasn't the "best" way in my mind. As we talked about the activity later I realized my uneven bias and decided to attempt to change my way of looking at new things.

Now I'm in New York. On the plane over here, a friend remarked that the people of New York were mean compared to the west because that's what you had to do in order to succeed in the big city. I asked another friend what he thought about New York, "it's great to visit," he said, "but it can't compare to my mountains". I guess it's natural to try relating your world to the unknown.

These conversations have led me to an experiement...I'm going to try viewing this city outside of my perspective. What's great about it? What do native New Yorkers love about living here? Why do they live here? I know this isn't India, and these people are Americans, but I'm still tempted to compare everything to my west coast way of life. Hopefully by experimenting on New Yorkers, I'll be more prepared for Tibetans.