Learning About Some Cultural Differences

Over the last couple of weeks I've had the opportunity to expand my circle of friends and get to know more "Barceloneses", those who live and work in the city or its environs, and to listen to them tell me about the

differences they see between themselves and Americans.  Over dinner one evening, I began to hear how off putting it is for Americans that they meet socially or at their place of work to go on and on about themselves (what kind of job they have, their family life, their car or house, etc.).  They also feel that their personal lives are invaded by the myriad number of questions that Americans would ask them (where they work, what they do, where they live, their family, etc.).  They see that this type of personal information should come out naturally in the course of the development of the friendship rather than belching up everything in the first few hours, days or weeks of knowing someone.  I immediately began mentally reviewing my recent conversations I had with my friends here wondering whether I unintentionally stepped on some toes while being curious about the lives of the people I was befriending.  I'm sure I have unintentionally.

Yesterday, in fact, we were driving back from a day in a French village on the Mediterranean, and I was showing the person I was sitting in the back seat with a number of pictures on my phone and explaining to him brief stories behind the pictures.  At one point, the driver said to me that I've been "desnudándome" (literally undressing myself) during the trip home.  I immediately asked whether that I had shared too much about myself, but he assured me that nothing I had said was inappropriate or off putting.  I was relieved.  I was also grateful to be able to have these new friendships and frank conversations.  I am sure that there are many other subtle but significant cultural differences that I hope to discover and adjust myself to as I become more integrated into the city and culture.

However, I find it ironic that although there is a sensitivity about Americans' tendency to pry into people's lives by asking too many personal questions, when it comes to buying a house, that is a different story.  A number of friends here, when they found out that I had put down a contract to a house, asked me not only where it was located but also how much I will be purchasing it for.  It was a little bit of a shock to be asked that question, which among most Americans would not be brought up except between close friends, and even there it would be a delicate question.  After the initial shock I actually didn't have a problem revealing that information.  Later I did share my observation about their question to me on this topic.  Apparently this is a common question that is asked whenever someone buys property and is used by way of comparison of property that they or their friends have bought.  In any case, I began to appreciate better what I assume are similar feelings that they have when talking with some Americans.

Yesterday a group of us went to Collioure (Colliure in Spanish), a French village on the Mediterranean coast just over the Spanish border.  This was a place where many Catalans escaped to during the Spanish Civil war.  For many of them, taking refuge in this village was in vain after the Germans occupied France and carted off many Catalans to the death camps.  Despite its dark history, today Collioure is a wonderful and colorful Catalan French village that is visited by a number of tourists.

The grave of Poet Antonio Machado