Wednesday, October 17, 2012

My trips Abroad

Though I am not a frequent traveler, I have travled to 3 other countries and made a total of 6/7 trips so far. It is interesting to observe how focus of my observations in all these trips changed over years and how they all finally arrive at same conclusions in spite of that.

When I traveled for first time to the US I was a young developer trying to establish myself. I was interacting with other programmers from other countries and other Indian states too. I used observe how they reacted to a change in requirements or a producton issue and what kind of dresses they wear or gadgets they have. It was very interesting see that mostly, the programmers reacted to requirement change / production issue pretty much the same way as me!!! However the gadgets they used and dresses they wore were different!!!

I made the next trip to UK (or series of trips were). I was a manager by then. I got chance to work with various nationals then too. My observation focus was how are the business problems solved or how people tried to expand the business and also what kind of food they ate & why. Interesting, business approach was pretty much the same but food changed drastically. Some drink/food considered as staple food by one country was considered as taboo in another!!

My latest trip to Australia was in 2012 October. I am a process consultant. Now too I got a chance to observe people from all over the globe (almost). My observation was on how people reacted to "Change" and how do they manage their families. Interesting!!! Almost all of them resisted change and managed their families in the same way. May be the sport they watched / played was different; may be the vacation spots they took their family were different; may be the classes they took their children to were different; but they watched / played; took families out for vacation and took children to classes. The language they spoke at home were different; their skin color, color of the eyeball and the clothing style were different; but all of them cared for families, wanted to be respected, loved and shared time with friends and families.

So my conclusion is people are the same when it comes to emotions and values of life. But what is still surprising to me is, why do we care so much about the color of skin, eyeball, hair, language, food we eat, the way we dress up!!! Though all cultures and relegions talk about the same values (be good and do good kind of stuff), why do we think that we are very different and superior than the others!!

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