What is Different Here?

I am often asked this question when I am having a conversation with my friends in Bhutan and in India. For once, I am blank and speechless. All I reply is, life is good. Life is same with people walking to and fro, eating, working, studying and living a life.
I always had this notion that wherever we live, life is same.

After having asked so many times by my friends, it made me think about how people in Australia really live. For one thing, it is sure that they are busy people with no time to talk as casual as we would in Bhutan.

Out here, life is different. It is different in a way that we meet different people every day from different country. No wonder it is a multi-cultured country and that we have to adjust with them each time we meet those different people. Therefore, it becomes necessary to know about what their culture is and what their tradition really reveals. At the same time, we can also share our culture and tradition. Cultural exchange is considered as Universities one of the top most priority and the most important social events for the students.

Likewise, we exchange our traditional values, our culture and the people in it. We come to know people and meet new friends in a new environment. The experience is thrilling.

Once again, it is this little bit of things that we find our social living different from Bhutan. When we meet people, we greet them, “Hi, how are you doing?” with smiles shining on our face. They smile and greet us back. This is it. We end it with “See ya later” and this “later’ would be after months or sometimes, or meet accidentally on the way the way the other day. Overall, it is interesting how people approach so friendly and that even if we meet someone unknown, we smile and go our way. This method of greeting led me to understand how special it feels to have someone smiling over you by someone you don’t know and it makes you feel alright to walk further.

One strange thing I have seen is, people here are open sharing about their girlfriends and boyfriends. In Bhutan, we are self-conscious or else say, we don’t share saying, “I have a boyfriend. He studies…..blah blah” to everyone they meet. Bhutanese are secretive when it comes to exposing our relationship.

18yrs of age and they move out of their parents place already. It is considered a shame or more like dependent if they are to stay with their families after they cross age 18. Moreover, friends talk at the back. I know I have known their “this living” from movies only. Seeing it for real had me believe for real and what effect does it have on me? I am left completely surprised. That is why, people state, “I am homeless” in here despite their parents home by their side.

The eating habit. I am still not over what a chilli taste like. Even after staying here for long, my food adaptation is poor. I love and still eat rice and curry as hot as what Bhutanese usually eat. Vegetables. I am not fond of Burgers, I am not fond of Pizzas and I am not fond of any food that is eaten as meal in here.

There are many instances where Australia is different from Bhutan. If it were same then we wouldn’t experience the difference. So, the last important thing I feel worth sharing is, HOW YOU PERCEIVE THE WORLD YOU ARE IN TO THE WORLD YOU ARE FROM. This makes the whole difference to your living in another country.