3 Ways to Immerse Yourself in a Foreign Culture

1.) Become
Don’t hold onto pre-conceived notions, stereotypes, biases, labels or anything else about a culture. Chances are those assumptions aren’t true, and they prevent you from really plunging into the culture. For example, don’t go to France expecting everyone to be snobby and smelly – I’ve been there, it’s not true. The other day, my history teacher brought up one of his previous students, Connor, who had recently visited Vietnam. He talked about Connor’s unique approach to learning and his method of foreign immersion. He had simply gone to Vietnam and became Vietnamese. He didn’t go there as an American traveling to Vietnam, he went there as a blank slate, and returned with a Vietnamese identity. Follow Connor’s take on learning and you’ll find yourself experiencing the real culture, not just the touristic one. Break through the status barrier.

2.)Learn the Language
The saying “lost in translation” really holds some meaning here. In many culture’s, the meaning of one word often doesn’t translate perfectly into another language. Part of the beauty of the language is lost in translation, too - the way certain vowels sound, the rhythm of the words, how phrases roll of the tongue. It’s what I like to call phrase-ology. Can you imagine translating Shakespeare’s “to be or not to be” into Spanish? It’d be “ser o no ser”. It just doesn’t give the same effect, so let’s stick with English on that one. Thus, if you really want to immerse yourself into the linguistic aspect of a culture, learn the language.

3.) Go There
You can flip through pictures and read travel guides all you want, but it’s not nearly the same as actually going there and seeing it for yourself. There’s a certain something that surrounds you when you go to that foreign place. You can try to duct tape pictures all around your bedroom, but I know (I tried to do this with Disney World photos when I was five) that it’s just not the same thing. A lot of the times, it’s connecting with the land and the people that draw you closer to the culture- two things you can’t get from reading books or looking at photos. So duct tape all you want, but you have to go there to get the real thing.

The only way to really see another culture is to immerse yourself in it. Otherwise, the similarities and differences you find between your own culture and another one may just be superficial.