One of the questions on the average study abroad form will ask about culture shock. What tools do you have to navigate cultures different from your own? Give an example of how you have been able to create a mutual understanding between cultures. What do you expect to be the biggest challenge of living in your target country, and how can you overcome it? So on and so forth. Having been abroad in the Middle East, culture shock is certainly a real phenomenon. But we experience “culture shock” in little ways all the time. I experience it right here on campus.
Over the past two summers, I have studied in Jordan and Oman, and the programs I participated in focused on cultural exchange. While the culture shock of living somewhere with different norms, traditions, and laws was a challenge, I found it harder to explain American culture than to assimilate into the culture I was immersed in.
The truth is, there is no one American culture. Some would say that Americans have no culture at all, but I’m not sure that is the case. As a “melting pot,” so to speak, Americans represent a diverse array of cultures, and many Americans grow up in a family that practices more than one. When my Omani friend asked me what we eat or what we wear or what we think about a specific political issue, I had no good answer. The United States is a massive country and is made up of a vast array of traditions. (To clarify, Omani culture also isn’t a monolith, it just is more often talked about as if it is one).
Coming to Washington and Lee, and every time I return to Lexington, I am always a little taken aback by how different this place is compared to where I grew up.
When applying to colleges, I had, like most of us, a list of what I wanted in an ideal school. Mostly, I wanted a liberal arts college, in the Northeast, without Greek life. Needless to say, I only found one of those. I am from Connecticut, and my preference to stay in the Northeast certainly had a lot to do with staying with what I am familiar with. But, if I am completely honest, it had a little bit to do with a true Yankee superiority complex over coming down south. (People from Virginia will almost always push back and say that Virginia isn’t the South but…it is South enough.)
The hospitality here is something that often shocks me when I return. There’s that saying, that people from the Northeast are kind but not nice, and I feel that is completely accurate. If you ask for help, it will be eagerly given, but no stranger on the street is going to smile and “say hey,” and random people won’t start conversations. We are always on the move.
“Southern hospitality” is often said with an air of distrust in New England. It is seen as a disingenuous, overdone, politeness that hides hate or judgment. In my third year at Washington and Lee, I have grown to appreciate the hospitality for what it can be. There is a virtue in having the capacity to be overwhelmingly kind to even those you do not know, to go out of your way to help beyond what is asked.
Only about half of Washington and Lee students are from the South, but the university staff most often are, and there is no kinder group of people on campus than them. From Dining Hall workers to facilities to Public Safety, the Washington and Lee staff are truly what holds this school together, and they rarely get the credit they deserve. I have had so many experiences of Pub Safe officers going above and beyond to help me, of the compassion from the nurses in the health center and local hospitals, or of just warm, casual conversations with the dining staff.
That hospitality spills into the Washington and Lee culture as a whole. It makes this school what it is.
I was worried about spending four years in rural Lexington, Virginia. And I won’t say that some of my concerns were completely unfounded. As a queer student who is, at times, a little loud about my identity, it isn’t always easy. But I have found more empathy from strangers here than anywhere else and I have learned something from it too.
