On Cultural Integration

I came to Bulgaria two months ago for several complimentary purposes. The more visible of my two primary ones has been my research. But maybe, just maybe, the more important one is the one I fulfill just by living here. I say "fulfill" as if it's already a fait accompli. It's not, of course. Not by a long shot. I'm talking about cultural integration; the process of submerging myself within an alien society and adapting to it to the point where I can hide any obvious markers of my identity as an outsider.

Having only been here for two months, it hasn't happened yet. Nor did I expect it to have by now: These things take a long time, and perhaps one of the providential reasons that my stay is for an entire year is to give me the time to make it happen. It's not as though the Fulbright Educational Exchange was designed for the purpose of carrying out research and nothing else; the promotion of "cross-cultural understanding" was one of the expressly stated goals of the program right from its inception.

If you're not careful, it almost seems self-evident: You drop someone into a culture for a long enough period of time, and they will adapt to their surroundings and be transformed automatically through subconscious processes they are not even programmed to notice. Except that it's not that simple. Surely, given enough time, one can make these changes. But there's no guarantee it will happen. Motivation plays a huge role.

The discovery of the principle that motivation is a key component of language acquisition was a big triumph for the field of psycholinguistics. As the theory goes, instrumental motivation--present in people who acquire a language for a specific purpose, usually business or education--is a far inferior driver of acquisition than integrative motivation, which can typically only happen when one lives in a society that speaks a different language. Having lived this theory for a few months, I can attest to its verity. But the principle extends far beyond the realm of language.

It is evident in the customs, habits, and lifestyle one adopts upon taking up residence in a place far removed from one's home. The degree to which they pick up these things--which, among others, form the basis of culture--depends, to a great extent, upon their desire to integrate into that culture. These are the things that enable them to interact more freely and openly with the people around them, and they are some of the same markers of identity I mentioned earlier.

So how does one go about integrating into another culture? How does someone graft a new identity into themself? Forgive my linguistocentric bent here, but I'd like to start back, if I may, with language. Although I have learned to avoid superlatives, I will dare to say that learning and internalizing a society's language is probably the most important step in the process. If the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is to be believed, the language that a society uses actually determines how that society views the world, and thus, how its people act. Gaining fluent use of its language is obviously a tremendously important step, then.

There are, however, other things to consider. How much time one spends interacting with people. The kinds of things they do when they're alone. The cultural inputs they receive. All of these contribute to the integration of a person into a strange society.

I had a moment, a few nights ago, when I went to my local gym and signed up for a membership. I went upstairs to the weight room and began my routine. (Never mind that it had been many moons since the last time) And as I worked, I noticed other people around me, all presumably Bulgarian, doing the same things I was, paying me no attention. Without any obvious markers of my identity on display, I was, to them, just another guy from this part of Sofia, at the gym on a Tuesday night, just as all of them were. It was cool.

And it was a moment of feeling a very small amount of accomplishment of my purpose here. Yes, I am here to study. I could do that in a whole host of places, including my native country. But I am here, 10 time zones ahead of my home, in a place that was, until 20 years ago, an important member of the Eastern Bloc, because I have other purposes besides this one.

This purpose has not yet been fulfilled, and living here has not always been easy; for all that I've tried to do, I remain an outsider. Since I've been here, I have, at times, felt lost, embarrassed, awkward, scrutinized, and even, once or twice, mistreated. A large share of the experiences that caused these feelings have been due to my as-yet incomplete command of the language here, and others have been due to other things having to do with who I am and where I come from. But the only thing I can do is to try to live among this culture every day, interacting with its people as much and as conscientiously as possible. And yes, learning the language will be a big step in making this happen.

My friend Mark was here for two days, and we had a great time. I showed him around the city, we went out to a couple of nice restaurants, we drank some local beer, and I gathered a few people on his last night in town. The multiculturalism of the group was, if not astounding, then some less intense adjective expressing the same seniment - we had four native languages between us (those being English, German, Serbian, and Bulgarian). But we spent our time, with a few exceptions, speaking English, simply because it was the only language we all had in common.

This night was an exception, though. When I've been in a group setting here, it has typically been with Bulgarians or with a mix of Bulgarians and other Americans. And what I've envisioned as the ultimate marker of accomplishment of my purpose is being in these settings and speaking Bulgarian. To me, that would be the tell that I'd successfully integrated into this foreign culture.

I've found myself thinking about this scenario and wanting it quite a lot. And so, my task is clear for the next eight months. It's time to start making it happen.