Everyone listened carefully as the woman spoke.
"If you want to say 'okay', don't make a circle with your thumb and first finger," the woman announced. "That means okay here in the United States, but in the Soviet Union it has a dirty meaning."
The group of 300 Americans laughed; a few people took notes.
"It's all right to admire something," the woman continued, "but don't admire it too much. Don't say, 'I really like your jacket.' Your Soviet friend will offer you the jacket and will be angry if you don't take it."
"Remember that, in general, life in the Soviet Union is not as comfortable as life in the United States. You might not have hot running water to take a bath, or you might have to share a bathroom with five or six people."
The woman was preparing the Americans for their voyage to the communist Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union, the language, customs, and food would be different. The Americans were curious to learn about these differences before their voyage. They didn't want to experience culture shock. When they arrived in the Soviet Union, the Americans were glad that they had prepared themselves to experience life under communism. They enjoyed their vacation and made a lot of Soviet friends.
The trip was planned by The Friendship Force, an international society that works for world peace. The Friendship Force believes that people who are friends will not fight wars. So, to help people from all over the world become friends, it organizes exchanges of people. In April 1990, 300 Americans visited the Soviet Union, and 300 Soviets visited the United States.
The Soviets, like the Americans, prepared for their visit by learning about life in the other country. But still, they, experienced a little culture shock.
The Soviets knew that Americans were fond of pets but they were shocked to see animals inside homes. They couldn't believe their eyes when they saw dogs eat in the kitchen and sleep on people's beds.
They were surprised at the difference between daily life in the Soviet Union and that in the United States. The Americans' lives, they said, were much easier. A Soviet woman was shocked when she saw an American poured rice directly from a box into a pan of boiling water. "You didn't wash the rice?" she asked. Then she explained that at home she had to wash the rice carefully and pick out all the small stones before putting it in the pot. "Are you kidding?" the American said. "If people here had to do that, nobody would buy rice."
The Soviets knew that Americans liked to eat fast food in restaurants, but they were disappointed to see that Americans ate fast meals at home, too. In the Soviet Union, the evening meal often lasts an entire hour or more because families sit at the table and talk. When American families eat together -- if they eat together -- they often eat quickly and don't take time for a long dialog. The Soviets thought that was a shame.
In spite of the political differences between their countries, as well as the differences in language and culture, the Soviets and Americans became friends. Sometimes the Soviets couldn't speak a word of English and the Americans couldn't speak a word of Russian. Yet they managed to communicated through sign language and a dictionary.
One 11-year-old American girl wrote, "I have learned a lot from this experience. I learned about a different culture. And I learned that people all over the world are more the same than they are different."
Words: 602
background information:
Soviet Union: a federation of communist states in eastern Europe and northern and central Asia from 1922 until 1991. Moscow was its capital. Its official name was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader touched off freewheeling debate about the scale and pace of change. Conflict over constitutional and economic issues brought the Soviet Union to the brink of civil war and prompted its disintegration into 15 volatile successor states in 1991. More information is available at the web sites http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/es/svtoc.html, and http://www.skalman.nu/soviet.
