I like to think of myself as a pretty open-minded person, but recently after interacting with a great number of people here in Auckland that represent a very wide range of global cultures, I’ve been thinking that I could only live someplace in the world that generally has a culture pretty close to mine. I wouldn’t necessarily call this being closed-minded, but it’s a differing thought than I had about a year ago when I thought that I could thrive in any environment.

My friend Susan, who is Taiwanese, really helped me realise this by telling me how she has been having difficulties socially assimilating into the New Zealand culture. I figured that if a person of university age was having that difficulty here in New Zealand, which is supposed to be a very socially tolerating culture, it couldn’t get any easier elsewhere in the world. I also had a date with a Korean girl a week or so after that happened and although I enjoyed myself, there just wasn’t a solid connection in thoughts and ideas.

When I describe these people as Taiwanese and Korean, I’m not talking about what they look like, where their parents are from, or even where they were born, but where they actually grew up and became cultured.

I was hoping to travel to India sometime this year to see a friend I worked with at my old telephone job, but I’m opting out of that partially because of the money, but even if I did have the money, India isn’t a place I could ever see myself living. If I’m going to plunk down a few grand at this point in time I want to go someplace I might want to immigrate to eventually. I’d rather spend that money on my trip back to the States where I hope to see New York, Las Vegas, and Seattle around New Years, or on a trip to Europe at some point in time. I’ll save the trips to Asia, Africa, and the Middle East for when I have millions of dollars and just want to leave reality for a few weeks.