Who do you really know?

I've long wondered about the way people act toward foreigners. Not only toward foreigners from other countries or continents but also toward foreigners from other cultures or ethnicities. It seems that one of two things happens. We either form some judgment one way or another, or we react with sincere inquisitiveness.

I wonder mostly about the second group. Did you ever wonder why we are more easily able to be open-minded with someone from another culture? We can look at some parts of the Southern US community as consisting of rednecks or hicks, yet we may say that other such pockets of culture in the world speak a "regional dialect".

I started thinking about this as I was planning my upcoming road trip. I joined a site called CouchSurfing.net (awesome site by the way) to help meet some interesting folks along the way. It was amazing to see the hospitality that these people show as well as their willingness to meet all kinds of people.

So I'm thinking "Would all these guys be as willing to meet the guy across the block?" I think we realize that we don't fully understand other cultures, so we find it easier to refrain from judging them. We don't really understand the Cambodian refuge's experience, nor do we understand the Chinese student's perspective.

So, we listen with an open mind at what they have to say. We ask questions. We try to empathize.

We find it much more difficult to do this when dealing with our neighbor, our child, our spouse. We understand their situation. There is no need to try to empathize with their experience.

So, here's the question. Do we really understand any other person's experience? What if we treated each person as an exotic foreigner with gifts of perspective to share?

Hard to imagine isn't it?