Cross Cultural Experience

I was at the dining table with five of my coworkers. One of them was my Manager.  All of them were Canadians. We used to have two staff appreciation lunch every month. There were more than a hundred staff having lunch in the same room, however, they were in the separate table as per department.
I was sitting with our department coworkers. There was a buffet set with a variety of foods with the name tag. I do not eat beef and pork. So, I avoided the food that contained beef or pork but took other vegetables and chicken. At the end of the lunch, I grabbed some desserts- one vanilla ice cream,  one cheesecake, and one piece of a chocolate tart cube with some stuff on the top. I did not read the tag. My co-worker asked me pointing the chocolate cube with some black stuff on the top, 'you know that is a beef'. I said,' are you sure?' He nodded his head for approval. No one said anything. I ate other things except the chocolate tart thinking that it had been. When I finished all and left the one, one of the staff asked me,' don't you eat the 'tart'. I said,' no, Terry says it contains beef. Everyone laughed at the situation( I don't think they laughed at me.) I realized that I was fooled by Terry. I learned a lesson," cultural differences can be a joke."
 It was a kind of awkward sitting with the people who have different cultural talks and perspective.  No matter how close you think you are with them, there always remains a cultural gap. You can talk in a straightforward language, respond appropriately, no matter how different your accent is. But sitting in a dining table and having an informal conversation was painful. You can joke with the people having similar cultural backgrounds. But if you are sitting with the people having a different cultural background, you hardly understand the jokes unless it shares the universal backgrounds.
Bantering is another skill of talking informally. However, if you are speaking the second language, you can not banter with them. Language has a lot of cultural layers blending like blood in the flesh of our body. If you separate culturally from language, the conversation will be dry and mechanical like the talking to the computer algorithms.
As soon as I realized that I was fooled, I tried to control the emotional response mechanism of my body. I tried not to be ashamed or bullied. I told him,' It is not funny.' If you go to Nepal, there will be hundreds of things you might not have even a clue'.
 ' Exactly! Manager said.
Some of them were still laughing. I ignored them and continued eating. No matter how I stoned myself, I located slight pain in my head. I applied  my own control tactic," locate, listen, breath and exhale.' I located the pain in the head. It was like a baby pinch. I listened to the message it passed to my system. I took a deep breath to calm down the system and exhaled. This process lasted a few seconds. But it made me feel good. I took it as a lesson. I swallowed it as a prescription drug without resistance.
No matter how smart you are, there are hundreds of soft spots that people can poke in. If you take that seriously, you can be defensive and more miserable. You feel bad, often sad, depressed. You lose your self-esteem. You lose confidence and smile. You can not look at the face of others because you feel insulted. Am I a retard? Am I funny? You keep asking such questions to yourself.
You have to think differently. I put him into my shoes and imagined that if it was with my colleagues in Nepal and we did a similar joke, how would he respond? This is not the common sense that works all the time. Sometimes we are so humble that we easily believe others. In several occasions, I have experienced that racial jokes or social pranks are made when you are the only minority in a group. Although people do not make fun of you no matter how things go wrong with you. But there are a few people who have a sadistic mindset who always find their jor in others pain. There is no way you have to take it seriously.
Let's go to the context to understand the incident more clearly. Terry was my coworker and senior to me. He was a Canadian born Chinese. We often talk about cultural differences, people, history and sex. When I was with me he never did the social pranks or any racial comments. But used to talk in my absence to prove himself superior. I did not object since I had no clear pieces of evidence. I assumed it because he used to backbite about other people. When I brought three pieces of dessert, other staff also eating the same amount of desert and similar items. They were all beef eaters. I was the only one who did not eat beef. Terry knew it. He used to make me aware of the beef while buying MacDonald, subways, and Timmis. So, I took it seriously. On the other hand, when he told me that the chocolate tart contains beef, nobody said nothing. The situation makes me think that it was it contains beef.
While he was laughing I sensed that he was saying," retard, how come you thing icecream contains beef". That expression could have pinched my heart. However, I stoned myself. I did not let my happiness spoiled by others stupid thought. My thinking was rational and I was right. First of all, I trusted him as a co-worker and senior staff. He was fifteen years old than me. Second, icecreams and pastries are made containing beef up to 50 percentage. I googled and found that pastries containing beef are unnoticeable. He did not know about this fact. I laughed at his knowledge and source of joy. He was such a loser.
I saw him being pranked by his Canadian friends and how miserable was he. He was pranked because no matter where you born unless you have the color and frame of your ancestors, you are who you are. He was a chain smoker and alcoholic. His wife was the biggest gamblers. He was such a loser that he used to work day and night and all the money he had mad was taken by his wife for gambling. I often heard the telephone conversation between them, he was one who got heck, dominated and bullied. The only way to vent his obsession was making a prank with someone who was socially and culturally vulnerable. He scapegoated me.
Since I have been experiencing discriminatory behaviors from the beginning, I prepared myself to bypass it. I have strong faith in me. I have the image of a lion. I did not take it as an insult or bully. But I absorbed as a lesson, precise feedback that you can use as a building block of your future career. They would talk in my absence and laugh pathetically. But cannot do anything to me.
 I used to work in another organization about fifteen months ago with two Canadian boys. One was introvert and egoist. Another was about twenty years old and social and friendly. One day he asked me where I was from. I said," from Nepal". He pronounced it as 'Nipple' and laughed. At that time I was more sensitive. His joke on my nationality hurt my feeling. I could not take that off my mind for several days. But TED talks and study of several books prepared me just right.
TED talks on stoicism influenced mine in such a way that some of the quotations are life-changing. "We suffer more in imagination than reality". ' don't let your feeling hurt by others stupidity'. I know who am I. I have the moral integrity to follow my soul than what actually other people talk about me. However, sometimes our life is so vulnerable that anyone can infect with the venom of their words. We need to be really prepared mentally to resist such venom before they get into our system. To be stoic is to be prepared for such infestations.
Living in another country with all new people having different culture, language, and mentality is really tough. You have to go through different obstacles and challenges. As you prepared yourself every morning letting your system know that 'you are going to meet people who are unhappy with you, they might insult you, might comment on your skin, and try to inferior you'. You will always meet people who will always pinpoint your mistakes since no one is perfect. But never let those negative ideas get into your system. Take feedbacks that really helps you to grow, but ignore the biased judgemental type of comments. You see different kinds of people in the world who interpret things on their favor based on their knowledge. They laugh at you, make fun of you due to their ignorance. They can not see the difference. They can not make a difference.
This morning I was filling gas into my car at Shell when I was approached by a homeless person. He looked like Asian by his skin. But his accent was Canadian. He asked me a dollar to buy food. I looked into his eyes and see the human heart as I have, and every human being has. I asked him to wait until I filled up the gas. He was telling me that though he lives on the street he is a good guy. I
remembered that I met him before when I was in the parking lot going in the process of visa application of my MOM. He was telling me that is I was missing my mom. I gave him a two dollars, though it was a very little amount, it made me happier than him. Today, I gave him two dollars and a few cents which brought light in his face and ever brighter in mine. He always brings a bit of good luck to me. This is how I look the brighter side of every human being. Your life is how you see it not how the other people look at you. Every human being is differently equipped with distinct cultural practices and education. The only common thing among us is we have a human heart capable of love and forgiveness.
No matter how old you are or, young, we have always enough time to achieve what we want. But the main problem of many of us is to figure out what the ultimate goal of our life is; wealth, health, relationship, popularity. We work day and night putting our health on risk when we prioritize wealth. We burned out completely working as a machine until it stops to work. No matter what impact it has in our health, we keep running after money. But experience and research show that most people realize towards the end of their life that health and relationship are the most important factors in our life.
Working in a foreign country without any skill and knowledge is stressful. You can be trained for a certain type of job with limited information. However, working with a team requires more personal skills than what we've learned from the job-specific training. We all are a social creature. We like to chat, joke, prank, and banter. But all of these qualities can be achieved from either from your childhood environment or by the gin. Some people like bantering while working in a team, however, this can be offensive to others who are especially quiet. I like jokes. Those jokes should be nonharmful. If you are sitting with culturally different people and cutting jokes, it might not be as funny as you think and vice versa. Sometimes it can create misunderstanding too. Many people make fun of language, skin, body structure, the way we eat, the way we dress up and many more. But it should be taken as a joke. If we get offended with such little thing (unless it is targeted you with the purpose of harassment) you can not enjoy the company. You can also cut jokes at them. We all are different in one way, or the other. If somebody thinks himself superior to you, it is neither his fault nor your. This is human nature. You should in your image as a lion so that such things can not hurt your feeling. However, if you see yourself as a cat, his image definitely scares you and make you feel bad. So, think yourself superior, smarter, tactical, knowledgeable. Take action to achieve these things.
Positive thinking always keeps you smarter boosting your mind and toning your body. Our mind is like a field where weeds grow without effort. However, if you want to cultivate the actual plant of fruits and vegetables you have to remove the weeds constantly, fertilize the plant, water the plant. Then only you can harvest what you cultivated. Similarly, negative thought is like weeds keep popping up in our mind. Positive thought needs to be cultivated and also protected as you protect the plant from the weeds. This is a conscious act of nourishing our mind.
Good books are far better than the good people. Reading a good book can change your life. Any author who writes a book reads hundreds of other books prior to his project, recollects his memory; good or bad and puts extra effort to police his ideas. Books are the main source of knowledge throughout history. Medieval period to the day, books are the main source of knowledge. Religious documents, historical documents, philosophy, political theories all written in the form of books which people keep reading. We have millions of books in the world libraries today, and most of them are the simulacrum. They are reproduced and sold in the market. The more you read the more you gain knowledge. The knowledge is the ultimate power to rule the world than the mercenaries.
I read the books of various authors on diaspora experience, racism, empowerment, morality. When I read these books, I feel extremely empowered and motivated. Besides I watch youtube, podcast, and TED which continually fuel my confidence and make me happy.