Lost in Global Village

I have read that watching foreign language movies is one of the ways to relieve stress. To strictly practise what I read, it was my German movie Saturday afternoon, though the language is no more foreign to me. The themes of German movies range from history to various social issues. The theme of the movie that I watched was ‘Migration’. It was about a Turkish family which moves to Germany in search of better jobs and better lifestyle. The family integrates quite well in the German culture and eventually receive German passport, officially gaining citizenship of the country. However, even after several years, the family finds its deep roots and warmth in their Turkish village of provenance. The movie was an engaging entertainer portraying the challenges the immigrants face in a foreign country, especially the cultural differences.

Before watching the movie, I had read one German write-up which explained how Germany became a land of immigrants. In 1950s when Germany was at her summit of economic prosperity, she needed more workforces to work in her industries and improve the infrastructure. Gradually the Gastarbeiter or ‘guest workers’ as the Germans liked to call them, started coming from countries like Italy, Greece, Spain and later in 1961 from Turkey, Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and Yugoslavia. In 1964, the millionth guest worker, Armando Rodrigues from Portugal was welcomed by the minister and was gifted a moped. The article also threw light on how the rules for immigration changed over the years. Soon the workers brought their families to Germany and settled there. As a step towards better integration, mandatory German language courses were facilitated to the immigrants. Till date, the Turks constitute to be the largest number of immigrants in Germany.

The article and the movie took me back to a definition, which was still lying at the back of my mind: Globalization is the free movement of goods, services and people across the world in a seamless integrated manner. My mind was focused on the word ‘seamless’. Like goods and services, can movement of people from one country to another be really called seamless? We are human beings who grow up in a particular environment, culture, traditions and values. Globalization also means movement of all these intangible factors, though their movement may not necessarily be ‘seamless’. Over the years, surely we integrate with the foreign culture and become one with them. Isn’t why there is a term called as cultural exchange? I believe that adapting to cultures is the biggest challenge in globalization. Of course, languages play significant roles in bridging this gap. As Indians, most of us are fascinated by and exposed to a bigger, modern world. In India, the basics of globalization can be learned from localization, thanks to our 29 distinct states, their unique cultures and vast number of languages. We are drawn towards the foreign lands like we are attracted to the foreign brands. We start getting a better view of the world and have a checklist ready of what we lack in our nation. We all have our own scales of measurement, don’t we? These individual scales lead to brain drain, in search of better opportunities. But how is life exactly when people land in their ‘lands of opportunities’? It is definitely not a smooth ride in the initial days. It is similar to a newlywed bride adjusting in her new family. Thanks to the adaptive ability of humans, the foundation of globalization is not shaken easily. Foreign and globally accepted etiquettes and manners become the way of life. We move from being intercultural to international. There is betterment of thought processes most of the times, depending on how well the new culture treats you. We build relationships with people of different nationalities. We become one with the world and realize that there are so many varied facets to it. Slowly the affinity towards something, which is once upon a time, ‘new and foreign’, grows and soon it becomes own. Adaption turns into adoption. A foreign land, a foreign culture as though transforms us in some or the other way.

When I thought of this theme, I remembered an article written by Swaminathan Anklesaria Iyer in which he wrote how his children had gone to various countries to study or to work and blended with the countries and married people of different nationalities . He said in that article how his children, i.e. the next generation of his family had gone international, whereas his own generation had gone inter-caste or rather intercultural. He beautifully states in the article that he therefore is a citizen of the globe now and feels one with the world. He feels at home and has a sense of belongingness in any part of the world. He still reminisces his days in his village in Tamil Nadu, where he enjoys eating food from a banana leaf with his hands.

The recent cases of Indians being shot dead or racially abused in some parts of the world, I view this as the ugly face of globalization. The ‘seamless’ process is hence distorted by such incidents. Globalization should not result into cultural conflicts or developing hatred for people having a particular skin colour. People move in quest of livelihood, so that the families back home can reap benefits and get a better taste of life. When one actually deals with the practicality of living in a foreign land, one can use the same scale of comparison and check if perceptions are better than reality or vice versa. Integration not just remains a word, but is a whole painstaking process which involves acclimatization as a major factor.

 I learned two unique or rather two profound German words during my studies: ‘fernweh’ and ‘heimweh’. Fernweh is a feeling, an excitement to travel to distant countries to have new experiences. Heimweh, on the other hand, is the feeling of homesickness. Globalization, according to me, is a process of feeling ‘fernweh’ to ‘heimweh’ at some point of life. It also means a phase when the faraway land becomes home and home becomes a faraway land. To look at the brighter side of globalization, your original home also visits your new home one day and that is when you are glad to see Indian restaurants in any part of the world that you go. Yes, we Indians are large in number and we do carry our cultures, traditions and most importantly our food and cooking methods wherever we go. And looking at this new scenario, where your birth motherland meets your adoptive motherland, one hums the melody by the singer Sia, ‘I found my way….found my way home…’