EVERETT, Wash. - July 28, 2020 - "I feel like I woke up at the masquerade party," says writer and author Lee Cuesta, offering a new way to view current social changes. "Face masks are now mandatory, and so at the home improvement superstore the other day, I saw customers with full facemasks, covering their entire face; one looked like Chewbacca. The covid culture has arrived."
Culture shock is inevitable. "I remember a cab driver in London, and even though she was speaking English, I could not understand her," Cuesta continues. He has lived and worked on two continents, and in multiple countries. Culture shock is the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone who is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes. It's when the novelty and excitement wear off, and the reality sets in.
Typically, one experiences culture shock when he or she travels to another culture. "In our current situation, however, it is reversed: we are experiencing shock because the different culture has come to us," Cuesta states in his new blog post at https://www.leecuestalive.com.
The covid culture has arrived, bringing these already familiar circumstances: Weddings and karate classes online. Playgrounds closed with yellow caution tape. Cuesta adds: "Watching the civil unrest in our own cities, or on TV or mobile devices, we feel like we live now in some sort of Middle Eastern culture."
Today, multitudes experience culture shock without ever leaving their homes -- literally -- because their own culture is changing before their eyes. "When we do leave our homes, it's like we're living in a foreign country. We are feeling culture shock, but we didn't go to a foreign culture; the foreign culture came to us," writes Cuesta on his other website, https://www.leecuesta.com.
The entire, original content of Cuesta's new copyrighted observation appears on either of his websites, cited above. Permission is granted to reprint the insights in their entirety, or in part, with the condition that its source (his website) and its author (Lee Cuesta) are both acknowledged.
