Culturefuck

I have a new roommate who will be moving in at the end of this week.  He was a random roommate assignment, who happens to be an incoming student from China.  He has a limited grasp of the English language and has never been to the United States in his life.

He will have no understanding of American culture, norms, and traditions.  All he knows about America is based on cultural stereotypes, history class, and what he’s seen in old Western movies.  Naturally, for his first few days and weeks here, he could go into culture shock as his worldview is either reinforced or shattered.  What is a budding social psychologist to do with such an opportunity?

I’ll tell you: I’m going to culturefuck the shit out of him.

Welcome to Western culture, my friend.

It begins as soon as he arrives at John Wayne Airport.  When he gets to the apartment, he’ll immediately notice that I’m constantly wearing a cowboy hat.  I’ve already bought two holsters from a Halloween store that I may carelessly leave in the living room from time to time so he assumes that Americans carry 6-shooters around at all times.  I’ll only listen to music if it’s the theme song from Bonanza, and when the phone rings, I’ll always answer it “Yeeeehaw!”

I’m no stranger to naturalistic research (does anyone remember my Andrewcampbell facebook experiment?), and the social scientist inside me can’t wait to observe the effects of my manipulation.  Will Mr. Zhang be a cultural sponge, and show up to his first class wearing a cowboy hat and spurs, while speaking with a Chinese John Wayne accent?  Or will he be a cultural ShamWow, and hold up to 20 times his weight in liquid culture?