GEEK BEAT: Shocking culture one pair of ugly shorts at a time

I got a new stove the other day. I was really excited. Our old one was broken and needed to be replaced. When I got the call that the guy was coming by to install it, the responsible part of my brain – I call him Mitch – made me dance around a little bit in sheer excitement.

Then the part of my brain that still remembers the names of all the bad guys from He-man (Jake) spoke up. “Dude, you’re excited about an appliance. We don’t do that.”

“We’re grown up now,” Mitch reminded Jake. “It’s a whole new world. Like a new culture almost.”

Jake thought about this for a moment then said, “Shocking.”

Then, Karen, the part of my brain that remembers my responsibilities, said, “Maybe we could write our column about the culture shock involved in becoming an adult.

It was about this time that I just took over because that was a really bad idea.

It was a bad idea because it’s not real culture shock. I’ve noticed that term gets thrown around a lot, often in place of homesickness.

I’m guilty too. When I first came here to Logan from the far off land of Idaho, I thought I had truly entered into a brand new world because people here don’t think ‘tooken’ is a word.

Then I actually started to see different parts of the country and world and I think I’m starting to understand what culture shock really is.

I’m going to give a few examples just in case any of you, or Karen, get confused. All of these have either happened to me or my friends so there you go.

Culture shock is finding out you just ate coagulated blood and not having it faze you in the least bit.

Culture shock is staring down one of those spiders from one of those crappy ’50s horror movies – the kind where the giant spiders attack the city, and they have to use a nuclear bomb to kill the spiders – but you don’t have a nuclear bomb. All you have is a sponge on a stick.

Culture shock is finding out the hard way that there is an international sign for “hung like a horse.”

For those of you keeping score, the hard way is having some old guy on the bus teach you using broken English and some very specifically located grabbing.

Culture shock is being so jet lagged you confuse bird droppings for Slurpee.

Culture shock is being treated as an unofficial representative of your country and its leaders by every homeless philosopher to cross your path.

While I’m talking about it, if you’re reading this Georgy-boy, don’t blow up the whole world. There is a dude on a train in Australia who thinks it’s a bad idea.

However, he also thinks you should keep your eyes on the LEGO Corporation. I guess they’re up to no good.

Culture shock is begging for fliers so you can crumple them up and use them for toilet paper in the public restroom.

I take that back. Real culture shock is not knowing how to use the toilet when you get there.

So you can see, stepping outside of your comfort zone can be dangerous, or at least disgusting.

But if I’ve learned one thing while traveling the world, it’s that when culture shocks you, you should shock back.

Shock culture back by always talking about how great America is. Really everyone knows this, but who doesn’t like hearing it?

Like you could tell them about how in the United States we all have flying cars, but we don’t tell anyone about them, because then they’d get jealous.

Or like how, in America, our clay never goes stale. That is so awesome.

Shock culture back by being a tourist. It sounds simple, but it’s one of the most effective ways to show culture who’s the boss.

Nothing degrades an ancient culture’s accomplishments more than taking pictures of you standing in front of them wearing ugly shorts and throwing the goat horns.

Shock culture back by calling its mom fat. Culture really hates that.

Shock culture back by being totally underwhelmed by really amazing stuff.

“Yeah, that’s a pretty big Ben, but I’ve seen bigger.”

Keep this advice in mind all you lucky people who are going overseas soon. Have fun, take lots of pictures and don’t drink the water.

I always do, but it should be clear by now I’m a bad example.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is a senior in computer science who is still searching for Carmen San Diego. Clues to her whereabouts or your own stories of true culture shock can be sent to him at

steveshinney@cc.usu.edu.