Short Story: Alf's culture shock experience, was mind-numbing for him to endure

Tweet

Alf Fraklin was married to an Asian lady, whose background ensured that her cultural way of thinking was way different than what Alf’s was. Clarasil, Alf’s wife, had a distant cousin, from her own country of origin, visiting them. These people, first off, needed Alf to prepare a letter of invitation, for them, to get their visa approved. Alf, being good at writing these types of invitational letters, never minded too much to do this. (There was the grandmother, the daughter, and then the daughter's small toddler, son, too. The husband had not made the trip with them. He had a good job as a Doctor, over there, and he was too busy, at that time. He stayed home, in their two-story mansion. The young son was only 1 year of age. Alf's wife had to ask around to her friends, to borrow a child safety seat for their car, as Alf and his wife were childless themselves.) Then, they, the group of 3, wanted all to stay in Alf’s house, as, what he called, “freeloaders”. They stayed for just over one week, all for nothing. His father would have called them something far worse than that. He used to use the word, "moocher", or "parasite" to describe these types. Alf was expected to pick them up from the airport, to take a week off from his busy schedule at work, to take them, driving them, around the country, on various touristy joints, to pay for all of their meals, pay for their entry fees to the Nature parks, and other attractions, buy them souvenirs, even to buy them stuff that they hadn’t brought with them, like sun-hats, and even spare diapers, for the baby. On top of that, they refused to drink the tap water at Alf's house, and so he had to buy bottled spring water for them all too, to drink, as well as the apple juice, that they requested for breakfast, of course. Then to top it off, even further, again, they had scheduled their flight home on the morning that Alf was due to start back at his work. They had previously told Alf’s wife that they were returning on the previous day, but then they changed their mind, and they were wanting to stay one more night, and so they had rescheduled their flight for 5 am, the following morning instead. Poor Alf was expected to get up at 2 am in the morning, take them to the airport, a 2-hour drive, and then drive back home again, (another 2-hours drive) to drive himself to his office, which was another 1-hour drive, from where he lived. Alf didn’t understand this culture at all. He left his wife to understand it for him. To him, they were all “sponges” on him, soaking up his hospitality, leeching him for every drop of hospitality that they could possibly drain out from him. They were “take all, give back nothing,” types of people, but, being the good husband, Alf never mentioned any of his true thoughts to his wife. Even when he did try to say something once, all she would say is, if we do not do these types of things for them, they will talk about us in her homeland, saying things like Alf and his wife were lousy hosts, would not even take them anywhere, and about how mean and selfish and dispirited, they were, overall, as well. Do you think that this type of behaviour is acceptable for any culture to indulge in? Should Alf had said anything, or just take it all in his stride, as he did, and as he always did? Alf was an easy-going sort of person on the surface, but underneath it all, he often boiled inside like a cauldron of hot oil. He was lucky that during this visit, none of his oil spilt out! Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com Alf was clearly annoyed, and this was plain to see, but he said nothing. Some people play their culture, and their cultural differences, for all it is worth, and others, let them get away with it. For peace of mind, Alf let it all pass through to the keeper, so to speak, but he was surely bowled over many times by this, in his own mind's eye.