Do they?

Having been overseas myself now, I have noticed some very important things. The culture I was able to experience has so much more respect for themselves, in what they do and who they are. Whether they are the train-sweeper or the person at the convenience store, they take pride in what they do. Always.

I have noticed that a lot of people here do not do that all the time. Yes, I have been guilty of it, too. Sure, we all do things we don't like. But when we don't like them, we don't put all of our effort into them and they turn out half-assed.

Another thing I noticed was that even though I did not know their spoken or written language, they were accepting of me. I would nod my head and say, "thank you" and they would nod back, smile at me, all the while saying something in their language. Because of this, I have realized that when people come here, we automatically expect them to learn this language, learn the customs here.

I don't agree with this. I do not feel that anyone should ever have to be forced to learn this language. It's not right. We are too demanding. "Well, they come here, so they should learn it." No. They don't say that of us. Because they accept us for who we are. It's so sad that we cannot accept diversity among people. Whenever I think of all the languages in the world, I think of the Tower of Babel. I am constantly reminded of that story in the Bible, where we became diverse in our languages, so that no two people of different cultures would ever understand each other.

I guess people forget that diversity is the key to the world coming together.