There is really no way of knowing how thick our cultural assumptions are – or how dependent we are on them.

A science fiction writer might have developed the kind of mind that can imagine radically different sets of cultural assumptions, but most of us don’t bother with that kind of exercise. Instead our most common experiences with this issue might be things like that tech whose accent we can’t decipher. A food description on the menu that means nothing to us.

Travelers, cultural adventurers, dabble further. A place where English is not understood. Everyone agreeing to drive on the other side of the road. Miles are gone – it’s kilometers. Pounds are gone – it’s kilograms. Fahrenheit gone – stays in the 20’s (Celsius). Dollars are gone – it’s, well, something else. Here it’s rupiahs. The months have traded summer for winter and winter for summer.  Your sunsets are our sunrises. Your today is our yesterday. And all of this is just on the surface.

Is there a rice deity that controls the harvest?

Is absolutely every thing and every body a manifestation of an all powerful force, Brahmin, mysterious beyond knowing?

And is living a life of Dharma the only liberating path through life?

And is the goal of this path a merging with Brahmin where there is no longer struggle with ‘what is’?

So here is an island of over four million people, constantly making offerings, constantly trying to find and follow Dharma, and in this part of the island they have tourists in front of them that for the most part are totally clueless to this world view.