The Cultural Variety Complex of Shoes

(I made the Cultural Variety Complex up... but whatever I'll roll with it.) Simple enough. Wherever we go, cultural differences are so variably present and palpable. They can span from language, to religion, to diet, to rules, to government, to family, and even to clothing and hobbies. And in The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, the cultural differences clearly have an effect on Ashima's min
d and emotions.
        A part that really stood out to me was when Ashima stepped into American shoes, "...a pair of men's shoes that were not like any she'd seen on the streets and trams and buses of Calcutta, or even in the windows of Bata" (Lahiri 8). Just by stepping into shoes of a culture unfamiliar to her, her heart raced. It struck me how people are so used to their own lives and cultures that it's the little things that we tend to notice. Sure we know that people drive with the steering people on the right side of the car, and that doesn't really come as a surprise to us when we see it first-hand. But I have zero ideas as to the clothing, or cultures of physical appearance for that matter, of countries in Europe and Asia. Speaking of shoes, I find that the popularity of certain kinds of shoes kind of belongs to different areas in Southern California. Culture in general differs pretty greatly between nearby cities.

     It seems kind of wrong to stereotype, but it's shoes so who really cares? I've just kind of observed that kids at Newport Harbor tend to wear topsiders more than other school. Kids at CDM seem to wear blue or black authentic Vans (The ones above). I see a lot of kids at Sage with Converse or boots. I'm kind of going off a tangent here, but you get the point.
     I also found it interesting when Ashima thought to herself about how she "...thinks it's strange that her child will be born in a place most people enter either to suffer or die..." because in India, "...women go home to their parents to give birth, away from husbands and in-laws and household cares..." (Lahiri 4). It's clear that American culture varies wildly enough from India, or Calcutta, for her to notice.
    I myself find that I'm learning about Indian culture from this book. I (and I'm sure a lot of others too) had no idea about the annaprasan, and that the "...first formal ceremony of [the Bengali's] lives centers on the consumption of food" (6). I'm sure there's a lot more things to learn about Indian culture from this book, and a lot of things that Ashima will notice about American culture that I take for granted.