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European people tend to have a very idealised idea of what life is beyond their borders. "It's better somewhere else" they often say, in some way or another. When surfing on facebook or the internet, I keep reading how bad the Western world is. Too much consumption. Too much pollution. Too much individualism. Too much. Too few.

The rest of the world (whatever that means), on the contrary, is "full of spirituality", "so much simpler and easier". They admire some ethnic groups for their resistance to globalisation. They even fight for them to keep their traditions in a changing world.

And at the same time Westerners are despising their very own culture... Classical music ? who cares. Literature? only at school.

One of the revelations you should probably have when you styay with people of a different culture is this one: we are not the sme, and we'll never be.

I was born in France. From French parents and grand-parents. I was raised a Christian Catholic by my family.

However I have always been interested in other cultures and languages, in meeting foreign people. I left the Catholic church 2 years ago because I felt I couldn't connect to the rituals and beliefs of this religion.

And then I travelled abroad. Really.

I stayed with the people who had always fascinated me, in India, in Africa, in the Himalayas.

And that's where I became so sure: I am French. Not even Western or European. French. And Christian.

I grew up hearing the sound of the churchbells. I do know something about this man hanging on a cross. When My parents were taking me on their lap they would sing songs in French. The values which were transmitted to me by my family, school, society were the heritage of many years of history and culture proper to France.

So everything I see, I see it through my French eyes. I can't help. Nobody can. You are bond to your culture of origin.

When I stay abroad, in a culture which is not mine, I adapt. You have to adapt. I comply with the rules of this society. I try to learn them, understand them. They make me think about my own rules, The ones I grew up with and within. as I see another Good, another Evil, I suddenly have the necessary distance to see values better, understand them better.

And yes I do judge. In all the cultures I learnt something new, different, valuable, but often also I thought I was lucky with the values which my society has given to me. 

When I see the Kalbeliyas having trouble getting electricity in their village because of the strict caste system, I don't envy this society.

I admire the simplicity of the Xhosa people lost in their little village in South Africa but if I had been one of them,  would never have travelled and learnt stuff, done stuff.

Confronting myself to other cultures has taught me a lot about my own, about what I like and don't like in it. ut it has also taught me that the link between me and my culture is undestroyable. It has taught me I have to cherish it in order to understand the others better and also to estimate them better.Yes estimate them better: not have an idealised image of the "good savage", but an experienced picture of a society. That's where you add "with its good and bad points". And what will give you the criterias of good and bad if not your own cultural values ?