Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 There was a gap between the floor and the door. And you could see if people were inside, you could see people's shoes. You can see a lot of things from Japanese point of view too much. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:00:26 Welcome to the deep culture podcast, where we explore culture and the science of mind. I'm Joseph shawls and I'm here with Yvonne. Vanderpoel greetings from Tokyo. Yvonne. I just have greetings from Amarillo. Well, I'm happy to spend some time with you today and we're going to be talking about the Oz moment, the Oz moment. That's the experience when you're in a foreign place, especially for the first time, this feeling of wonder or surprise when you notice little things that catch your attention because they are different. For example, the first time I arrived in Tokyo, I noticed a vending machine next to a rice field. And that just stuck in my mind is vending machine next to a rice field. Um, you know, I think lots of people have had Oz moment experiences when they travel or go to a new place, right? Oh, yes, of course.
Speaker 1 00:01:28 Yeah. And probably once you saw this one vending machine, you saw many more, is that correct? Yeah, no, that's right. I started to see them everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, actually I have a similar story. I'm also arriving you and in my case, um, for the first time being in an African country in Senegal to be specific and from the airport to the city center, taking the bus early morning, um, and I had seen those documentaries about African places, cultures before, and now I was in the bus, but I sensed as if I was in the documentary or in the movie. And that wasn't wonderful hour an interesting experience actually, because I saw ladies with babies on their back with goods on their heads, uh, many lively colors. I could smell the coal file fires, goats on the streets and some bumpy roads in this bus and all these people and colors.
Speaker 1 00:02:28 It was really fascinating, but it sounds like it was the movie and he was the reality like, wow. And so it's amazing that all these details that you still have, all these details in your mind after I can still record back the movie, it seems like, yes. So, so that's, those are Osmo moments, these little detailed recalls, but our point today is not just to tell stories like this. No, the thing is as mom and they might seem simple, but from the brain mind perspective, they are really fascinating. And then to have a closer look at them because they can teach us a lot about how mind works and when we have these intercultural experiences. So we're going to look at the mental processes that lead to Oz moment experiences. And we're going to show you that your Oz moment experiences are a treasure that you can discover in your mind and that you can learn from. So today's episode is in three parts and part one is Dorothy arrives in Alz.
Speaker 1 00:03:49 So let's start with some background, the Oz moment. That's a reference to a scene from the 1939 film, the wizard of Oz. Now in the United States of America, this film is really well known. Uh, is it well known in the Netherlands Yvonne it's known, but probably not as well known as in the states. And I actually knew the term wizard of Oz. Um, but because of us collaborating, I finally had a look at this film. So it's only then that I noticed or saw the film actually. So this is a fantasy film about Dorothy. She's a simple girl from Kansas whose house is picked up by a storm and carried far away until it crashes down in this magical kingdom of Oz. And she goes on many adventures and she's enchanted by this magical place. But the story is about her trying to get help from the wizard of Oz so she can get back home. There's no place like home. She says, so it's the story of her Odyssey and the difficult journey home. So here's just a tiny clip of the moment when her house crashes down in us. <inaudible>.
Speaker 1 00:05:27 And so this is when the Oz moment happens, she gets up off her bed, picks up her dog, Toto opens the front door and steps out into this magical world. And the movie up to that point is filmed in black and white, but she looks around in amazement at a Technicolor landscape. This was one of the first films that used Technicolor and she really in a different world. And she says, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. Indeed. She is not in Kansas anymore. Yes. That's the moments when you are in a foreign place or have a new experience. And there's this feeling of a new reality. So that's where the expression, the Oz moment comes from this moment where Dorothy is standing there in awe at her new environment. And of course, anyone who has traveled or gone to foreign countries or gone to a foreign environment, you notice things often, very little things, but somehow they stick in your mind. You can't remember what you had for lunch two days ago, but even after many years, you can remember these Oz moments and they can have a big impact on us, even though they seem tiny.
Speaker 1 00:07:07 So let's see everyone else. Moment story you spoke. I echoed into, yes, my wife. I go, when we first were going out, we talked about our foreign experiences and she told me about the very first time she went abroad to Los Angeles. And within minutes of arriving at the airport, she had a life-changing experience in the restaurant. And just to give you some background in Japan, the doors in a public restroom, they go from almost from the ceiling all the way down to the floor. They're very private in the United States, not so much. So that brings us to part two. I echo in L a X.
Speaker 0 00:08:06 I agree. I'm so happy to have you on the deep culture podcast. Welcome. Thank you. You know, I'm really interested in how foreign experiences affect people. And when you and I were first going out, we talked a lot about living abroad and traveling and learning a foreign language. And I was remembering one story that you told about the first time that you went to a foreign country. I visited my friend who was studying English for three months in LA, going abroad was something that I never thought about going doing myself. So it was like going to the moon. So ASTA, I went through the immigration costs. I went to the bathroom and I found a different bathroom in lax unexpectedly.
Speaker 0 00:09:05 There was a gap between the floor and the door. And you could see if people were inside, you could see people's shoes. You can see a lot of things from Japanese point of view too much. Yes. And so what was kind of your internal state? I was very surprised and I noticed that that was the only one who was surprised. And I did. I realized that I had only one choice, which is to go to this bathroom. There's no other bathrooms, just the new reality, new reality, but you hesitated, right? You didn't really want to go to this exposed. I had to really make up my mind, did this raise questions in your minds about what kind of place this was or what kind of people these were? I didn't know what it means to be in a foreign country. And they didn't know that discovering these different realities or different normals would be what was waiting for me.
Speaker 0 00:10:22 When I went to the United States or any other countries, you told me in the past that this experience had some effect on you, that it made you want to experience life in other places. So when I first went to the United States and experienced different normal or different reality, I realized that what I was thinking as normal in my country is not necessarily know elsewhere. And if a small thing like a bathroom is different is so different. I felt the need to experience different parts of the morals, normals, not just traveling, but by living to experience different normals, to really absorb that what's normal in my country is not normal. And the world is a big place. This is just a bathroom door. So is this a big difference or is it a small difference? Well, bathroom door is a big difference. First of all, and the bathroom door difference gave me a big difference in my life.
Speaker 0 00:11:50 So did this give you some impression Americans, did they have bathrooms like this? All the bathroom in the United States or even American embassy in Japan had the same door, the American embassy, like it must have imported the bathroom doors, but there's differences, not test the bathroom on the usage of the bathroom. Must be different about how you think about the space, how you think about your privacy, how you think about the relationship between yourself and the rest of the people, how you see yourself in public space, all kinds of things. So on the surface, it's a little difference, but it actually is a lot deeper than that. I think so. Well, it sounds like this experience had a big impact on you. Yes, I think so. I, I still not fully understanding what happened, but I think since then, my Johnny has been continuing and this triggered a desire to experience other countries. Yeah. And then you, did you, have you lived in foreign countries, you went to university in the United States, you have traveled extensively. So maybe your international journey started in the bathroom at lax, most likely. Well, thank you for sharing your experience with me. You're welcome.
Speaker 1 00:14:19 Part three, the Oz moment and the intuitive mind. So here's what I find so interesting about stories like this and goes case something that seems so small can actually have such a big impact. For example, remembering all these details. We remember all these details, but in either case, not only does she remember these details, but she says that this created some kind of a shift in her mind, such that she now knew that she wanted to live or experience another country because there was this new normal, there had been some deep shift. Isn't that? That's amazing. That's amazing. No, that's fantastic. That what happens is this very brief moment is huge. Actually it can be even life-changing. And so how is that possible? Why do we remember these little details and how can such a small experience kind of shift our perceptions in that way? That's the kind of magic and the mystery of Oz moments. So let's look at that from the brain and mind perspective.
Speaker 1 00:15:55 So to understand the L's moments, uh, you need to understand that intercultural experiences are processed in two ways. So we have the attentive mind and the intuitive mind. So do you think the mind is conscious intentional, much slower also, and it's about conscious problem solving. It's also related to linear thinking and to directing our attention towards what is needed at that moment. And the intuitive mind is like our autopilot, the unconscious autopilot that guides us through the day. So we've got the attentive mind and the intuitive mind, both reacting to this foreign experience. So let's break this down, let's call this the anatomy of a nozzle moment. And so I go enters into the bathroom. The first thing that happens is it all starts with entering a new environment and mismatch with internal model, right? So what you expect is not what's there, or it's unexpected the predictive processing that your intuitive mind is doing.
Speaker 1 00:17:13 Uh, it's always scanning and filtering and predicting, and then suddenly there's the difference you detect the difference. So there's some difference that is detected and this kind of wakes up the attentive mind and we become aware of this difference. And we may have some emotional response. Like I echo was what is embarrassing and this activates our interpretive schema. It's all about making sense of the situation. Um, it's the reflective, sorting, and analysis. So our mind is kind of juggling what all of this possibly means and what to do. So in IKOS case, she's like, well, should I go to a different bathroom while I can't do that? Well, I guess I need to, you know, suppress my embarrassment and just go anyway. Um, and so in this moment of decision, you're reacting to this experience, and this brings about some sort of, this is cognitive impact.
Speaker 1 00:18:23 So there's, it has an effect on us. That effect might simply be that we remember it, but in <inaudible> case, it really seemed to have a very deep impact on her. It's going to have a deep impact, a lifelong impact, but it can also go the other way around. And you might see also reinforced prejudice, for instance, yeah. These experiences aren't always necessarily good. We can have a bad impression of the foreign places that we are. But I think that one thing that's very common about these Oz moments is that they stick with us and somehow we have the impression of something having changed.
Speaker 1 00:19:14 Okay. So the question then, is that, what do these Oz moments mean? What, what can we learn from them? Yeah. Well, that's a good question, Joseph, and you know, I have your book there of my book. I run the lines various sentences, and one way to look at them, I'm going to watch you one way to look at them is echo. I wasn't expecting this. Okay, go ahead. I always have the book fresh here. When we talk about these things, the thing is that I've underlined, there's nice sentences here and there. And they are just precious because here one way to look at them is as a conscious echo, intuitive, largely hidden cultural learning process, a sign of an unconscious mind, hard at work while a sign of an unconscious mind, hard at work, an echo of a cultural learning process. I like that. No, that's good.
Speaker 1 00:20:19 And that's what you wrote it years ago, but you know, that's also why we do this podcast is about the journey and the exploration of, of cultural learning and what it all means. And, um, so I, I really do think that, you know, when we reflect on those Oz moments, what we're really doing is kind of exploring the experience of new normals because that's what cultural learning is. We discover that what's normal here is not what was normal for me. And it's that gap, which teaches us lessons, not just about some foreign place, but it teaches us lessons about these mental habits that we have that I ago was surprised at the bathroom because she had these mental habits about what she expected a bathroom to be. And when we go to a foreign place, we have all of these mental habits that are guiding our perceptions. And these Oz moments are a way for us to be aware of this deep learning process. And the most interesting part of these mental patterns is that we usually don't notice them. They're just there and they are being awakened. All of a sudden here they are. And that's the power of having for an experiences that they, they bring to light parts of ourself that we weren't aware of.
Speaker 1 00:22:05 So one final thing that I find interesting about <inaudible> story is that she told me that no one had ever asked her about this experience. And she had never talked about it to anyone, but that when she did remember it, uh, it was all so clear in her mind. And I'm wondering your experience in Senegal, uh, Yvonne, had you talked to other people about this? Of course, I was traveling with my friend and we discussed it during, but afterwards it's probably until we worked together and I reading your book and getting this word Osmo moment and studying it more in depth, I immediately was at this moment, but I never, probably never talked about it with anybody in between quite some years, I must say. So my experience with vending machines of course, was not something that I talked about to people, but I still remember my first days in Tokyo noticing vending machines. And it was like an ongoing question in my mind. I, I noticed there a lot of vending machines, and then I noticed there little trash cans next to the vending machine with a little round hole so that you could put the can. And I noticed people drinking drinks in front of the vending machine and then throwing the can away. And they weren't walking while they were drinking. And all of this was raising questions in my mind. And I was thinking, well, this isn't very environmentally friendly. It takes a lot of electricity.
Speaker 1 00:23:44 And so there are all these judgments, you know, there all these judgments going on in my mind at the same time, you know, and this is not just, you know, these are not just memories are they involve our whole body and our values and our judgment and everything. And so, so I could really feel that I was having to examine things that I'd never thought about before. And it's that I think it's that re-examination, that is what sticks in my mind, uh, because I've spent now many years living in Japan and there are still times when I'm asking myself, what does this mean? You know, it's a never ending process, uh, to be discovering different worlds. It's continuous learning and, uh, fascinating in itself, but probably it's also time to wrap up this episode. It is. And so I encourage all of you to think about your AHS moments, reflect on them, send us a message, let us know about them. We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1 00:25:04 The deep culture podcast is sponsored by the Japan intercultural Institute, an NPO dedicated to intercultural education and research. I am the director of GI. If you're interested in culture and the mind, why don't you check out GIS brain, mind, and culture masterclass. It is a blended learning course and online community of cultural bridge people to find out more, just do a web search for the Japan intercultural Institute. And if you liked today's episode, we'd really like to hear from you, leave a comment on apple podcasts or write us at DC podcast at Japan, intercultural.org. Thank you Yvonne for spending this time with me and thanks to ICO Hoshino for telling us her story and as usual, thanks to our sound engineer, Robinson, Fritz, and Chris, Koyama our production assistant. See you next time. See you all next time. And if you're having those moments, why don't you send this looking forward to it?
