Sometimes I'm fascinated at how little a society looks in the mirror to see itself as it actually is. Stereotypes and prejudices occur only in moments of lack of clarity about the society one lives in. There are very profound differences in the culture of the West Coast cities, versus the inland areas of small towns and rural life in north america. I remember seeing this same cultural divide when I visited Queensland Australia for a month with a highschool class science trip many years ago. There is animosity from the city people towards the country people, and there is suspicion and scorn from the country people towards the city people.

There are differences in body language you see in people who have been raised in a windswept humid city, when you compare them to those folks who were raised on the sunny plains. Self-consciousness (ie shyness) is expressed differently in these different environments. Thoughtfulness also produces different types of body language.

The thing that I find most fascinating about this cultural divide is the fact that it seems in different locations there are customary ways in which self-consciousness is expressed by a large segment of society. If anyone is at wit's end that day, she or he knows that she can go out about her business, and if she shows her shyness and confusion in a particular fashion, it will be accepted as normal for a person having a bad day, or for someone who is feeling stressed out. The odd thing is, that the customary shyness routine becomes really viewed with sincere suspicion when that person moves to the other climate. And even those who consider themselves to be social progressives are vulnerable to the prejudice towards this very foreign kind of body language. When I was growing up in a west coast city, I remember always being aware of this cloud of suspicion around people who tended to stare a little bit too long off into the distance. Where I live now in the rocky mountains, I have discovered the matching prejudice. Here, the suspicion surrounds people with faltering speech patterns, or who blink too much. These behaviors are quite normal body language within the context of the society where a person was raised. But a cloud of suspicion will follow the hapless soul everywhere he goes if he or she demonstrates these kinds of patterns of body language when living within that different society elsewhere on the continent.

These differences in body language have to do with the fact that when the humidity goes up, and the wind blows, the eyes are prompted to blink more frequently. And this leads thoughtfulness to often be expressed on the west coast by a body language of gazing off into the distance and blinking. On the plains and in the rocky mountains, where it is drier, thoughtfulness is expressed with a gaze which has a lot less eye motion.

It's definitely a culture shock to move to a place which is different from where you were raised. Changing around all of one's body language routines to match with the tastes and social expectations of a new community is no small feat. And then, of course, when you return to the place of your birth, you face suspicion if you cannot immediately shift gears back into the kind of body language which is appropriate for that other climate.