Returning to Greece

In returning to Greece, there are many things about the culture that I am looking forward to returning to, as well as learning more about. In the six weeks that I was there, I feel that I was only able to scratch the surface of Greek culture and I want to spend next semester immersing myself in it. As far as context goes, Greece is a relatively high context culture. While there are aspects of high context culture that I identify with, I am overall low context. This, I think, is mainly due to my timeliness. I prefer to always be on time. Ironically, Greece is the opposite. Time is viewed more as a loose guideline than a strict schedule to follow. For example, if an event is supposed to “start” at 7 p.m., it is likely that people will arrive around 7:30 or 8, and the event might get started around 8:30. This was very strange, and somewhat stressful, for me to get used to. Additionally, Greeks take an afternoon siesta from 2 or 3 until 5 p.m. and shops and businesses close during that time. What I came to appreciate about that aspect of culture is how they prioritize. Intentional time spent with others, or “παρέα,”  is very important to Greeks and they would rather stop and talk to friends than rush to be on time somewhere else. Eventually I came to enjoy the more laid-back lifestyle and culture. In returning to Greece, I would like to deepen my understanding of their culture, particularly in how Greeks relate to one another more personally. How they get to know one another, how they spend time together, what elements of friendship are most important to them, and how I can use that knowledge to form closer relationships while I am there. I think that knowing how to relate to the people is one of the most important skills I can learn, and will help to form friendships that will then help to learn more about culture in general by spending time with them. I tend to form friendships slowly over time, with more intentional one-on-one interactions, and I am interested to find out whether or not that is similar to Greeks. While there are definitely a lot of differences between Greek culture and the culture I am used to, I am excited to spend more time there because they had ways of doing things that I preferred, even to my own culture. Greeks are unique and interesting and I want to learn as much as I can while I am there.