the airplane ride across cultures

The cultural shock that people get when they cross boundaries is actually happening in daily life in India right now. There is this modern perspective, life enjoyment theory lifestyle and the conservative style that coexist in families. But what I realised over a lunch conversation with an uncle-friend was that at his time (when he was 24) he was confronted with the exact same confusion. At a certain age u have to make a choice, no more drinking with friends in college and doing poojas at home / a secret love outside and absolute milk face at home (im not typecasting, just giving out a few biased examples).

the biggest problem when u are out of India trying to fit into a new culture is that you are expected to change. a quick fix solution to this as mastered by many here is pretension. (i hate it when a few people i know here are eternally pretentious). A friend's job requires that he drinks (socially) in parties, he tells me that he does tell them he lived 4 years of his college life in the bar, an important lie. how well he switches between the Singaporean office mode and Raghu's friend mode amazes me (MBA skill!).

In discussing this we eventually concluded that most guys fall back to the time tested conservative life, atleast those of us. what say you?