Living among the cultural Other is difficult, and it is especially difficult to do so in a foreign country. Strange language, strange food, and even stranger people. All this can be depressing to face for people who are residing abroad for the very first time. They just do not have experience in handling people who do not come from same cultural background, raised under same educational and social atmospheres. In short, such is the situation faced by the migrants from rural China who now reside in Vladivostok. But they are not the only ones faced with such difficulties.
Cultural differences exist as a mutual feeling. It cannot be established if one group feel it and another does not. The feeling of strangeness is, in fact, mutually reinforcing. As one group present a sense of distance toward another, the other is bound to replicate, whether or not, a similar kind of strangeness existed before or not. Even those who are supposed to be "home," the so-called locals who own a certain geography, can occasionally feel like strangers in their own lands when faced with presence of a foreign population that they have little historical experiences in handling.
Yet, the practicality of living side by side often ensure that different social groups remain side by side even if there are deep sense of ambiguity for doing so. Simply said, people live where they are and do what they do because the necessities of livelihood compel them to do, not because that is the most mentally comfortable situation that they find to be optimal. As Chinese traders put so straightforwardly, they came to a foreign land to make money, and everything else remains a distant second in priority. Surely, for Russians to tolerate the Chinese presence, whether residents or tourists, money plays a big factor.
It begs the question, then, just how money can affect the level and kinds of cultural interactions two different social groups can have. On one hand, the those with money can simply dominate. But that effect is rather unclear. "Those with money" can sometimes be the investors, and sometimes be the big consumers. Often the two are not the same. On the other hand, a money-based relationship may just mean that people will completely ignore any cultural differences that are in place. Culture becomes one of money. In some ways.
Interactions become one of business transaction to the point that communication and indeed, any exchange in daily lives of people in both social groups become purely a matter of exchanging money for services and products. In such a social atmosphere, it really no longer matters where cultural boundaries lie Inside of thinking whether certain cultural traits are "mine" or "yours" people will simply borrow whatever traits that are deemed to be useful for their need to continue making a good living for themselves, wherever the traits come from.
Of course, for all the talks of money being all important, people still behave in ways that are subtly protective of their own cultures. It is not rare to hear people speak in terms of "us" and "them" as two distinctive groups, bounded by distinctively different cultural traits. Minor ones are crossing over (food and language for instance) but core ones remain steadfastly held as constants (of course, some are just too obvious as markers, including skin color and nationality). Money has yet to encroach upon those core values.
It is difficult to predict the future, however. If two groups are residing close to one another and bound intimately by the fact that their very livelihood depends on continuing close relationship, then that money-based relationship can gradually overcome differences in culture, even at a very fundamental level? The story of Russia as a nation perhaps can provide a cautious "yes" to the question. It is after all a multiethnic and multicultural state where diversity come not from migration and assimilation, but conquest and integration of ethnic homelands.
The story of Russia is one of survival of different nationalities within one economic and political system imposed upon so many different peoples. It was not necessarily a matter of money but a matter of true practicality in dealing with state authorities. Different peoples of different backgrounds somehow manage to come together and recognize themselves as Russian in the course of decades. They did not think about cultural differences, they thought about survival. Perhaps differing social groups of today will go down the same path. Only time will tell.
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