participative reciprocity...

my take on this is that, while we try to learn and incorporate the local culture by not only observing their ways of life (which should be done, living as we are over here), we also try and read their literature to understand them better...
recently, i read Naguib Mahfouz's Palace of Desire...it depicts Egyptian culture so vividly that i felt like discussing Mahfouz with some Egyptian colleagues... in fact, one of the characters in the book was so much like a colleague of mine... and when i said so, he agreed whole heartedly...
but will they bother to read Tagore's Gitanjali? the parallels are clear... both are Nobel Laureates in Literature...
i have my doubts... we are far more accommodative, far more assimilative... that is what we have been taught and that is what we believe... whether or not others reciprocate...