What originally got me thinking in terms of culture was India’s education system. Education is something that is definitely taken to the extreme in India; so much so, that it basically dominates life for anyone aged 4 to almost forever and for some children it starts as early as 3 years old.
I really do feel for some of these kids, it seems like they have no childhood. They spend 6 days a week in school, and after the school day is over, most children spend an extra 2-3 hours going to after school tuition classes. It seems like there is always some exam going on, so studying is always intense, and because of the ever so frequent exam; it becomes the default excuse for almost everything. Life is more or less built around education, and it takes the place of God for many. It is a big part of the culture.
Of course, it has paid off in some ways. There are lots of smart people here, maybe some of the smartest in the world. India’s economy is also growing rapidly, and that makes education even more important, but man is it extreme.
The example that hits closest to home for us is in the life of Srijana, one of our orphans. She is seven years old and had never attended school before, so after we took her in, we had her enrolled in kindergarten (the definition offered there doesn’t seem to match very well with reality in India). Most of the other students are much younger, 3 and 4 years old, and how much should you expect from children so young? In my western mind, I’m thinking painting, playing, and fun stuff like that; that’s kindergarten, but not here. To illustrate to you just how extreme the education system is here; they flunked our seven year old kindergartner, she’ll have to try again next year. They flunked a kindergartner!?
Along these lines…we would love to start our own school one day.