It was one of those striking moments in life where you find familiarity in the inexplicable.

My professional life had started and here I was at a professional dinner full of uninhibited drinking.

Somehow, we were passing the boundaries of language and finding clarity in shared thought, even if we were just talking about beer!

I’d learned so much from traveling to familiar places that I figured I’d learn twice as much by going to a place I knew nothing about.

There were signs everywhere but none that I could read or even hope to decipher. These multi-lined symbols unhinged my familiar world.

As the silence returned, I sat back and felt the tension ease away; I hadn’t even known I was tense. A few moments passed and once again the cycling fan laced in with the clanging chains and mixed with the rumbling mower and the buzzing insects.

I looked out again at the rising moon and I let the weight of my day, my week, lift away with the rushing wind as I was blown into the depths of myself.

And so we went. And so it went. And, slowly, I began to learn: speaking in the same language does not equal communication, especially when there is a cultural divide.