the rage those days

i was just having lunch alone at the kopi tiam a few blocks away just now. and i was thinking of how exploring different cultures was the rage in my earlier days. i am only twenty-one mind you. but when i went to new zealand for geography a few years ago. make that many years ago. coz that was in end '97. one of the buzzwords of that era was cultural exchange. i embraced it coz it sounded kewl. but when it came to experiencing the kiwi traditional ceremonies. i remembered how i felt a chill down my spine.

which made me wonder. what constitutes geunine cultural exachange? why do people go to great extents to experience the great unknown when it's only for a fleeting moment? why do people preach abt greater acceptance when all they did was to go there for max, let say, three weeks? can people claim to have a moral right to preach cultural homogenuity when in all realities, people still cling onto their identities sub-consciously?