Reflection About Moving To America

While I found our discussions of Buddhism interesting, part of the discussion I was looking forward to the most was talking to him about his experiences of traveling to America from Sri Lanka. I am also an immigrant from Sri Lanka and I moved here around 9 years ago. During our talk I wanted to see how our experiences in moving to America differed. Also I felt that during this part of the interview it was easier for me to relate to VG and to come up with questions. Before asking about America I wanted to know more about his childhood and why VG decided to move here. VG described his early childhood as a joyful yet difficult time in his life.

As a young child most my time I spend with my parents so it was a very joyful time and also I had to face a lot of difficulties as a child. One time I think I was 10 years old I got into a serious accident… My father was shot at that time but he wasn't hurt.

At the age of 13 VG decided to be a monk mainly because one of him uncles was a monk. VG talked about entering a monastery college with other monks, and eventually taking the university entrance exam and going to university to study more about Buddhism.

I took advanced level classes in Sinhalese, Buddhist culture and Buddhism. I also took Pali language, so four subjects in total. …show more content…
… So I had to adjust according to the American culture. When winter time comes I wear a coat but in Sri Lanka we don't do that. These are some of the changes but Buddha has given us permission for these adjustments. According to different cultures we have to adjust and it is not sinful. We cannot go house to house collecting food like in Sri Lanka because that culture is not familiar in this country…. For example, Tibet, it is a very cold country where they don't have vegetables so the monks there have to eat meat. If I visit there what I can eat other than