Anca Gooje: Carrying Culture Forward
By Anna Masseroli
Living abroad, adventurous and exciting as it can be, is no easy feat. Each of us are raised under different circumstances, countries, influenced by various cultures and mindsets. It can be a jarring experience to leave such a familiar bubble to venture into and explore new perspectives, but anyone who’s done it before is guaranteed to tell you that despite the unfamiliarity, such an experience can change your life. Being able to immerse yourself in different cultures, experience new traditions and approaches to life will most certainly change how you view the world around you even once you return home, and might even start to reshape your cultural identity like it has for Anca Gooje.
Born and raised in Romania with a childhood passion for Bharatanatyam, a form of Indian traditional dance, Anca moved away from home to hone her art in its home-country at age 22. She talks about her experience moving from Bucharest, a fast-paced city in an ex-communist country influenced equally from the east and west, to a timeless one, bursting at the seams with vibrance, organised chaos and its own rich history.
It's eye-opening to hear Anca talk about her experiences learning in a traditional Indian way. She speaks about being humbled in order to learn, and being taught without positive reinforcement (more typical in Asian cultures). Once immersed in the new culture, she integrates into a new way of life, feeling at home in Delhi and carrying forward elements of this new culture once she moves to England five years later. Her culture shock in London goes to show just how much that short period of her life in India has already moulded her identity.
Anca at a Delhi photoshoot in Delhi, 2006.
Being able to recognize the richness of your own culture, Anca points out, can sometimes happen only once an external voice points it out to you. In an era of globalization like never before, we obsess over exploration of foreign history and traditions, but have we truly learned to appreciate our own? Sometimes, living abroad gives you that intercultural competency you need to appreciate that which you’ve lived your life within, as well as the new.
For a preview of Anca's session, check out the trailer video below. For her full session, join our Intercultural Competency /DEI or Global Sustainability Member Areas here.