In “The Stranger,” Schütz describes how people that has been raised in a specific community has certain thinking patterns and their own ways in facing with problems that is almost like being written in their system and will get triggered whenever needed. As an international student studying in America, I found it very true. In China, when we go out and have dinner, we don’t ever give out tips to the servers. However, here in America, it’s like an unwritten law that everyone follows. Furthermore, going out of a restaurant without offering tips is considering very impolite and unacceptable, but in China it’s not being thought a matter at all. On the contrary, if you offer tips to the server in China, the server might ends up giving you back the tips because they think you might accidentally leave it. It’s also a common sense for Chinese people to pay the exact amount that’s written on the menu or the tag, because in China people not only don’t tip but also don’t have to pay sales tax each time they make a purchase.
Overall, there is definitely a lot of things immigrants need to adapt when they are trying to fit into a new cultural group. But as Schütz says, “if this process of inquiry succeeds, then this pattern and its elements will become to the newcomer a matter of course, an unquestionable way of life, a shelter, and a protection”.
