It’s easy to overestimate the exoticness of a foreign culture

“Writers are often misled by the exoticness of foreign places. Their perceptions are distorted by it. As a result, they don’t consider the people they meet there as truly human in an everyday sense that they would ascribe to people ‘back home.’ So when I’m reporting an international story I do my best to strip away the exotic veneer of the place in order to write about my characters in a fashion that is recognizable in any context. Then, once I’ve established their everyday humanity, I can get at the truly exotic dimension of the story. There is a real tension. On one hand we overestimate the exoticness of a foreign culture. One the other hand, we fail to grasp the profound differences between cultures — differences which are sometimes so alienating that two people from different cultures can’t really see each other at first. So I try to strip away those superficial differences, the obvious cultural things, and render the character recognizable, human, and sympathetic on his own terms. Once I’ve done that I can explore the kinds of differences that are unique to him.”
–Lawrence Wright, quoted in The New New Journalism (2005)