When you make assumptions...

Throughout the chapter Blind Panic, Douglas Adams is forced to confront many of the assumptions that he has within his mind. The majority of them lie within differences between his own Western customs and those of the places around the world. These disparities start in the first paragraph of the chapter when Adams talks about New Zealand. He explains how jarring it was when he first “[took] the plug out of a wash-basin in Australia and see the water spiraling down the hole the other way around. Next he explains how the numbers on a telephone are dialed anti-clockwise in New Zealand. All through the chapter he informs the reader about unusual practices of the foreign countries he visits on his trip. One main point is the calamity that occurs on the streets of China. Practically no people in China own private vehicles, so Adams sees hundreds of bicyclist weaving through buses and streets, with the incessant sound of the bicycle bell resonating in the city. He also talks about the other sound that is common to every street corner: spitting. The Chinese people spit into small “spittoons” on the corner of every street. Seeing these things first hand is a sort of rude awakening for Adams, which exposes him to things he would have never expected. The most challenging passage of the chapter is a conversation between Adams and a Japanese guide. Adams was visiting the “Gold Pavilion Temple” in Kyoto, Japan, a building originally built in the fourteenth century. When he first sees the great shape the building is in, he is skeptical of its age. He is then informed that it had in fact been burned down quite a few times in its long history. Adams asks his guide, “So how can it be the same building?”.
“It is always the same building” the guide replied. What the guide meant is that even though the building had been reconstructed many times, the intention behind it is and always was the same. Adams says he is not comfortable with that idea, as it “fought against [his] basic Western assumptions”. Western views rely heavily on materialistic value, so the burning down of a building would ruin it in essence. Adams feels that “assumptions are the things you don’t know you’re making”. In his travels things he considers staples in everyday life are contradicted on a regular basis. Adams describes this feeling as “disorienting”, and one he certainly does not enjoy. When a person’s assumptions are challenged, often times an irrational reaction can be the result. However, it may be spun in a positive light, as also many times may have a more open mind from that sort of experience.