The sun was going to set. In Oasis, my sister’s family and I were watching the sunset over Lake Travis with other guests. “Fabulous.” “Fantastic.” “It’s so beautiful.” I heard many people marveling at the sunset. Then, the sun disappeared, leaving an orange radiance at the horizon, which was really fascinating. I heard someone clapping his hands, and then everybody started clapping. I couldn’t help but chuckled, for I had expected it. I learned that Americans would marvel and applaud when seeing sunrise and sunset because of my experience of watching sunrise at the Grand Canyon.

That was interesting to me. In my culture, people tend to hide their emotion and feelings. We don’t expect people to be too emotional. People might even regard a man who reveals his emotion easily as a weak man. As a result, most people in my country would have kept silence under such condition. At most, someone might have said that it was beautiful in a calm manner, and others would have agreed with him by nodding. In contract, Americans showed their feeling directly. They didn’t hesitate to marvel and to applaud. Although doing that would be hard for me, I appreciated their being straight.

Why did they applaud? I don’t know. Nevertheless, I probably would clap my hands next time.