Q: With some 60 nationalities on board the average cruise ship, do the dynamics below decks reflect those of the world at large? A: Pretty much everyone leaves their own religious and political beliefs at the door- we all became citizens of Carnival Cruise Lines.
We had to, in order to get through the day.
Nearly every political rivalry in the world at large was represented; Pakistanis worked with Indians or Irish worked with English.
Major religious rivalries were represented, too, such as Christians working with Muslims.
Being crew on a cruise ship was a wonderful experience in that it was the perfect reminder that we're all human and equals.
Carnival was the great equalizer: people work well together and get along when they are fed, clothed, and housed, and when they all share a common goal, in this case to make money.
Suddenly national and racial stereotypes become wonderful fun.
For example, think of how Americans and English can easily joke about our shared past.
We waged two wars, after all, including a very brutal and bloody War of American Independence when American mobs tarred and feathered British men just doing their jobs.
And don't forget the British burned down the White House in the War of 1812.
Yet long ago both sides shifted focus to our shared heritage and common ideals.
Amazingly, I saw countless examples of Croatians or Macedonians laughing up their awful past with Turks, who dominated and suppressed their cultures for centuries.
These are nations that have radically different cultures, yet what could be a source of tension instead became a celebration of their shared history.
The stereotypes were launched in humor, not in anger.
The boat was the ultimate melting pot, and apart from the very rare culture clash, everyone got along well.
Sure, the Caribbean guys would blast American hip hop music at tremendous volume to drown out the Indians' Bollywood movies.
As the lone American waiter on Carnival's ships, I was subjected to countless barbs about our obsession with cheeseburgers and how everyone in my nation is fat.
I would simply launch back to my Filipino peers that if I subsisted on a plate of rice with a single ladle of fish-head soup, I would be petite, too.
Ships brought about a level of awareness that is impossible to achieve without traveling to a foreign place and staying there.
At home in Iowa I was always taught that I should finish my plate because there are starving people in Africa.
How many kids really believe or care? Yet on Carnival Conquest I met them.
Or my school lesson showing pictures of women in Indonesia being uneducated and working in rice paddies all day.
On Carnival Legend I pumped up my awareness by working with a man who slaved all day thousands of miles from home so his sister can, in fact, get out of the rice paddy and into a school.
The bottom line is that no nation truly reflects its citizens, whether a democracy or, in the case of America, a republic.
I was not personally responsible for the invasion of Iraq any more than my Saudi coworkers were responsible for 9/11.
We all know this at sea because we are living and working with each other.
No one is 'over there, and different than us'.
This is the greatest thing I brought back from my four years working on cruise ships.