I make a distinction between manners and etiquette - manners as the principles, which are eternal and universal, etiquette as the particular rules which are arbitrary and different in different times, different situations, different cultures.
The thing I always liked best about touring abroad was constantly running into different people, different cultures, different foods. It really pumped up my batteries... I'm constantly playing to a demographically diverse audience... one generation is driven by nostalgia, the next by curiosity. And that's why I have no plans to retire.
I've always enjoyed traveling and having experience with different cultures and different people. But it's also a wonderful thing to be able to benefit and enable research, not only in our country but around the world.
I don't even think places like the National Youth Theatre (NYT) are necessarily about wanting to be an actor when you grow up. They're about meeting people from different backgrounds and different religions and different cultures, and mixing with people that you wouldn't ordinarily meet.
If we ever start communicating with living creatures from other planets, the number one priority is, how are you going to communicate information? Even between different cultures here on Earth, you get into communication problems.
I'm glad I was faced with different cultures when I was growing up because I wasn't fazed by it. It has been a huge benefit to me; I feel comfortable wherever I go.
At the descriptive level, certainly, you would expect different cultures to develop different sorts of ethics and obviously they have; that doesn't mean that you can't think of overarching ethical principles you would want people to follow in all kinds of places.
The people have allowed me to - they've respected my choice of wanting to be like, a little, you know, a baby alchemist, and just trying to mix different cultures together and things that I think are interesting.
It's different cultures that make the world go 'round at the end of the day.
The opportunity here in the U.S. is so unique because we are so diverse, with so many different cultures living together. Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists, all with their own connections to the spiritual aspects of food and with lessons that we can learn from each other.