What is a culture? Although there is no an agreement about the definition of culture, people generally consider it to be the ways people eat, play, dress, drink, think, and work. When one person travels in a foreign country, the foreign culture is not necessarily completely incompatible with his or her native ways. Therefore, it is not always true to do in Rome as a Roman Does.

If one travels in a public culture, that is, where the social order, economic and other relationships between people are maintained by laws rather than by custom or kinship, it is safe for the traveler to do things in his or her own ways，because the public culture welcomes different or even conflicted opinions, people, and ways. Take New York, the big pot, as a typical case in point. In this city everybody has an angle and everyone has the right to do whatever delights him or her in case that it is not illegal.

If one travels in a folk culture, however, it is better to do in Rome as Romans do. A folk culture is a culture featured by clans, kinships, and customs. In a folk culture different ways of doing things are less welcomed. In such a culture, if one keeps his or her own ways of doing things, hardly can he or she be able to enjoy the journey. Worse, the traveler might be in the deep troubled water.

Therefore, whether one must follow the new ways of doing things and whether one must keep the native culture depend on a variety of specificconditions.