In chapter 3 Changez makes a comparison between Lahore and New York's buildings and urban structure.

New York similarity with Lahore makes the protagonist feel confident in the American city. He feels at home for many reasons: he hears Urdu speaking in taxis, the smell of his home country's food in a restaurant, he recognizes a song to which he had danced at his cousin's wedding. All these help him to adapt to the new culture and thus cultural shock is gradually reduced by cultural identity.

Changez puts in comparison not only the two cities but the two lifestyles as well. This is a pretext to think about the similarities and the discrepancies between American and Middle east's culture. Hamid puts in evidence the American culture and technology, shows economic power and meritocracy, the American mentality (they are proud of their work), and makes a comparison between America and Pakistan – open mind versus a strict mentality – underlining that Pakistani are strictly connected with their history and traditions.

The chapter starts with a description of spring in Lahore. And immediately afterword the narrator speaks about the first time he went to New York.

He is on a taxi and he hears Urdu been spoken by the taxi driver. And then he goes to an a café and in a way or another smells of his country (channa, samosa).

“Moving to New York felt – so unexpectedly – like home.” So right from the start, what makes his approach to New York attracted is because he finds similar elements in New York similar to his home country. And this is a very important topic because – as the narrator makes the reader understand – one feel at home almost instinctively when the approach passes through his senses. Language, eating and smells of eating are very important elements that strangely instead of making him feel very far away from home, make him feel at home.

The reader has to focus his/her attention on the strategies the narrator uses to tell readers that if you move into another country there is an initial period, that is called by sociologies ‘cultural shock’, but this ‘cultural shock’ is in a way or another gradually been used because you try to adapt to the new country and at the same time retaining part of all your cultural identity.

And this is very important because when you meet the others you have to adapt in a way, you have to learn how to stay with them and vice versa they have to learn how to stay with you.

So in a way or another from the metaphorical point of view the novel first tells about Changez’s gradual adaptation to the new context of New York and more in death to this gradual effort to adapt to his new life style. And adapting to a new life style he’s initially coming to terms with what in the new country is the norm. It is only later once you have become acquainted to the country that you can look critically at the country and see if you in a way or another accept/like or dislike their features.

“the presence, only two blocks from my East Village apartment, of a samosa- and channa-serving establishment called the Pak-Punjab Deli”

These are all hints at a Pakistan culture. ‘Channa’ is in a way or another a kind of food, it is a staple, and also is ‘samosa’: a frit pasta or baked with savoring filling.

“a song to which I had danced at my cousin’s wedding.” Another familiar elements from which you can focus on the topic of the family: in the East, in those cultures the family is something very very strong still.

“I was immediately a New Yorker.” As soon as he got into New York he felt a New Yorker more than an American. This because he found aspects there that he liked, probably he likes his life style: he started to work at the company, the company seemed to have everything at hand, the power of the group from the company, he identify with this big city where everything seemed possible. So it was an instinctive reaction.

He liked that New York was the most technological advanced city.

It's worth remembering that Changez is from Pakistan but that he had studied at Princeton and therefore he likes to have all the gadgets, all the technologies that makes his life quick and brilliant. So he saw of New York the typical impact elements.

When one feel at home it is because he/she identify partly with what he/she sees.

The 3^rd chapter makes once more understand that the story is just a pretest to reflect about the human being.

What is that makes the identification process possible or difficult?

How can someone feel at home? How difficult is it for somebody to adapt to the difference between other?

What makes the protagonist feel at home is listening his language. Language is a very important mean to make a person feel at home or to make him/her feel stranger. It is very difficult to stay with people you cannot communicate and even worst you cannot understand what they say.

When you went to a place you did not know, you tend to identify yourself with what you can interact there.

The strategy used by the narrator to discuss the main topics is to hint at the food, to tell the reader that he felt at home because he could understand some words of Urdu – so he could identify with the taxi driver –, when he listen to the short song he remember that he had listened to that song when he had been invited to a wedding of a very important relative.

So the macro function is to bring the reader into the development of the novel but by making the reader feel how Changez adapts to a new society.

But inside the macro function we have all this shades of meaning: how do someone adapt? How do someone identify? Why do somebody identify with some elements and not with others?

Which is exactly what happens to someone when he/she meets a new person. At first we have this immediate imagine of the person.

No doubts even in this chapter there is topic of the contrast: Hamid compares the two cultures – the American one and the Pakistani one.

“Often, during my stay in your country, such comparisons troubled me. In fact, they did more than trouble me: they made me resentful.”

On the one side he’s attracted by New York – he loves its technologies – but at the same time he cannot help realize the difference between New York and his country. He has resentment, he would like his country to be as technological advance as is America.

“Four thousand years ago, we, the people of the Indus River basin, had cities that were laid out on grids and boasted underground sewer, while the ancestors of those who would invade and colonize America were illiterate barbarians. Now our cities were largely unplanned, unsanitary affairs, and America had universities with individual endowments greater than our national budget for education. To be reminded of this vast disparity was, for me, to be ashamed.”

He feels resentful towards his country because it wasn’t able keep and exploit their skills.