Culture Intro

This week we started our new unit about Culture. We started the week out by playing a card game where we weren't allowed to talk and as the winner or loser moved from table to table, the rules changed but because no one could talk, no one was able to explain it. I was the loser from my group so on the second round I had to switch tables and play with new rules. At first everything seemed normal but then when I thought I was supposed to win a round, a different person in the group took the cards. I was confused and thought I was right but there was nothing I could do about it since we couldn't speak.  That was the whole point of the activity.

We later defined three terms and I had realized that they each applied to my situation while playing the game. First, Culture Shock, this is the moment when someone sees something new or different and is surprised because it was different than what he or she was used to doing. In my case, when I thought that I won a round but someone else took my cards without hesitation. Then, Ethnocentrism, this is the idea that the practices that the person is used to is the right way, they feel that everyone doing something different from them is wrong and that they are right. When the cards were snatched by another person I felt this way. I "knew" that according to the rules that I had read on my sheet, I was playing correctly and then just assumed that the people all around me were wrong. Then lastly, Cultural Relativity, which is where one adapts to the environment around them, considering all aspects (what they believe is right and what others believe is right) and make their decision based on that. I experienced this too when I began to understand the trends that were going on in the new game and eventually started playing according to their rules.

I have experienced different cultures throughout my life but one of the most extremes was when I spent two weeks as an exchange student in Barcelona, Spain. I lived with a family that knew very little English and while I thought that that would be my biggest challenge, I was very wrong. They live very differently than I do in America. For example, their main meal of the day is lunch, not dinner. Something that was very hard for me to get used to because I was not hungry for a large meal during the middle of the day but rather at night, like I had been brought up doing. Another example is that they had a lot more freedom going out then I did at the time. When I went I was only 13 and living in Chicago where I could not always go and roam the streets at night because it just wasn't safe. In Spain though, these kids parents allowed them to be out later than I was used to and could walk from house to house as they pleased. Both of these concepts to me were weird and unusual but as the initial Culture Shock went away and my Ethnocentrism started to fade, I became more Culturally Relative to the customs that they had and started becoming more accepting of them.