Culture

Been thinking alot about culture lately and how we perceive it and interact with each other in the midst of it.  I had a talk with a friend of mine who was getting frustrated by feeling like others were only interested in her culture (she's Mexican) when they needed logistical information but wanted to ignore it during social settings where they were interacting with other Mexican people as part of a project.  Another instance we were watching a native American duo who wanted to help contextualize Christianity for other native Americans, mostly because Europeans had gotten it so wrong the first time around.  It's just made me think that as we seek to be more multi-cultural in our society, we still have a lot to learn.  In my friend's case, only learning about a place when it's convenient for us seems to miss the point that engaging with others on multiple levels is important.  In the case of the duo, we have to let people be who they are as themselves without dictating or telling them how they should act or behave.  This weekend I was talking with another woman I know from Germany and she was telling me how she's having to confront that people really don't understand how her culture deals with matters of respect and trust and that they don't always translate into how we think they are supposed to act.  I can't help but feel like we get it wrong on so many levels.  One because we think we know how people or places are supposed to behave and two, because we like to pigdeon-hole people into ways we think they should behave.  In a sense, there is almost this tendency to tell people what is valuable about where they come from and how they should act without really letting them do it for themselves or without really understanding what's important or valuable for them.  In essence, culture is always complicated when we want it to be generalized and it's usually best to let a person be the one who let's us in to their culture not so that we can know what it is but so that we can share and experience a little of what has influenced them the most.  I feel there is a difference, it's subtle but it makes a world of difference. 

Comments

[John H.]

Good stuff. So, you're saying 1)we assume too much about other cultures and 2)let them lead the way for us in understanding their culture. Did I get it? We have a new person at work from India originally and it's made me think about how to interact. He's a great guy, lots of fun, wants to fit in. Don't want to slow down or intensify interactions when we're all out for a beer having fun, but want to give room to hear what he thinks.

[Sabrina]

Bingo!