A Little Bit of Culture in Your Life

I have to share about one of my courses I am taking this semester, because I had the neatest experience in it today!

It is an intercultural communications course, which I took as an elective because I thought it would help me to better understand some circumstances I am going to run into while traveling the world.

Ask your self the question who am I? No like seriously ask yourself that question. We are working on cultural identity projects in my class and were told to start by asking ourselves that “simple”, yet loaded question. So I sit there and stare at my paper and start writing things like; female, twenty-two years old, and family-oriented. I mean pretty standard stuff, while thinking to myself, I am really not that cool… there’s nothing really special about me. So then she asks, “think about things you left out and why?” I realize I’ve left out things like I am white, I am financially stable, I am American, I am physically and mentally capable. Why? Because these are the dominant characteristics. We are taught to know that these are “normal,” we are taught that the dominant characteristics are to be male, white, rich, Christian. I mean I wrote that I was female before I wrote that I was white.

But then, I got this crazy awesome experience…

We had English as a second language students come in for a conversational day today. I learned more than I have in any lecture I have ever had. All of the students today were from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. To be honest, I have negative connotations with this culture and the thing that shocked me the most was that they have similar implications for us. When I asked her what she thought of America before she came she said she thought it was going to be all war and guns everywhere. She was worried that she would be shot simply because of who she was. It was surprising to find out how friendly most Americans are, she said we are so warm and always smiling, which comforts her. It really put into perspective what it will be like to travel and meet people with all kinds of different views.

In todays American society we are directed to be narrow minded in cultural aspects. The girl that I had my conversation time with was shocked to find out that it is not of high importance to Americans to learn another language. She said in her country English is one of the most important things to learn in school and she wanted to be proficient enough in English so that she could teach it too. Sure I took a few Spanish courses in high school and college but until now I never really had the drive to understand why it was important to know other languages. When I told her that I wanted to get my masters to be able to teach English in another country she praised me. I don’t think that our foreign language teachers get that amount of recognition in America.

I also found out that in her country everywhere is gender separated; schools and hospitals are segregated into male and female institutions. Sure we have a few places like that here in America but it is a choice to go there, whereas there that’s just how it is. Honestly it’s pretty sad that I didn’t know this. No one ever attempted to teach me that learning about other cultures is one of the most enriching experiences you can have.

I am so excited to travel the world and learn different views like this everyday. The idea of learning new outlooks on the world is so alluring to me. Everyone should strive to expand his or her cultural outlooks everyday. And work on that “Who am I?” question.