An idea in the reading that I found interesting was the ideas of culture shock. We all hear about it; for those of us who have traveled, we experience it. What is interesting to me, however, is the idea that you don't have to travel very far to experience it.
We live in a fairly large (compared to the European) countries. We think of ourselves as one nation, under God (for the religious ones). If our country is attacked we all rally together and stand as a single entity. Yet there are so many different parts that make up this country that we tend to forget the different values that make us who we are.
Recently I went to New York. I was with people who I knew, however I had never been there, and it was quite a trip (no pun intended). While I knew these people were, I assumed, American, their mannerisms were completely different than what I'm used to here in the Bay Area. People open doors and say thank you for you opening them; here, people just expect you to open them. Here, people love to have their space; riding around on public transit, standing in lines, even sitting in waiting rooms, people have no qualms with being up close and personal.
Everything that I mentioned struck me as odd; several times I had to remind myself that I wasn't in another country, I was still within the US. It just goes to show that while culture can be a nationwide thing, it also varies depending where you go.
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I have not traveled outside of the country, but I have been to a few different places with the United States. I, too, have traveled to New York, and I would agree that it does seem foreign in some aspects. Even while traveling to different areas in California, and even within San Jose, I have realized cultural differences. For instance, the east side of San Jose is predominantly Latino and Asian, making it unique from the rest of the city. When my cousins came to visit me from Arizona, I took them around various places in San Jose, and they even experienced a bit of culture shock to see all of the diversity packed into such a tight area.
ReplyDeleteYou can definitely experience culture shock within and outside the United States. I took beginning French my freshman year in high school. I knew enough words to say colors, my name, food, and directions. The summer after my freshman year I went to France with my family. I was too nervous to speak French, and being that French people are "pushy and stubborn," I was forced to use my French whether I wanted to or not. This was a definite culture shock for me as well as the other cultural traditions. Living in the United States where you speak the dominate language is comforting and being thrown into a culture were you know little to none of the language is a definite culture shock!
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