Cultural Awareness

      

    When we first meet someone what is the first few things we tend to notice? Their gender perhaps or the way they dress. Or perhaps the way they speak. it often the things that we are not use to that we are the most drawn towards. That is just how we work. repeated exposure to the same stimulus has a tendency to dull our senses. This extends out of just personal preferences and out towards the certain cultures in general. For example, the tipping culture is not something shared by all countries in fact a lot of people find this action weird.

    This is fine however as this the natural reaction to things. However, reactions to these changes depending on the circumstances. For example, a foreigner who has never tipped ever in their life comes to America and sees that tip jar. what would be the most natural response for the situation? The odd adage goes "When in rome" but is that really the case? i have seen plenty of people who refuse the custom despite being in America out of the fact that it is just not custom of their own people nor do they believe in it. Then we have the opposite of that where a foreigner either out of the fear of standing out or being so eager to indulge in the culture that they would be very anal about the process. This really demonstrates just how tough cultural awareness. To be cultural aware is to be able let go a part of yourself as well as be ignorant about other's culture. The best way i can describe it is with the game below.

    What most people tend to miss is that culture constantly changing and truthfully it can be so fickle that one person may be doing something on the left of you but the person to the right of you may be something completely different. You would wreck your brain to figure which is right but to only realize both is. And just like minesweeper sometime all the number adds up and you can tell which is the mine and which is not. other times the clues are just not enough, and you have to flip a coin. 

    lastly there is the last group of people who have no idea what cultural awareness is. They free spirit and go as they please. The is the same group of people who would inject their own opinion on to others as well freely do whatever they like the most. They don't have a urge to fit in rather want to stand out as much as possible. In a sense that are probably the most idealize version of what sharing culture is like as they avoid the headache of needing to research what they are doing or the culture they are interacting with. This of course comes with it own share of problems. because they don't bother hiding themselves that can't dig deeper than just surface level comprehension of many cultures. For that i feel like certain thing can be missed and most thing are regarded as simply a fun time i experienced at a time.