Accepting Culture

It is most difficult to adapt to a culture when one is forcd to live there, verses when one is only visiting. Visiting a foreign country can come as a culture shocked to many people. In most cases the culture gaps are either accepted or looked down upon, because certain people do not accept such different ways of living. It is difficult to accept a culture that an individual did not grow up in, because he or she has different views about what is socially acceptable. A custom affects the lives of each and every person differently. One’s culture is what defines who one is and how he/she lives. In the memoir Iron & Silk the author Mark Salzman describes his adventure in Hunan Province of Southern Central China, where he teaches English in the Hunan Medical College and learns martial arts. Salzman experiences a culture gap through out his visit, he encounters situations where he admires the difference and where he is also left speechless by it. Coming from America, Salzman was not exposed to any type of Asian culture except for the literature he read, and so he was shocked, surprised and stunned by the Chinese customs.

An individual may be shocked by people’s generosity from a culture, and it may also affect their perception. Salzman is shocked by how giving and open-hearted the Chinese people are. They do not accept any sort of gift without returning a gift back. Salzman comes across many people who want give him gifts and feels uncomfortable accepting them. For instance, when he hands a drawing from his notebook to an old man for the family to keep, the old man is grateful and insistences to give Salzman a boat. Salzman is shocked by how a small drawing can make one feel the need to offer a bigger gift. Salzman explains that it “w...

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...ticizing the boy. When Salzman begins to teach him, Mr. Gong’s son (who?) presses the charcoal stick too hard and breaks it. The parents become furious and criticize the boy by saying, “Look what you did! You broke it!” Salzman then tries to ease the boy by breaking his own charcoal stick. This shows that he is surprised by the parents’ lack of empathy towards their son, because they do not understand that their son is anxious. (Explain more about the Chinese’s belief about effort that leads to lack of sympathy) Furthermore, Salzman’s own cultural background affects his perceptions of Chinese people because in his country people help each other when they need to. Also, Americans do not consider suicide a crime because they are unlike the Chinese people. Americans feel sympathy toward these people who take their own lives.

Works Cited

Iront & silk by Mark Salzman