Cultural Awareness Essay

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Cultural Awareness: Definition, Purpose and Benefits Cultural awareness is where one becomes open to new beliefs, cultures, and religions. It requires one to be open to new ideas and perceptions, without discrimination. Cultural awareness also requires one to understand his or her own beliefs to better learn about another culture’s differences. The purpose of cultural awareness is to understand people who are different then oneself to better interact with them. By learning a person’s culture one could also incorporate traits of another culture in his or her life. Lastly, being culturally aware is very important when learning about new cultures and beliefs.
Selection of Event or Meeting The meeting I attended was a traditional Hindu service. …show more content…

For example, growing up my childhood friend practiced the Sikh religion. And being in a highly Roman Catholic influenced area, this religion was unfamiliar to me at first. But by spending time and really getting to understand this religion, I was shown a very different way of life.
Sikhs devote much of their time praying to God and studying his word; more than the modern Christian does. Sikhs are also very involved with the Thai and Indian culture. They embrace the traditional food and drinks of their native countries. Sikhs often take part in traditional knife dancing and musical performances as well. Being around this different way of life eventually led me to getting involved with the religion. I would attend prayer services, learn traditional Indian and Thai music, and eat the cuisine.
I have also explored my own culture to better my understanding of the world. Being primarily of the German descent, I have embraced this within myself and have learned so much. By actively getting involved with the culture I have met with the German Ambassador to the United States, became semi-fluent in the language, and have taken part in numerous German oriented events around the country. By immersing myself in the culture I have begun to better understand myself and how the German people live and

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