Experiencing Different Cultures

Experiencing Different Cultures

Discussing different cultures with people of another country can help give you an idea of how different America is from other places. Sometimes Americans only think about America and not how other countries do things. Talking to someone of another country gave me more respect for them. You learn how different they live and it makes you appreciate their way of living.

I spoke with a person I work with. He grew up in Mexico with his two brothers and his parents. He and his family moved to Ohio when he was fifteen, about eight years ago. He told me the biggest difference in the cultures was that his family lived a lower class life in Mexico. His parents had jobs, but they did not make enough to have a great life. The reason they came to the United States was for better job opportunities. "Coming to the U.S. let us live a better life." He told me that he is not rich, because he moved to the United States, but he lives a middle class life. He had never experienced a life like this before. He experienced culture shock when moving from Mexico to the U.S, because he did not speak English. He had begun high school not knowing any English. It took him several years to know the English language decently. It was still hard to have a conversation with him; I had to listen very carefully to understand everything.

Discussing these thoughts with my group members helped me learn about new cultures and helped them out as well. One of the ladies in my group spoke about herself, because she was from Puerto Rico. She had a lot to say about the cultures. She also experienced culture shock due to the climate and the individualistic life in America. She said that the weather in Puerto Rico was tropical and i...

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...I quit. I decided that people ask that question just to be nice and for a proper greeting. It is not a question to be truthfully answered. Imagine if everyone did that, we would not get anything done in our day.

The experiences gained from each of these exercises helped me to have a better sociological view on things. I felt as if I experienced many cultures in just one exercise. I noticed that America's culture, values, and beliefs are not like any other. We live a totally different lifestyle than most people all over the world. I also noticed that American society does not make time to listen to one another. We ask questions to be polite, but not to listen. Overall, both of these exercises help me to understand cultures, one was not American culture and the other was. It was interesting to see if they related to each other at all, but I found that they did not.