Theme 4

This topic to me is so important because communication is so valuable in every area of life. I am majoring in business so I will need to be aware and know how to communicate with a wide variety of people and cultures. Globalization has advanced so much in the recent years so there is a huge diversity of people in the workplace now. You could be working in a job with people from so many different cultures and you need to know how to communicate correctly with everyone to be successful!        

                                                                 

A good way to learn about multicultural coworkers would be to search about there culture on the internet so you can become more familiar with it. Being familiar with a variety of cultures is such a valuable tool in the world and mainly in the workplace. I am actually really looking forward to working with people from a variety of cultures so I can learn about cultures other than my own!

Intercultural Communication

In high school my school always had a big group of foreign exchanged students. Mostly the exchange students would be from either France, Germany and Sweden. My favorite thing about having these kids from other countries and cultures at our school helped me learn about the differences between our cultures. I loved learning about each and everyone of them! They also thought our accents were incredibly funny which made sense because before they came to Texas they all thought that everyone in Texas rode horses to school and wore cowboy boots. That was always entertaining! Learning to communicate cross- culturally is an extremely important thing to do so you know what your talking about when talking to someone of a different culture than you and so you don't offend anyone in the process.

While in my Cross-Cultural Psychology class we watched "The Gods Must be Crazy". The film begins in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa. It is a film that describes and give you a lot of insight  on a culture way different from my own. It starts off with man from the tribe called the Bushman who happens to come across an empty coke bottle while he was on a hunting expedition. The coke bottle is something that he had never seen or come in contact with before. When he brought it back to his tribe, everyone started fighting over it cause they found so many uses for the coke bottle such as a fire starter, cooking utensil and even a musical instrument. The tribe got so infatuated with the coke bottle that Bushman decided that there was only one option, which was to take it to the end of the earth and give it back to the gods! The movie gives you a lot of insight on Bushman tribe and culture that I never knew about before. They are a very collectivistic culture that is very involved with family. They live a very different kind of life style than western countries do.  This movie gave a great example of a clashing of cultures! It was very interesting to learn about a culture so different than mine.

                                                                

Cultural Lens

The basis of life around the world is the same for every one. We all want freedom. Everyone is seeking love, belonging and self-esteem along side the physical means of survival. The thing that makes everyone so different is the way we go about finding all of these things. People of different cultures than your own have their own specific ways of doing things just as you do. People can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that something normal and everyday to one person can be completely strange and unnatural to another culture. These thoughts and feelings are our cultural lens we wear. Everyone wears cultural lenses and sometimes are unaware of the perceptions we have of others harms relationships and how their cultural lenses can cause a great deal of misunderstandings cross-culturally. Cultural lenses’ are how we perceive and interpret the way people do things around the world, and most of the time it’s in a very negative or incorrect way than they really are. The crazy thing is that its not just you that wears the cultural lenses’.  People of all cultures around the world are guilty of wearing these lenses’. One thing I found very interesting in ‘‘What is Lens Shifting’’ was when it talked about the Western tourist and the teapot. The fact that the host was so humble and interested in showing the tourist the magic teapot was very kind and inviting. The Western tourist just jumped to the conclusion that the man was being so interested in showing them his teapot because he needed the business and money. But that was not the reason at all. The host just wanted to share a piece of his culture and tradition with the tourist, which is an awesome kind thing to do. The tourist jumped to conclusions because we live in a very money oriented culture and that’s what we are used to. Their cultural lenses got in the way of the situation so they couldn’t see that is was just an act of kindness and being nice. I enjoyed the fact that the one young man took the time to meet the host of the shop and work up a conversation with him. Relationship bonding is a very important thing, and you can really learn about people from other cultures if you just listen and open your eyes to new things. Also in the article ‘’Why Americans Don’t Travel Overseas” I understand that the United States has every type of terrain that you can think of but I think that exploring the rest of the world is an awesome thing. Yeah, it might be scary to go outside of your comfort zone and explore unknown places but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. I don’t want to be ignorant anymore, I absolutely cant wait to go outside of the country to a new and exciting place and experience a new culture other than our own first hand!

Globalization Theme 2

The textbook definition of globalization is the act of globalizing, or extending to other or all parts of the world. From what I have read about and seen is that globalization was a very important step for the world, being able to interact and integrate among people, countries and governments of different cultures and nations. Countries have been buying, selling and trading with each other for a very long time. Although globalization is not new, it has advanced tremendously over the last hundred year for the better! I also think its very interesting that even today in the current wave of globalization that we are still using similar methods to back in early 1900's. I really like what the author Thomas Friedman compared the current wave of globalization to earlier ones, "globalization is farther, faster, cheaper and deeper."I think that is very true. In todays economy there are so many opportunities for international trade and investment due adopting free-market economic systems which vastly increase their productive potential.Companies are also taking advantage of foreign markets by creating partnerships with foreign partners and moving there companies to there countries to give there company an international industry. This strategy allows both factors to benefit. Another huge factor of the new age of globalization is technology. When new technology is created it helps people connect and transfer things easily from different parts of the world. Over my lifetime I have encountered globalization in many ways. One way it has had a great advantage on our society is the advance of technology. Technology has advanced so much since the 1900's and it gives us so many more options to develop not just technologically but also economically. Another things I've noticed in my live is language. The ability to speak a diversity of languages can be both an amazing asset to have as a young individual. Especially in the foreign job market. Employers are likely to hire someone who can speak several languages rather than someone who can only speak one. The last thing is that globalization can increase the competition for already scares jobs out there. This means that young people who in most cases have little or no work experience, are made to compete for jobs with people with vast work experience. Globalization benefits this world in so many ways and I hope that it keeps advancing into bigger and better things! 

Cultural Awareness

In the world there are many different stages of cultural awareness. Most people in the world are unsure of any other culture but there own and stereotype or label anything that doesn't have to do with there own culture or beliefs. These people are put into the Parochial Stage which is the first level of awareness which states that people are aware of their own way of doing things and that there way is the only way. People in this stage ignore cultural differences altogether. The Parochial Stage is not a very good stage to be in because you are thinking very narrowly and are not open for discussion or change. I really enjoyed the article about the IceBerg Theory because it is very true and relatable. A lot of the time people only recognize a tiny portion of cultural aspects are visible to people of other cultures. They only know things such as food, language, accents, clothing, holidays, performing arts and games are some of the more obvious things people notice. Although these things are important there are so many more culturally important things people never notice about other cultures because people never take the time to learn about them. I personally like to learn about other countries values, religious beliefs and family matters to see how they relate to the things that I do and believe in. I have learned about a few cultural perceptions of Ireland and Scotland over the years. One thing I know about Ireland is the Irish River-dance, since I was little I would always enjoy watching the Irish River-Dancing on Tv, the way they would dance was fascinating to me. Another thing I love about Irish culture is St. Valentines Day. People would send unsigned valentines cards to there admirer and then the admirer would go to great lengths to find out there secret admirer was. It is a romantic and fun part of Irelands History that the United States also participates in as well. Except in our tradition we sign who we are on the card, which is a little different than the Irish and leaves a little bit of the romance and fun out of finding out who your admirer is. Valentines day is one tradition that the United States and Ireland share, which is really cool. On the other hand in Scottish culture I have always been interested in the fact that they can play the Bagpipe in amazing unison and how one important cultural piece of clothing is a kilt. I have always wanted to go to Scotland during the month of August so I can get a chance to see the Bagpipers play at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and on Glasgow Green. Another thing that has always interested me is the Scotland Highland Games. The different sports they perform in the games are very interesting to watch! The Main point of my blog is for me to become more culturally aware and able to learn about different cultures and be able to relate to them. 

The stage I want to be in is the Participatory Third Culture Stage. I want to be able to discuss my culture with people of different cultural backgrounds and share our values and hopefully create new meanings with one another. So we will be able to learn about each others culture and respect it.

My Dream Vacation!

     I am new to the blogging world but am also very excited about this new experience and the trip we are going to embark on soon. I am literally counting down the day till we go, only 172 more to go! I have been looking up pictures and information on Ireland and Scotland so I can get a little more educated about the places we will be visiting this summer. Here are a couple of the amazing places I have found so far that I would love to visit. The first is place I would love to see is Loch Ness and the Great Glen. It is just so beautiful and crazy how at one time it made Scotland be divided into two separate places. I will defiantly keep a camera in hand when Im there if I happen to catch a glimpse of the mysterious Loch Ness Monster. The second place i must see when we go to the amazing capital city of Ireland is the National Museum of Archeology which is located in Dublin. I would love to see all of the artifacts from ancient Ireland that is stored in that museum, i think it would be fascinating to experience! I cant wait to learn and write about more amazing things to see and experience in Ireland and Scotland.