One expects to encounter and experience other cultures when traveling. We definitely anticipate this if we are going to another country. However, even within a large country like the United States we can encounter other cultures as we travel around. We may not realize that because we may not understand what culture really is.
Defining culture can be challenging. One definition I like is “the way of life for an entire society.” One of the things I like about this definition is that it doesn’t try to be too large. The word society may sound large, but it speaks to a group of like minded people. It’s not making it about a country or a nationality which is what we often think of. It speaks to much smaller people groups.
However culture is being challenged today because as the phrase goes, the world is getting smaller. People around the world can now see the same television shows, movies, and TikTok videos on the internet which reveal how other people live their lives. This awareness of others has created a greater sameness around the globe. This is not to say that there are no differences, but in some ways they have decreased.
Let’s take clothing for example. In many parts of the world western clothing now dominates the fashion world. It has reached a point where people now talk about traditional clothing when speaking of their culture because the everyday attire has become homogenized. Even in Europe where the Dutch wore clogs and the Germans wore lederhosen, you would be hard pressed to find people wearing those around town on a typical day. People would save those for special celebrations or events.
Foods that people eat on a daily basis constitute probably the closest elements to culture. I remember a friend of mine in the Dominican Republic saying if he hadn’t had his rice and beans for the day, he felt like he hadn’t eaten. So the typical home cooked meal in a given culture may still be traditional. However, there is a globalization of restaurants that makes finding foods of other cultures easy. I remember going to the Philippines, and my host taking me to a McDonalds for breakfast. He probably thought that would be familiar to me, but the truth is I had never eaten breakfast at a McDonalds before nor have I since then. Sadly to him this was an American breakfast. It had also become breakfast for some Philippinos.
While we might think of culture as the things that we can experience, it is often the underlying values that establish much of the culture for a group of people. These are harder to identify and adjust to. A great example is time. Here in the United States we generally believe in the importance of being on time, especially in the business world. Even in a social setting I feel rude if I am more than 10 minutes late.
That is not the case in other cultures. I lived in the Dominican Republic for four years, but I never figured out their relationship to time. I realized that an indicated time would seldom be the actual time. However, when to show up was a mystery. I would be invited to an event and try to figure out when to arrive. Was a half hour late appropriate, 45 minutes, or even an hour? Inevitably I would be the first person to show up. However, what mystified me was that the majority of people would show up at about the same time. They seemed to just know what that time frame was while it remained a mystery to me.
The thing about culture is that it can be a divisive or dividing point for people. Living within our own culture, we may not be aware of the fact that we even have a culture. For us things are just normal, in fact that may be the problem. We are normal in our behaviors, but it’s everyone else who is weird.
When I was teaching, we read books that featured people from other cultures. We read about a boy in the ancient Incan culture. We learned of the challenges of a Cambodian girl and followed a Chinese boy as he grew up. In these stories sometimes an element of their culture would be noted, and a student would say, “That’s so stupid.” Of course that was my cue to try to help the student understand that it wasn’t stupid to them. It was just the way they did life. It was their culture. For them it was normal.
Unfortunately when we look at the elements of one’s culture that are different from our own and declare them stupid, it is a small step to then indicate that the members of that culture are stupid. This is when things go very wrong.
Lately hearing the racist comments and attitudes that seem to pop up far too often has saddened me. It has caused me to think about a short story I read back in high school called “The Lottery.” Perhaps you read it in high school as well. If not, I would encourage you to read it. It was published in 1948 and was considered a shocking story in its time. It tells the story of a yearly gathering taking place in a town in America. This gathering was for the purpose of selecting a winner of a lottery. However, the reward for winning was not money, but death.
Why do racist remarks make me think of that story? Because I feel that in many ways birth is a lottery. I am a white male born in the United States. I had nothing to do with that. It wasn’t my choice, nor was it my decision. It just happened to me. Some would say I won the lottery. I could have been a black male born in the United States. I could have been a Chinese female or a black female born in Tanzania, but I wasn’t. Does the fact that I was a white male born in the United States make me a better human being? Absolutely not! It’s just my experience which I had nothing to do with. In the same way no one else around the world chose their birthplace, skin color, or gender. It just was. It was their place in the lottery.
My point is that racism exists because people think that somehow they are better than others when in fact they are not. We are all created by God, and he didn’t create some to be better than others. What is different is the opportunities that we have been given and the cultures that we have grown up in. And I would repeat that we had nothing to do with that placement. We can take no credit for that. We can be thankful for the opportunities we have been given, and out of gratitude for that we, who have been blessed, should seek to find ways to improve the lives of those who were not so fortunate.
This brings me back to the point of culture and travel. The value of traveling is that one indeed encounters other cultures. In that encounter we learn, we gain greater understanding, and we find commonalities. Experiencing other cultures, even if they are challenging to our own ideas, enriches our lives. They don’t diminish us.
We need to look beyond the differences that we see in the cultures and find the commonalities that unite us as human beings. Rather than seeing culture as what divides or separates us, we should view culture as the differences that makes us unique. Would we really want a world in which everyone was exactly the same? What a boring world that would be!
The theme of my blog has been “Life’s a journey. Travel often. Learn much.” This comes from my core belief that the more we learn about others, the better world we can create. I do not believe that the culture I live in is a perfect culture. I believe that I can learn from seeing cultures in other parts of the world. At the same time there are certainly things that are challenges in other cultures. As I travel and learn about those, it increases my ability to find ways to be a positive influence in the world.
As we enter the Christmas season, people often refer to the words of the angels, “Peace on earth, goodwill towards all.” However, that doesn’t happen magically just because it’s Christmas. It can happen only when each one of us chooses to make it a priority in our own lives. Do we have goodwill towards all or only those that fit inside our cultural world? It starts with us individually. Will you practice goodwill to all in the coming year no matter their culture?
If you have read previous posts, I hope that you have seen my appreciation for other cultures and experiences. If you are enjoying my blog, be sure to subscribe. It’s free. Until next week…