fredag 11. november 2016

Challenges with living in a foreign culture

Cultures around the globe differ significantly in a multitude of ways. They’ve all developed in different areas with different languages and different possibilities, laying the groundwork for a variety of lifestyles that aren’t very similar in terms of ways of thinking, comprehending and communicating.

Cultural differences are vast, which is why integrating someone into a culture that they previously haven’t had any encounters with might lead to misunderstandings. The main issue lies in understanding the norms of the new culture, as that is the first step towards integrating oneself into a new society. It is excessively easy to quite simply stick to what one is used to rather than trying to change your own view on life as a whole. The beliefs that everyone shared where you came from are suddenly unheard of in your new culture. This undeniably leads to a feeling of being lost and a feeling of discomfort, which is the biggest driving force towards forfeit (giving up on the idea of integrating into the new culture).

Direct contradictions between cultures are another issue that prevents integration. In the movie, The good lie, a character Jeremiah decides to give food to someone who really needed it. Jeremiah was from Sudan and had recently moved to The United States. He worked at a supermarket and was supposed to throw away old food and replace it with new food. However, despite direct orders from his supervisor, he gave the food to a starving woman instead. To Jeremiah, this was the ethically right thing to do. His boss, on the other hand, didn’t share the same views and culture, so his focus was on the economic aspect of it. This shows the clear contradictions between cultures that have derived from very different areas with a different basis for survival. Jeremiah was used to a culture of cooperation, where people worked together to survive. The owner of the supermarket grew up in the US in a time where food had never been scarce. His focus was on making the most money, which was considered much more essential in the US culture than the Sudanese culture.

Written by Ole and Leon

1 kommentar:

  1. Yes that is true, and even more so today. Money makes the decisions for us it seems. you paint a good picture of how difficult and can be to move from one culture to another. As the movie did.

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