Researching and creating my 20% project was a very interesting experience. I learned about the benefits of the internet and technology when trying to learn about other countries. I also became more aware of how uneducated Americans really are when it comes to customs and culture in foreign countries. We tend to think of our way of doing life as the right way. We forget that there are so many other ways out in this world. I am glad that I now know more about China, Estonia, and Zambia. Specifically, I learned about the types of food, clothing, and customs of each country. For example, I learned how when visiting China, people will be served different types of food depending on what region they are staying. In Zambia, poverty is so high that the main staple of people's diet is ground maize turned into a porridge. There will not be a great deal of diversity in food.
In Estonia, 75% of the people claim to be irreligious and pride themselves on it. They also consume a large amount of pork and potatoes. Someone visiting Estonia would have a variety of food to consume based on whatever was fresh during that time period.
All of this information and so much more can be seen on my website. I created this website in order to show the world all the information I learned in an easy way.
For this project, I did run into a few difficulties. It was not as easy to find all the information. I had to do some extensive research and still did not find out all of the information that I wanted to. I feel like the only way to really be able to share the information I want to with this world, I would have to go spend extensive time in each country. Luckily, in the next year I will be spending a month in each of these countries. Then I would be able to share first hand experience about the culture and customs of each of the three countries.
My entire class presented their 20% projects in a showcase during the last day of class. Our professor invited other people in her field to come and see our projects. There were more of us then there were of them. I was only able to share my project with one lady. However, she seemed to be very interested in the information and wanted to be able to continue to follow me as I leave in a few weeks to travel to these countries. Fellow student also observed my project and found the information very interesting. I believe that America as a whole is interested in foreign countries. They just need an easy way to access the information. Hopefully my website has provided a small way in which to do that.
So far I
have learned a lot about how countries can have very different customs and
practices than America.It would be easy
to go into a foreign country and accidentally offend someone because you were
unaware of a particular custom.For
example, in India, I discovered, it is not proper to wear clothing that shows
any of your legs.A tourist might not
know this and quickly become an offense while wearing clothing completely
acceptable in the United States.
During this
process, I have been documenting my information within the blog.I feel like I still have a lot more that I
need to learn.I need to narrow down my
research to 5 countries and their customs.I would like to pick specific topics such as food, clothing, and
religion.Then I want to find specific
information about these topics for each of the 5 countries.Eventually, I want to put all of this
information in lesson form using one of the tools that we have learned about in
class.
Target Audience:
I believe
that multiple groups of people can learn from my 20% project.My target audience if mainly for college aged
travelers and missionaries.I want them
to be aware of the cultures that they will be entering into in each
country.They need to know how to
function in the societies without offending the locals.Additionally, in order to be able to share
the Gospel with locals, I believe that a missionary needs to truly know the
person and their beliefs to be able to share in a way that makes sense.Missionaries and tourists need to be
sensitive to people.They cannot just go
into a culture and expect people to be just like people in America.
The
characteristics of college students are that they are very busy.They do not have time for a long lesson with
an extreme amount of details.They want
to learn the information in a quick and easy way.I feel that I need to be able to present my
findings in such a way.It should be
full of color and interactions instead of just a list of information.
Product:
I think
that I need to present my findings in an interactive way.I am not exactly sure what I could use
yet.But I would like to try to
incorporate something similar to Prezi.I want the audience to be able to see the information in a creative way
instead of just straight text on a powerpoint.I would also like in include other tools.I feel like padlet.com might be another good
way to show the information.I also
would like to include some form of video that will catch the audience’s
attention in the beginning and motivate them to participate in the learning.
Overall, I
want the information to be displayed by country.I want there to be big text and pictures that
catch the audiences ‘eyes.I want it to
be fun and interactive.I want the audience
to enjoy learning about the importance of other cultures.
After doing more research on this topic and thinking a lot about it, I have decided that I want to focus on college students and adults in their 20s. Overall, it seems that this age bracket is the one that does the most traveling, whether for recreation or business. Either way, it is important for people to be aware of the cultures that they will be traveling in to and be able to interact with the natives of the country respectfully. Also, this age group seems to be the ones that are most knowledgable about modern day technology. They will be the ones who are able to search for blogs like this one in order to discover information about the country that they will be traveling to in the future. They will know how to organize the information in a way that will be easily accessed if they need a refresher on the information while in the foreign country. Plus, young adults want information quickly. If I am able to organize what they need to know in one place on the internet, they will spend far less time searching the internet for small details. That is what I am going to be doing, and I believe that all of the necessary information can be found right here on the internet.
In order to do this, I feel that they need to be knowledgeable in 3 different areas: clothing, greetings, customs. The last topic may be a little broad for this project, but I am going to keep it until I feel otherwise. For clothing, I want to discover the kinds of clothing that are appropriate in each country I research. It is important to know in which countries is it inappropriate to show your knees or shoulders so that you do not make the mistake of wearing shorts and a tank top. If you do, it is very possible that you could be mistaken as a prostitute and get taken advantage while in the country. I do not know about you, but that definitely does not sound like something I would wish to be involved with while visiting another country. The next topic that people need to be aware of is greetings. I believe that in some countries it is forbidden to greet someone with the left hand unless you wanted to show great offensive. The left hand can be used to wipe after going to the bathroom, so people do not wish to be touched with it. Knowing simple things like that could make your stay in a foreign country so much more enjoyable and respectful. The final topic I wish to investigate is customs. I feel it is important to know the general beliefs and practices of people within a country. For example, I believe travelers should know if there is a certain time for prayer every day or if shops close early on certain days for family gatherings. Again, this topic is very broad, but I feel that information will become available once I begin searching for it.
So I've decided the first country I want to research is India. There is a lot of travel back and forth between there and the United States recently for business and recreation. I think it is a good place to start.
Clothing: While searching for appropriate clothing in India, I came across this blog from a woman who has been traveling all throughout India. Enjoying India
The author of the blog spend an entire post talking about what it is okay to wear in India. Basic customs want women to wear things that cover their knees, upper arms, shoulders, cleavage, and midriff. Obviously, western clothes do not all do that. Also, within the blog, she explains how Indians will respect you and appreciate you more if you make an effort to dress appropriately especially if you do it in clothes native to the country. The blogger explains that it may be helpful to just wait and shop once you make it to India and are able to truly get the right kind of clothes.
Greetings: It is very common to greet people by shaking hands. However, usually just men greet men and women greet women. It is not appropriate for men and women to touch because of religious beliefs. Additionally, when leaving a group, you are supposed to say goodbye to each person in the group individually. I feel that that would be a very hard one for Americans, especially myself, to remember. I am just so used to saying goodbye to a group of people as a whole.
Customs: According to this website about language, culture, customs, and etiquette in India, Indians do not really say the word "no." They do not wish to disappoint you, so they will give you the answer they think you want. This is not even considered dishonesty because it would be rude if they did not try to do what you wanted. How interesting is that! I also believe that would be very helpful for people to know when traveling. You may ask someone for directions or an item and end up in a very confusing situation. There are also a lot of dietary restrictions in India, the different religious groups do not eat certain types of meat. For example, Hindus do not eat beef, Muslims do not eat pork or drink alcohol, and Sikhs do not eat beef. Instead, they will normally serve lamb, chicken, or fish with their meals. It is very good to know this information incase you are dinning with a member from one of those religious groups. It would probably seem offensive to consume any of those forbidden items while in their presence.
Here is a video about how to conduct business in India. The business aspect is not going to be my focus in this project, but I feel that that information gained from watching this video can be applied to all kinds of interactions in India.
Well I feel that my research on India has come up with some very interesting information. I think that everything I have learned is important to know before I or anyone else travels there in the future. I am excited to continue this research. I also feel that what I am doing is important. I am making it possible to young adults to be able to learn the necessary information to thrive in foreign countries. With better relationships between Americans and foreign countries, I believe that everyone could have a better future full of respect and kindness.
When searching for a blog about cultural awareness, I came across this entry from a blog on Flat Classrooms: Transforming learning through global collaboration. It seems to have been written by several different people. "Where are We Really from: Developing Cultural Awareness in Citizens" explains the importance and process of teaching students about other cultures.
I really like how within the first paragraph it explains, "the core of cultural awareness is respecting and embracing cultural difference and valuing the cultural learning taking place." This is such a true statement. People need to learn how to respect and embrace different cultures. When they do that, they will begin to enjoy learning about other cultures. Additionally, people will notice when you are excited about learning their culture. They will probably be more willing to associate with you as well as work with you. This idea can be applied to businesses as well as my future missionary travels.
The blog post then goes on to explain the importance of understanding students's prior knowledge about particular cultures. Teachers need a starting point. They need to know what stereotypes students have in order to begin to eliminate those stereotypes. I feel like that it the same for me. I need to sit down and document the prior knowledge I have about all the countries I will be traveling to in the next year. It would not be good to enter into these countries thinking incorrect things about them.
Another aspect of the blog post that I found useful was the the section of Language and Cultural Awareness. It explains how words can have different meanings in different cultures. The authors then provide various websites that can be used as resources to learn about language differences. All of these resources just further my opinion that technology is a very important aspect in discovering more about cultures.
Finally, I really liked how the post was concluded with explaining that the whole point of cultural awareness was to better cross-cultural interactions. The world is growing so much smaller through the use of the internet. People need to be able to interact with each other positively and respectfully through its use.
How can a person use technology to become better aware of the cultures of foreign nations?
I chose this question for a couple of reasons. First of all, I am leaving in January to travel to 11 different countries and live as a missionary for a month in each one of them. A month is a long time to live in a country in which you do not know the language or the culture. It could be very easy to unknowingly offend the people around you. Therefore, I believe it is important to learn as much about each country before entering into it. Secondly, I feel that a majority of prejudices about different groups of people stem from ignorance. If people were more aware of other's cultures, they would be less likely to form incorrect assumptions that fuel the prejudices. Thirdly, by researching the cultures of countries, social issues within the countries should become evident. Then I will be more prepared for the possible forms of missions work I will be doing within each country.
The purpose of this question is to try and use technology to discover information about my 11 countries: Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, China, Thailand, Cambodia, India, and Nepal. I am not completely sure about how to go about this. Using the internet is definitely a source of technology so that is where I am going to begin my search.
I typed "using technology for cultural awareness" into the google search bar and came across this blog. The author seems to be a man teaching his students in Brazil about cultural awareness. He does this through the use of various social medias such as YouTube and Twitter. I think this is a really interesting idea so I decided to explore YouTube myself.
I searched "cultural awareness and found the following video.
It explains the importance of intercultural training in businesses. It also really emphasized the importance of knowing why people behave the way they behave in order to better be able to interact with them. I completely agree with this.
I then decided to continue my search through viewing more videos. I felt that this next video was a great representation of actual intercultural training. It is a clip from an 11Alive News broadcast about the importance of becoming aware of China's culture before heading there for the Olympics in 2008.
Overall, I feel like I am at a great start for understanding how technology can be used to better understand cultures of foreign countries.
