What We Need To Know

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.

How Do You Teach Cultural Awareness?

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.

Beginning the Exploration

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.