Friday, February 13, 2009

values, rituals and......culture and me!!!!

Fed 12, 2009
Culture….what I have to say about culture!!!!!
“Something shared by all or almost all members of some social group”



“Something older members try to pass on to younger members”

It also differs from country to country……for example in Asian countries culture plays a very important role in everyday life…..and people give very high importance for cultural beliefs and values….where as in the European and American countries they don’t care about their cultural values and often tend to break…

Every culture has a set of moral and social values and they are modified with each generation. Some cultures or societies change faster than others, but there is a stability found in a common set of values. For example pornography in consider illegal in India and it banned to broadcast in the television. But in Europe and America it considers legal and its show in movies, television and internet.








Then we also talked about rituals in the class. Rituals are not as deep as values but they are deeply influenced by the culture. A simple example is when u greet other person Different cultures have different kinds of rituals while greeting each other Indians fold their hands as a gustier of greeting and in Arabic culture the males hug each other and they touch their nose and in Dutch culture you kiss three times on the other persons checks as a sign of greeting that person. And differ from male to female.

And if you go on to the extreme of ritual practices it recalls me an ancient ritual that was practiced in 1930 in India and not anymore. The practice by which the wife joins her bead husband in the flames and becomes sati is termed sahamarana, "dying together," also known as sahagamana wildly fallowed in ancient India.




Then we had a group discussion about “culture and me” the questions that are asked in this discussion are
What are the important elements of my culture?
After discussing we came up with different ideas because in our group we have people from India, Hong Kong, Taiwan and china. Our answers were family, festivals, values, language, friends and teachers

Which of those do I think I Can easily give up?
Some of the answers from our group were teachers, festivals, some values…….well I agree with the values u can give away some values to learn new things but I really don’t like the idea of giving up my festivals and teachers because in the Indian society festivals play a significant role…….because all the families get together for festivals and it’s the only time to bond with the other family members…..so for me festivals are very important. In India teachers are considered as second parents because we spend most of our childhood in school rather than at home. So don’t want to give up mu teachers!!!








Which do I think important to keep?
The whole group agreed on culture and family…….. Because this is what we are……..our identity comes from our culture and our families.
But when we discussed this answers with the other group members in the class……we were amazed that lot of cultures for example English and Europeans they thing that their immediate family more important than their parents family. They don’t even see each other once in a year some times so being a Indian its quit shocking to here!
So we ended up the class with a very interesting and knowledgeable discussion….


mom and me....................

Paradigm, Aristocracy and casts in india!

Jan 27, 2009

i had a very interesting week.......with "managing across cultures"

We were talking about the many aspect we started with what is paradigm? Paradigm defines as “a pattern or model” Dr. Bowerman said that we are living in a paradigm shift and people are changing as the paradigm shift changes if we go back in to the history during the early ages of humans we were just hunter and gatherers and as the time passed by we changes and slowly slowly we started to built houses rather than taking shelter on trees and bushes and then we started cultivating and the story goes one

In the 21st century we are in a different paradigm shift where we are gathering and sharing information.

Then I learned about the aristocracy it’s defined as "rule by the wealthy”. During the olden days even in India we have aristocracy. it means rule by the best, those who are born in noble families who owned land and its passes from one generation through other generation just by inheriting. When we are discussing about this topics with our group member for group discussions I shared my knowledge about aristocracy in India.

People who born in the wealth families are allowed to rule in India we have cast system where the society is divided in four casts (brahmins, kshatriyas, vaishyas and shudras)


Brahmins: teachers, scholars and priests











Kshatriyas: kings and warriors

















Vaishyas: merchants, artisans



Shudras: slaves, servants and bonded laborers




In the olden times if a person borne in kshatriyas cast can only be a king and able to rule. And is a person born in sudras all his life he will be a slave or a servant and nothing can change that


Aristocracy means the leadership is determined by the birth, family and lineage. And still in some parts of India it still exists

Sunday, February 8, 2009

different cultures......think and act different!!! and how media infulences......thinking!!

Feb 2nd, 2009

Today in our class we discussed about the different cultures and how they think….Dr. Baworman asked us everyone that if we were in a situation that you can save only one persons life among your child, wife and mother whom will you choose and why?

from my view..i will save my child......and i am sure thats what my wife and my mother wants.... because the child has more life to live, experiance , learn and develop....................and when i heard anwers from other people........for example europeans said that they will save their wife (partner)........... because during their marrage they promised to safegard each other.....and some studenst from middle east.... and some americans said they will save their mother.......because she gave them the life and nourished them...........from childood!!.....


well i guess there is no rigth and wrong answers here and that is what Dr. baworman also explained in the class...............

so what i have learened is that ..people in different cultures raise differently..and they have different ethical values an in difficult situations they apply this values to make decisions.............. thats why managing across cross cultures is very important.... in big companys and organisations........

simple example can be the movies... they effect the way that we view the world....and the way we think.........all our childhoods are brought up with movies..... most of the our desicions are influenced by the media, tele-vision......... if we go back 20 year.....when hollywood didn't dominate the world cinema....the movies what we watched is compleatly different from the movies that we are watching.....


an example of my own experiance..........
the kind of movies that i used to watch when i was a child are native movies..........with strong family values......and society values!!



















and if we talk about the 21centurey movies..............i dont see that many movies with family values......its all about war, money, lust,killing,bloodshed drugs, fantasy and sooooo on... so what i am trying to say here is that we live a world of media...where all the values have changed and we are in the verge of

lossing them....

and i guess..if we loss our vlaues.....there is no big difference betwwen indians and americans.......so i keep on asking my self is it good or bad!!! the answer is unknown...........

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

davos quiz............

Feb 03,2009,


We started our class with davos quiz!!!! Mrs. Bowerman.............gave a list of questions and ask us to answer the fallowing questions and after that she asked us to get in groups and discuss our anwers to each other......

some of the things that i learned about davos world economic forum........... are

it all started in 1971.....davos is located in switzerland...... the reason for choosingt this particular place is because of security reason....... and the founder of WEF (world economic forum) is Mr. Klaus. M. Schwad! and this year its about the economic crisis that the world had encountered since the resession of 1930..... and this forum is very special and unique because it provides an international spotlight for the leaders, policy makers from various countrys. its gives them a chance to express their views and get an international attenction.......

One good example is the ex-pakisthani president attending 2008 davios economic forum Pervez Musharraf