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....................