Understanding Eachother

Understanding each other

This world is full of diverse cultures and each of these cultures also has sub-cultures, each of these sub-cultures has their own customs, history and beliefs. Some of these customs may seem weird and strange to any outsiders never the less we have to learn to respect them; most of all learn to keep our own prejudices aside and keep an open mind. We have to know the same way we view their customs as being weird or different they themselves have the same perception of our own customs. With the diverse ways of traveling we have open trades of not only goods with other countries; we have sometimes adopted some of their ways as well, such as art, music, language and different types of medicines.
Language has always been the main barrier keeping people apart, without understanding linguistics there is no way we can ever learn what we need to know, it takes a lot of patience and open mind to learn each other’s way of life. Respect is the next and as important as language, show the person you will abide by the rules of the land and not disrespect their customs, some of these people would die for their belief because they believe that deeply and we must know that we are there to observe and take notes and not intervene and place our own beliefs into the mix, this could seem in many places as a form of disrespect. Food is a big deterrence because some cultures would eat some things that would turn your stomach, I’ve watched Japanese sell and eat rats in the streets, and nowhere in America would we ever consider eating a rodent. Some of the other soldiers that were with me makes obscene gestures and point and laugh at the sight of someone eating a rat, I can see the look on the peoples’ faces and I saw anger I really felt like I needed to apologize to them for what my fellow soldiers were doing. I am a product of another culture and my culture has prejudices against any other culture that is not theirs which to me is sad because we don’t give other people a chance.
Reading these two passages really open my eyes, not that they were ever closed after coming to America at an early age my parents forced my brother and I to learn the American way of life, because as they put it, the only way to succeed in this country is to learn the culture and language at the same time not to forget our own cultures.