Language: Reflection on self as a cultural beingI would say I am around this area, I am learning Greek currently, and in High school I took four years of Japanese.
Our language influences us greatly; here in the Midwest most of us here take for granted that English is the primarily spoken language. Other parts of the US are not like that. Such as in Texas there are whole communities that speak Spanish. In those places I know that I would totally lost, not even know how to ask anything basic. I feel that because English is so vastly commonplace in this area of the country that makes many people lazy and not even attempt to learn any other languages. I myself have a hunger to learn languages, and that has made me go out of my way to learn more, it can be seen in the fact that currently even though I am taking Greek at least once a week I try to learn another Japanese character.
I know that a difference from the American culture compared to the Japanese culture is the emphasis on being bilingual. Over here in high schools, from my own experience, foreign languages has been an optional thing; where as, in Japan they make their children learn the English language, and this learning starts during Elementary school so they almost automatically have had more experience with languages than children over here. Another thing the English language does different than other languages is the fact it doesn’t classify words into genders. Such as in the Greek language the word for church is a feminine term, compared to the English language treating it neuter.
Gender: Reflection on self as a cultural beingI would say that since I am a sensitive male in this society I can understand this better than most guys. In this culture men are suppose to be athletic, muscular, popular, and macho. I on the other hand have pretty well none of those traits. I have always been more of an unpopular bookworm. Sports never interested me either, and being sensitive was never a valuable thing when viewed culturally. The only emotion that males are suppose to show in the culture is that of anger.
Since those culturally desired qualities were not present I have been made fun of all of my life. On many occasions I have been labeled as homosexual even, just because I wasn’t as manly as everyone else. I have a friend back home that is going to school to be a nurse. He has been given a lot of hardship, just because the simple fact that he wants to help people, and to do this he is learning to be a nurse. In the US being a nurse, secretary, or jobs that are normally considered to be primarily feminine jobs is a tough road, because of the way society will look at you. Also when dealing with women, most guys out there are just sex hungry, so when a sensitive man comes along wanting to get to know them as a person, women can not believe that it is true.
So many guys that want to treat a lady right will be turned down because of the hardship women have gone through with the wrong guys. This is an area in which I am just now starting to really look more deeply into. I know that Caucasians in our society are the dominating race. Unlike minorities in this society, as a white person I had just gone with the flow never really analyzing how being white affected others, and how it gave me certain benefits. Where I grew up my small community was primarily white.
Actually there was only one minority family in my town. And where did they live? They lived in the worst part of town, the areas that most people wouldn’t have lived in at all. That family had a kid in school around my age, and I always remember everyone telling me not to hang out around him. Unfortunately, I just went along with the crowd and did not communicate with him. I think for children especially, it is important to teach them the truth about ethnicity and that just .
