Culture Clash

Culture Clash

One of the most significant culture clashes I have ever witnessed was when I went on my mission trip last year.

I went on a mission trip through Wheaton Bible to West Chicago (yeah, it’s kind of awkward to tell people that when they live in West Chicago, and also a bit awkward when you’re on a trip with a bunch of very nice kids, but they all go to Wheaton and Warrenville schools, and you go to West Chicago). We stayed in a church literally blocks from the high school and would travel every day to the Westwood Apartments by Aldi to partner with our sister church Puente del Pueblo to run a day camp for children.

The day camp was almost all Catholic Hispanic children. All us where non-denominational Christians (except for me) and we were all white, except for about 3 of us. Before we went on the trip, a man from Puente del Pueblo came in and had to explain how wary Catholics are of other religions. I found it really amusing because I was raised Catholic, and technically still am because I attend both masses at St. John, and services at Wheaton Bible. Many of my peers were really confused and kept on asking, “why?” While the man answered the questions, I thought of my parents. They very much dislike Wheaton Bible, even to this day, and I have been attending that church for 2 years. The main reason is that they don’t follow Catholic traditions, and because my parents totally believe Wheaton stereotypes. Before I went on the trip, my dad told me to look for signs of them being superior and looking down on “new Christians” When I came home from the trip, my mom, my dad, and my brother all asked how the trip was. When I said, “amazing,” they all looked really surprised and said, “really?”

But I digress. At the camp, I worked the sign up station (which was actually a bad move because I know about 3 sentences in Spanish and all the parents signing up the kids usually only spoke fluent Spanish) so I was almost always observing the kids interacting with our volunteers. The kids generally seemed quiet and shy around the volunteers. I thought it was because of the language barrier, but my Honduran friend Adam, who spoke Spanish flawlessly, still said that the kids seemed quiet and shy around him. I think they were mostly shy because they couldn’t relate to these non-Catholic white teenagers. We just came from different cultures. Some of it was small things, like many of the kids seemed confused when our volunteers would say a prayer and say amen, but wouldn’t make the sign of the cross. It was just culturally hard to relate to them.

By the end of the trip, some of the kids had opened up, but not as many as my volunteer peers would have liked.

Folkways

Folkways are commonly broken and kept in the locker room.

Today, I came out of the girl’s bathroom in the locker room to wash my hands only to discover there was no soap left in either dispenser. As a slight germaphobe, this greatly alarmed me, but I also realized that to not wash your hands is breaking a folkway. After standing there for a couple of seconds with just wet hands and puzzling over what to do, I walked back to my backpack to use my travel sized hand sanitizer (which no good germaphobe would be without) and wondered if any society thought that actually washing your hands was not to be done. I found that one third of Australian men don’t wash their hands, but I don’t know if that’s a cultural thing, or just a gross thing.

Another folkway in the locker room is to NEVER look at another person while that person is changing. Even when I’m changing by friends, we make an effort to not look at each other while switching into our gym clothes. It just kind of a common curtsey thing for privacy because no one actually really wants to change in front of a bunch of people, whether you know them or not.

I’m not sure if this would be considered a folkway or a more, but I trust the other people around me to not be taking pictures of me when they have their cell phones out. No one is supposed to have cell phones out in the locker rooms because of pictures and privacy (or so our gym teachers tell us), but everyone always does because there’s no teachers to be walking around and checking if we have them out. One day I was changing and noticed a girl standing like 8 feet away from me with her phone out, probably texting, and I realized with a jolt she could be taking a picture of me, but I disregard it a second later because it’s a social rule and I also trust members of society to not do that.  

American Symbols

America is represented by an eagle for many reasons, instead of the turkey like Benjamin Franklin wanted to be the national bird. Eagles are cunning, bright, fierce, strong, and mostly independent, just like America. The Eagle is also as free as any creature could be because they have the freedom to fly, just like America is one of the freest nations in the world.

America is definitely more a salad then a mixing pot or soup. Everything is together, but it contains its only person identify, just like everyone in America is together, but their keep their own culture. If America was a mixing pot, wouldn’t every different nationality conform and we’d all speak the same, wear the same clothes, have the same traditions and religion? The salad keeps its leafiness and the tomato keeps its seeds, but they still live together.

America is like football. It’s unique and not a lot of other countries play or follow it. America is a very unique country because not a lot of other nations have the same liberties or freedoms we have. And of course football is unique to America because we’re the only ones that call it football when the rest of the world calls it… I don’t even know what they call (rugby? Handball?), but their football is soccer to us.

Okay, I don’t know the first thing about cars, so this is the first car that came up in Google when I typed in “fastest and newest car.” The car is like America because it’s apparently very fast, just like the culture of America. We are always moving. I went with my friend Maddy to her Spain trip meeting and Mrs. Bellis said the seven times she has been to Spain, she has only ever seen one fast food drive-in place. Dinner in Spain is about connecting, while dinner in America is about getting fuel to still move as fast as we can, like how cars need fuel. We can’t run on empty. This car is apparently the newest car too, which is like America because we always want the newest thing. We are never content with what we have. 

This Obama campaign poster represents America in so many ways. The poster itself says progress, and America is all about progress. America is always trying to advance anyone possible and push the envelope of achievement.  The obvious part is as president, Obama represents America. He represents America’s choice in voting and its democracy. Another obvious part is the colors represent the America flag, which also represents America.

America = Material Culture

When I was doing the next chapter work, I found the definition to a material culture. I feel like America is more a material culture than a nonmaterial college. I think America values money and items more than ideas, knowledge, and beliefs. Even the America dream is mostly about materials. The typical America dream is to get a house with a white picket fence (maybe with a pool) a nice car, maybe a vacation house, and a nice job. All of those are not ideas, and the emphasize money and success over beliefs and knowledge. Compared to Europe’s and Asia’s education system, America is sorely lacking. I remember watching a program on tv about our high schools compared to European high schools and on the Europe students said a sentence in about 5 different languages and then said in English, “take that America.” I can’t even blame him for boasting and being a jerk about how intelligent he is, because I have never met an America high schooler that can speak 5 languages. I know people say that, “oh, well, they have to learn more languages because all their countries are close together so they’re in close contact with a lot of people that speak different languages.” This is America, the salad/soup/mixing pot of the world. I go to a school in which I can think of at least 6 different languages spoken (and not like language classes, these people that actually speak that language at home), and yet I don’t know any of them. I just wish that America was more focused on ideas, knowledge, and beliefs, instead of the next thing Apple is going to produce.