Culturally Speaking
I was reading a post from Tarot (you can find her blog link on the right side) about abortion and there was this news about a woman dropping 3 of her kids off a bridge. Now, I don't know if she was insane or desperate or whatever but I came across a line about the report that said it might be in some cultures to kill their children before commiting suicide. Great.
People have been writing off alot of differences as a difference in culture and frankly speaking, it's annoying the hell out of me. I had a professor in English once who said that people speak the English language differently because of culture. Particularly, the Chinese and Japanese because they had difficulty pronouncing the letter "r". I obligingly told her off of course, explaining with subtlety that I am Chinese and my English was perfect. She flunked me.
Culture is defined as the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. Well, it's one of the definitions anyway. It's usually derived from necessity or just plain simplicity. Take for example, the Japanese tradition of tea drinking. It's in their culture to enjoy the simplicity and complexity of it because they never really had much to do in those days and the tradition was just handed down as an art.
Take another example the tradition of the Filipino people of "mano po". It's in their culture to show their respect to their elders in this manner. What culture would teach you to pronounce "r" like "l"? That's just a matter of getting the right education. What culture would teach you to drop your kids off a bridge? Sure the Islamic fanatics kill in the name of Allah but that's a belief. In a time of oppresion and turmoil, they had to have some form of inspiration to defeat their enemies. Sadly enough, it is mostly a perversion now of how it started.
Culture is just another word to most of us but it should embody the best of what people represent, not the worst. It's so easy to just say that a person would rape and murder their own children and go "Well, it's in their culture". If that's the case, then is it in our culture as humans to act like animals? Maybe it's not a case of culture. Maybe it's just our nature.
People have been writing off alot of differences as a difference in culture and frankly speaking, it's annoying the hell out of me. I had a professor in English once who said that people speak the English language differently because of culture. Particularly, the Chinese and Japanese because they had difficulty pronouncing the letter "r". I obligingly told her off of course, explaining with subtlety that I am Chinese and my English was perfect. She flunked me.
Culture is defined as the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. Well, it's one of the definitions anyway. It's usually derived from necessity or just plain simplicity. Take for example, the Japanese tradition of tea drinking. It's in their culture to enjoy the simplicity and complexity of it because they never really had much to do in those days and the tradition was just handed down as an art.
Take another example the tradition of the Filipino people of "mano po". It's in their culture to show their respect to their elders in this manner. What culture would teach you to pronounce "r" like "l"? That's just a matter of getting the right education. What culture would teach you to drop your kids off a bridge? Sure the Islamic fanatics kill in the name of Allah but that's a belief. In a time of oppresion and turmoil, they had to have some form of inspiration to defeat their enemies. Sadly enough, it is mostly a perversion now of how it started.
Culture is just another word to most of us but it should embody the best of what people represent, not the worst. It's so easy to just say that a person would rape and murder their own children and go "Well, it's in their culture". If that's the case, then is it in our culture as humans to act like animals? Maybe it's not a case of culture. Maybe it's just our nature.
posted by edmundsyap at 7:14 PM
1 Comments:
you have a friend named Tarot? whoa! :D
Post a Comment
<< Home