Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Distiction of Cultures
" After several months in the Middle East I had made a hobby of identiying nationality by the cut of a man's robe, the shape of his headdress, the way he said certain words." (p.90) I find it facinating and I admire Horwitz for spending the time to try to make those distictions between nationalities between their dress and speech. If two men from the Middle East were to walk by me, I would never be able to distinguish the differnce of nationality between them. For this I feel quite ashamed. Sometimes people get so wrapped up in their own countries and the fashions that are big in their country but are unaware of the common dress of the foreign countries. I believe it is very important to know these differences for you can insult someone by calling them a different nationality then what they truely are. An example would be if you called a Japenese a Korean, they would probably find that very insulting. When you are in a different country, you should know their customs and that even includes dress. I truely commend Tony Horwitz for his determination to become more aware of the other cultures that suround him. -ak
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I agree, aside from what I have learned in this book, I am completely oblivious to the fashions and customs of people from the Middle East, or most other countries. I would like to travel somewhere different and just see if I could adapt, I feel this would be interesting to see how long it would take. I wish I knew more about foreign culture in general and other people's ways to know what I am talking about when I speak about their countries. But in our society it is very rare to become well educated in such things. But, I hope that someday I can travel somewhere very far and give it a shot.-AB
After talking to people who have been to Asia or the Middle East, they say that if they were in a room with a bunch or Asians or people from the Middle East they would be able to tell their nationality. Even though to us they look very similar and it is hard to tell the difference, to them it is insulting to be called something else. I find it interesting how we don't get mad with people who would mix us up with Candians or people with a different nationality. It's definatley true that we aren't educated enough about the different countries in the Middle East or the different countries in Asia to be able to tell the difference between a Korean or a Chinese person. -rb
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