In this assignment, you are going to experience some aspect of another culture.

In this assignment, you are going to
experience some aspect of another culture. The first step is to pick a culture
that seems quite different from your own. It should be a culture that you can
not only research, but that you can also experience some aspect of that culture
wherever you are located. The experience portion could be something as simple
as going out to eat at a restaurant that serves food from that culture or it
could be something like reading a book written by an author from that culture,
watching a movie produced by and with actors from that culture, or observing
some other form of artwork produced by someone from that culture. After
choosing the culture, you should then research that culture. Questions you
might seek to answer are the following:
What are the values of the culture in
question? For example, do they value independence and individuality or do they
focus more on the community? Do they believe in democracy or do they practice
some other form of government? Are they religious nation or more secular? Do
they believe in equality or are there groups within their culture that are
considered as second class citizens? How do you know these things? What is the
evidence that led you to give the answers you gave?
Next, you should choose some aspect of that
culture that you are going to experience. As mentioned previously, you could
eat a restaurant that serves that type of food or you could watch a movie or
observe some other art form produced by artists from that culture (this
includes reading a book written by someone from that culture).
After you have had your cultural
experience, you are now going to analyze it. The first step is to describe what
you experienced. Then, you can compare it with your own culture. In what ways
were the cultural values of that culture expressed in that experience? Is there
evidence of cultural problems or discord in what you experienced? In the
comparison with your own culture, describe the ways the two cultures are
similar and how they are different, but then when you were experiencing
something different from your own culture, how did you feel? Did you feel
awkward? Did you feel angry? Did you feel unskillful? Did you feel inspired?
Keep in mind that this comparison could involve something simply like trying to
eat with chopsticks or it could be more complex like understanding the values
expressed in a work of art.
This should be written up in the following
manner:
Introduction – this is where you will
describe the culture you are choosing. You will present the information
you found out about that culture through your research.
Cultural Experience – this will be where you
discuss the experience you had. You will describe what you did.
Analysis – this is where you will analyze
the experience with respect to the values you saw expressed through the
experience you had and how those compare with your own culture. You will
also describe how you felt as an actor from a different culture as you
were experiencing this new culture. You should also discuss how your
feelings about the experience you had affect your ability to objectively
analyze the experience. What kind of strategies did you employ to stay
objective? How hard was it to stay objective?
Conclusion – this is where you will offer
some broader interpretations about your experience. You want to more
broadly discuss the cultural values you experienced, but also you want to
more broadly discuss how even a minor culture shock could potentially
affect a researcher in the field, and how the researcher might cope with
those kinds of problems.
References cited – you
will provide a references cited page and you will cite your sources
in-text using the APA style. A minimum of 5 sources are required and they
should be scholarly (peer-reviewed) publications.