cultural gap..? (5th entry, 6th week topic)

Each country, each group, each people have its own cultural background that shows differences and uniqueness that have been passed from a generation to the next ones. To elaborate, culture can be defined as the template of living, where people tend to act and have the same point of view towards certain issues because they have been shaped through the culture that has been passed to them.

Since there might be different cultural background for each group of people, it might give spaces between people whom interact. Whereas an Indonesian teenager who pursuing an undergraduate degree in other people country, there were times I see things differently compared with an individual who grew up in Singapore itself.

There are many characteristics of culture; dynamic, multifaceted, moreover culture identities are overlapping. We have to believe with the culture itself because it is a basic perceptive and the factual. Although culture within a group may change by the upbringings, but it will take times for a person to accept new culture in the mixture of the one inside oneself that has been brought by many generations above. However, the culture itself is the boundaries for the group members of what they can do and they cannot do.

As a 17 years old girl, I have been taught well about my culture. As a Chinese Indonesian, there are things that we should understand well enough because Chinese people are not the majority in Indonesia. However, my family still celebrates the Chinese New Year celebration every year, we have to obey and appreciate all the elderly where as can be seen in western culture, they do not call their aunties with aunt, but instead they call their aunts with names. For me, there are positive things and also the negative ones within every culture. For a little example on names, I call my aunts and uncles with extra ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’ before the name, it sounds appropriate in East Culture but sometimes I just called ‘aunt’ or ‘uncle’ to those that I forgot their names. It seems easier that way, and that might become disadvantage since I might not remember their names.

The hardest on culture’s attribute is cultural gap, as a student in Singapore; I found it is basically the way local people pursue the education, it pressures me a lot as they may one step ahead of being ready and understand much things better that I am. Beside that, most of the time I feel that I am different from others, because they seem more mature than I am as maybe their parents have formed them like that, to be ready and independent.

These are two common examples given to see the differences between two different cultural backgrounds. However, culture is something that cannot be said whether it is right or wrong for the reason that it will create an ethnocentrism where, we should appreciate everyone’s culture, although it may be different from ours, but it still their culture, their belief towards certain aspects of life.

Nevertheless, there are people who really see things and considerate everything they are going to do through culture they have, which called as collectivism, and there are people who see things and decide whatever they are going to do through personal perspective and through personal benefit, which is called as individualism. For my family, we are shaped as a collectivism people where we should consider about other people and we should adapt with people around. Things we do should be within the norms that people around us like our family can accept it. Even though we can decide things by our own views, but it is usually for the small issue.

Sometime we forget about our culture, we are trying to look like other people’s culture, but most of the time people will start to “kick in” when we are severely challenged about it. However, it is true because people are usually try to make them be seen differently since each people have their own culture uniqueness thus they will try to make the culture alive within themselves. This might be true, but sometime it is might also be false. It depends with the person itself after all.

So, about culture, are you going to be a collective person or individualism? Are you going to appreciate people around with their culture? Are you going to show your culture wherever you are at? Make sure your culture is keep alive, because culture should be passed from one generation to the next ones.