For some good stuff to counteract my last post:
It rained a decent amount today! This was exciting and surprising because the rainy season is supposed to be over by now, rain at the end of May is very unusual in this part of Tanzania. I love when it rains here, mostly because it's a source of water. You see, I don't have running water in my house, so all my water has to be hauled from a tap about a three minute walk away. Well, three minutes the way there. Lugging 20 liters of water makes the way back take quite a bit more time, and really makes my hands hurt. It's not the weight so much as the fact that all the weight is pressed across my hand on the same spot, since I have to hold the buckets by the handle. Tanzanian women can carry the buckets on their heads, but I don't know how to do that, and anyway apparently it's really bad for your back long-term.
So when it rains, I can just catch the run-off from the roof, and don't have to carry water, or get someone else to carry it for me. (I either do this by paying someone or making a student do it as punishment. But finding someone to carry it is also a hassle.)
Also, of course, rain water is extremely pure (Tanzania's not developed enough to have enough pollution for any sort of smog problems, especially since I live in a rural area). Theoretically I could drink it straight without boiling it first, but since I am catching the run-off from the roof, I boil the rain water before drinking it, in case anything from my roof got into it.
But the rain water's still a lot better, because the water that comes from the tap is very hard. It's temporarily hard, which means that when I boil it, the deposits separate from the water. So a lot of yellow-white stuff settles at the bottom of the bucket, and also builds up on my water boiler. (I have this little coil I can put into a bucket that boils the water-- which I need to do now, but can't, because it requires electricity. Another reason to be annoyed by that.) Anyway, the tap water leaves a buildup on my water boiler coil that's really hard to clean off, while rain water leaves it nice and clean (and even tends to chip the buildup so that I can easily pull chunks of it off).
So the rain was a very good thing that happened today!
Also, I'm very glad I have two computers, because the other one I was using is out of charge (well, I don't let it get completely out of charge, I turn it off when it gets around 15%). Now I'm using the bigger one, whose battery doesn't last quite as long. But I still get a lot more computer use during electricity problems than if I'd been a reasonable person who doesn't take two computers with her to rural Africa! (Though by now, when I've finished this post and am about to publish it, this computer's almost out of batteries as well. Oh, well. I might actually be able to sleep soon, and if I can, it'll help me get on a reasonable schedule for Monday.)
Yesterday (or I guess, as of about 20 minutes ago, the day before yesterday) was my students' last day of finals. So next week, I'll be grading their finals (they call them “terminal examinations”) and compiling the data, as well as choosing five girls for the Girls' Empowerment Conference that will be happening in this town in late June. (Sadly, I won't be able to be there because the dates conflict with my visit to America, but I'll be doing everything I can to help organize it until I leave.) I also have to find a female teacher who will be willing to chaperone without being paid. After that, school's out until mid-July!
Oh, wow, I haven't mentioned my trip to America here on the blog yet, have I? Well, I'm going to visit my parents in the USA from mid June to early July. Trust me, nobody was more surprised by this development than I was! We made the decision mid-April, while I was at Peace Corps In-Service Training. Literally, about two days after I found out that there was even the slightest, tiniest possibility it could happen sometime in my two years here, it was decided that it would be happening in two months. I was on the phone with my mom, and I just mentioned-- I swear to the gods I wasn't even attempting to hint at anything-- that I was surprised by how many Peace Corps Volunteers visit home during their service. (As I said, I was at training, so saw and talked to a bunch of PCVs I hadn't seen since November.) And my mom was like, “Well, would you want to do that?”
To which I was like “...well, yes, of course, but isn't it just way too expensive?”
We talked a little bit, mostly theoretically, about when I could visit-- this June during school break just seemed so soon, and my parents are coming in December so it couldn't be then, so maybe for a week during spring break next year? Or maybe June next year? But that will be so near to the time that I'll end my service, it doesn't seem that worth it, does it? And so on. Then I just checked up on some plane ticket prices for this June and emailed them to my mom, just for information's sake-- I wrote in the email that I figured that there was about a 2% chance that it would actually happen. Mom emailed back to say that she'd consider it based on the flight costs, and that she hadn't even talked to Dad about it yet at all. We didn't really figure it would happen.
Ten hours later, there was an email in my inbox that said, “We think you should could come visit this June, and we're happy to pay for the plane ticket.”
And suddenly, in two months I'd be visiting America.
I'm trying not to get too excited yet, because I don't like to be really excited about something for longer than the event will actually take place-- I find that makes it more disappointing when it's over. So I'm not going to let myself get excited until about two weeks before I leave, and right now it's about three and a half weeks.
But it will be really great to see my parents and get to spend time with them. I really haven't gotten to do that, especially with Dad (I've spent a tiny bit more time with Mom, since she visited me in Korea and we went to China together). Since the beginning of January, 2009, I've only been at my parents' house for about three weeks total, and those three weeks were some of the most stressful of my life. It was right after my extremely traumatic experience in China where my everything important was stolen and I was basically trapped there until the Chinese government granted me a new temporary visa, and I missed all my flights, and had to buy new flights not only back to Korea but then back to America. And then, once I got to Korea I had a week to pack everything and run around trying to get everything wrapped up. Once I was FINALLY home in America, I had 3 weeks to prepare everything for Peace Corps, so I didn't even get that much of a chance to breathe. I was so busy and filled with anxiety that I wasn't really able to enjoy my parents' company as much as I otherwise would.
So in the past 20 months, the only time I've spent with my parents (minus the few weeks Mom was in Korea and China with me) was 3 super-stressed weeks. So this really is a pretty big deal.
I'm actually visiting home for two and a half weeks, which is a very long time for this kind of trip. It's actually more vacation days than I've earned from Peace Corps, even taking into account the three month advance that PCVs are usually allowed to take (six extra days). There are some other circumstances about my visiting, nothing major, but enough that I was able to talk to the higher-ups in Peace Corps Tanzania and they agreed to give me five months' advance instead of three.
So really I'm visiting my parents for about as long as the total time I've seen them in 21 months.
I won't lie: I'm looking forward to a bit of first-world luxury too, and picking up some things that will make life in Tanzania easier.
People have been asking if I'll come back-- apparently it's fairly common for a Peace Corps Volunteer who is visiting home to decide just not to return. I am 100% planning to return to my site at Tanzania. I've had some troubles here, but I really do like the work and my students and school. I feel like I'm actually helping my students learn math more fully, and can possibly make some of their lives genuinely better. I really like most Tanzanians as well, for that matter; they really are incredibly friendly.
Plus, if I don't return, it will seriously jeopardize my ability to achieve my future career plans. After cutting short my year in Korea and graduating college with decent but not stellar grades and no close relationships with my professors and thus no shining references, the difference between finishing my two years in Peace Corps and leaving after 7 months could be huge. Staying in America would cause so much legitimate anxiety about my life and future that I highly doubt it would seem worth it.
So yes: I am going to visit America and my parents, and then I am returning to Tanzania.
Well, there we go. A positive, happy post to go right after my rant. I guess a lot of it is about my visit to America, thus leaving Tanzania... hmm. Well, it is a hard life here sometimes, but ultimately I do feel like it's worth it.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Electricity/Neighbor Problems (mostly a frustrated rant)
There's been a problem for a while with the electricity in my house. At least once a day, and sometimes more often, the breaker for the whole house (as well as the house next door) just switches off, for no discernible reason. I've had fundis (kind of like electricians) come to the house, and they can't find any shorts in my house, so it's almost certainly my next door neighbors' house. (We share the same breaker, but I'm the only one who can control it, since it's in my house.)
The problem is, my neighbors don't really understand this concept, that it's something they've plugged in that is probably causing the problem, and my Swahili isn't good enough to explain it. Why the fundis didn't explain it to them, I cannot imagine.
Now, sometimes when the breaker switches off, I can switch it back on. But sometimes it just flips right back down and the electricity won't come back on for hours. I'll keep trying, and it will keep not working. My neighbors also have this really annoying habit of knocking on my door and asking me to turn the electricity back on, like, do you really think I haven't been trying five times an hour since it turned off?!?!?! Honestly? Do you really, honestly not understand that I am in the dark too, I would like the electricity back on too, and I try the switch as often as makes any sort of logical sense?
Today one of them insisted on barging into my house to try for himself, even though he didn't even know which switch was which. Like, this has been a problem for months, and I've been turning it back on as soon as it would work for months. You have never done this once, and you insist on coming into my house to try just in case I'm suddenly doing it wrong? Then you note to me that on the switch that actually has nothing to do with the problem, it says “On.” Yes. Thank you. I noticed that, especially since it actually literally says “On” in English. Besides, that is not the switch that matters (although I have learned a trick using that switch that sometimes works, and I try that every time I try to get the electricity back on. Any anyway, that trick is just a way of trying to get the OTHER switch to stay up).
Not to mention that according to the man who came to check the electricity, the problem is almost CERTAINLY something YOU HAVE PLUGGED IN inside your house, and if you want to solve the problem, UNPLUG YOUR APPLIANCES!! They don't even turn off their sound system when the electricity goes off. I know this because the very exact moment I manage to make it switch back on, I hear the music start up next door. Like, the instant, way too quickly for one of them to have turned it on themselves.
I try to explain the parts of this I can, but I don't know if it's my Swahili or what, but this man seems to absolutely never understand me. He insists on speaking English to me, but his English is horrible-- way worse than my Swahili-- and never makes any sense. It is beyond frustrating, because he won't even speak a word of Swahili to me, and when I speak it he just looks at me blankly. Other people understand me when I speak Swahili, so why can't he? I don't think it's possible that he doesn't speak it.
Sigh. It's been going on for several months, and usually it doesn't really bother me that much. I mean, I can understand the impulse-- they're pretty powerless in the situation (no pun intended), and if I were in their shoes, I know that I would have the urge to go and check that the person has tried the lights, even if I know that logically they probably have. Of course, at this point, when the electricity obviously keeps coming back on week after week, I'd have managed to suppress that impulse so as not to annoy my neighbor, but I can still understand why they do it.
It's still annoying that they seem to think that I don't try the electricity often to turn it back on, and it was SUPER annoying the way that man thought that I didn't know how to do it (when he didn't know) even though that's the most illogical thing ever. But I'd mostly gotten over the annoyance and just accepted the whole thing pretty calmly. Usually I don't care much.
It's just that right now, the electricity still won't come back on, even though it's been at least seven hours. The batteries on my head lamp are running low-- rechargeable batteries lose their charge super quickly, did you know that? Even if you're not using them. If you charge your rechargeable batteries all the way up, and then a month later put them into a flashlight, they will not work at all. They only work, like, right after you charge them. So I basically have no source of light except this really weak (and getting weaker) headlamp. I've searched all over my house for batteries that might work in some sort of light source, and now have one other thing sort of going, but it's also really dim. So I'm really just annoyed as hell right now.
Normally I'd just go to bed in this situation, but since I've had some trouble sleeping the past few days, my sleep schedule is all out of whack, and I woke up at like 5 pm today. I wouldn't be able to fall asleep if I went to bed now, and my only sleep med-- Benedryl-- takes at least two hours to make me drowsy.
I've also talked to my school several times, and they did send those fundis to my house twice, but I've kept asking because the problem hasn't stopped, and they haven't done anything else.
Really, it's my neighbors' time to take over trying to fix things at this point, since it's been established that there's no short in my house. But they just WON'T DO IT! I don't get why they don't take some action themselves-- what would they have done seven months ago, when nobody lived in my house? Obviously they'd have called someone and tried to get it fixed.
You know, I don't even think I'm going to feel guilty at this point leaving them without electricity for three weeks when I visit America. I'm warning them that it's going to happen, and it's up to them to call people in to fix the problem before June 14. I've talked to the school like five times and gotten an “electrician” to come twice. They have done nothing at all, except come over to my house to bug me.
Sorry about this post that was almost entirely just an annoyed rant... I just really needed to get that off my chest. As I said in my post before last, "On the Nature, Criticism, and Attempt to Change Culture," sometimes you really do need to rage about stuff like this somewhere you can at least pretend someone is reading and understanding, so that when you're actually dealing with the people, you can manage to remain polite. I say all this stuff angrily here so that I can be calm and culturally sensitive when actually dealing with the neighbors.
The problem is, my neighbors don't really understand this concept, that it's something they've plugged in that is probably causing the problem, and my Swahili isn't good enough to explain it. Why the fundis didn't explain it to them, I cannot imagine.
Now, sometimes when the breaker switches off, I can switch it back on. But sometimes it just flips right back down and the electricity won't come back on for hours. I'll keep trying, and it will keep not working. My neighbors also have this really annoying habit of knocking on my door and asking me to turn the electricity back on, like, do you really think I haven't been trying five times an hour since it turned off?!?!?! Honestly? Do you really, honestly not understand that I am in the dark too, I would like the electricity back on too, and I try the switch as often as makes any sort of logical sense?
Today one of them insisted on barging into my house to try for himself, even though he didn't even know which switch was which. Like, this has been a problem for months, and I've been turning it back on as soon as it would work for months. You have never done this once, and you insist on coming into my house to try just in case I'm suddenly doing it wrong? Then you note to me that on the switch that actually has nothing to do with the problem, it says “On.” Yes. Thank you. I noticed that, especially since it actually literally says “On” in English. Besides, that is not the switch that matters (although I have learned a trick using that switch that sometimes works, and I try that every time I try to get the electricity back on. Any anyway, that trick is just a way of trying to get the OTHER switch to stay up).
Not to mention that according to the man who came to check the electricity, the problem is almost CERTAINLY something YOU HAVE PLUGGED IN inside your house, and if you want to solve the problem, UNPLUG YOUR APPLIANCES!! They don't even turn off their sound system when the electricity goes off. I know this because the very exact moment I manage to make it switch back on, I hear the music start up next door. Like, the instant, way too quickly for one of them to have turned it on themselves.
I try to explain the parts of this I can, but I don't know if it's my Swahili or what, but this man seems to absolutely never understand me. He insists on speaking English to me, but his English is horrible-- way worse than my Swahili-- and never makes any sense. It is beyond frustrating, because he won't even speak a word of Swahili to me, and when I speak it he just looks at me blankly. Other people understand me when I speak Swahili, so why can't he? I don't think it's possible that he doesn't speak it.
Sigh. It's been going on for several months, and usually it doesn't really bother me that much. I mean, I can understand the impulse-- they're pretty powerless in the situation (no pun intended), and if I were in their shoes, I know that I would have the urge to go and check that the person has tried the lights, even if I know that logically they probably have. Of course, at this point, when the electricity obviously keeps coming back on week after week, I'd have managed to suppress that impulse so as not to annoy my neighbor, but I can still understand why they do it.
It's still annoying that they seem to think that I don't try the electricity often to turn it back on, and it was SUPER annoying the way that man thought that I didn't know how to do it (when he didn't know) even though that's the most illogical thing ever. But I'd mostly gotten over the annoyance and just accepted the whole thing pretty calmly. Usually I don't care much.
It's just that right now, the electricity still won't come back on, even though it's been at least seven hours. The batteries on my head lamp are running low-- rechargeable batteries lose their charge super quickly, did you know that? Even if you're not using them. If you charge your rechargeable batteries all the way up, and then a month later put them into a flashlight, they will not work at all. They only work, like, right after you charge them. So I basically have no source of light except this really weak (and getting weaker) headlamp. I've searched all over my house for batteries that might work in some sort of light source, and now have one other thing sort of going, but it's also really dim. So I'm really just annoyed as hell right now.
Normally I'd just go to bed in this situation, but since I've had some trouble sleeping the past few days, my sleep schedule is all out of whack, and I woke up at like 5 pm today. I wouldn't be able to fall asleep if I went to bed now, and my only sleep med-- Benedryl-- takes at least two hours to make me drowsy.
I've also talked to my school several times, and they did send those fundis to my house twice, but I've kept asking because the problem hasn't stopped, and they haven't done anything else.
Really, it's my neighbors' time to take over trying to fix things at this point, since it's been established that there's no short in my house. But they just WON'T DO IT! I don't get why they don't take some action themselves-- what would they have done seven months ago, when nobody lived in my house? Obviously they'd have called someone and tried to get it fixed.
You know, I don't even think I'm going to feel guilty at this point leaving them without electricity for three weeks when I visit America. I'm warning them that it's going to happen, and it's up to them to call people in to fix the problem before June 14. I've talked to the school like five times and gotten an “electrician” to come twice. They have done nothing at all, except come over to my house to bug me.
Sorry about this post that was almost entirely just an annoyed rant... I just really needed to get that off my chest. As I said in my post before last, "On the Nature, Criticism, and Attempt to Change Culture," sometimes you really do need to rage about stuff like this somewhere you can at least pretend someone is reading and understanding, so that when you're actually dealing with the people, you can manage to remain polite. I say all this stuff angrily here so that I can be calm and culturally sensitive when actually dealing with the neighbors.
Clarification
So, first off, my mother (who, yes, should absolutely write her comments on the blog as well as in an email! Let's get a dialogue going people!) let me know that the links in my previous post didn't work. I think I've solved this problem, but if they still don't work, please tell me.
Talking to her about my post and her comments/criticisms actually really helped me clarify some thoughts that I hadn't even realized were jumbled. You may have noticed that the beginning of my post was only tangentially related to the, well, purpose of my post. Partially it was because I wanted to mention the funny International Workers' Day story, but mostly it was because the eagerness to spread American companies to other countries was a problem with my assertion that Americans/Westerners are ultra shy of the concept of changing, or even criticizing, a different culture.
What my Mom made me realize is that I was trying to lump everybody into the same group, when really, there are two. Well, okay, obviously there are way more than just two groups of people in the Western world, there's something approaching infinite, but there are two that are relevant to my argument. Even that is, of course, an oversimplification, but as this is a blog post and not a dissertation, that's just how it's gotta be. I will state that, of course, these two groups I will list are the extremes, and most people fall in a continuum somewhere in between, but verging more towards one side or the other.
Basically, there are the people who care about preserving other cultures, and there are the people who don't.
The people who care about other cultures, who are inclined to want to preserve it and see it as something important, are generally not comfortable or happy with the McDonaldization of the world. These are the people about whom I was talking in my post, but there was no real reason to have the first few paragraphs trying to rationalize why these people are okay with the corporate invasion of non-Western societies, because generally, they aren't okay with it.
The people who are spreading McDonald's or Starbucks or Seven-Eleven all over the world would probably not flinch and get uncomfortable with talk about changing those cultures. They would see nothing wrong with the idea, and thus really had very little to do with the argument in my post in the first place.
As I said, there's a continuum, and most people are somewhere in the middle, but most people also are more inclined one way or the other.
What I was really trying to get at with my last post, I guess, is that many people in the first group generally have this cognitive dissonance, these contradictory beliefs, of which they're not even aware.
Because it's the people in the first group who tend to be in groups like Amnesty International, who tend to feel outrage when they hear about atrocities happening all over the world, who tend to care when they hear about human suffering in far away places. Yet much of that human suffering is a direct result of the accepted culture in those far away places. And it's the same people, that first group, who are also inclined to hold culture up as something sacred and holy, and have a knee-jerk reaction against criticism of other cultures, let alone attempts to change them.
(Then, of course, there are people like Rachel, who commented on my last post, who appears to agree more with the second group than the first, yet cares about morality and human suffering.)
My post was really about pointing out the contradiction between the two ideals in that first group. The second group, while they're not generally the type of people with whom I usually agree or even the type of people whom I see as caring much about morality, at least appear, at first glance, to have internally coherent attitudes.
Talking to her about my post and her comments/criticisms actually really helped me clarify some thoughts that I hadn't even realized were jumbled. You may have noticed that the beginning of my post was only tangentially related to the, well, purpose of my post. Partially it was because I wanted to mention the funny International Workers' Day story, but mostly it was because the eagerness to spread American companies to other countries was a problem with my assertion that Americans/Westerners are ultra shy of the concept of changing, or even criticizing, a different culture.
What my Mom made me realize is that I was trying to lump everybody into the same group, when really, there are two. Well, okay, obviously there are way more than just two groups of people in the Western world, there's something approaching infinite, but there are two that are relevant to my argument. Even that is, of course, an oversimplification, but as this is a blog post and not a dissertation, that's just how it's gotta be. I will state that, of course, these two groups I will list are the extremes, and most people fall in a continuum somewhere in between, but verging more towards one side or the other.
Basically, there are the people who care about preserving other cultures, and there are the people who don't.
The people who care about other cultures, who are inclined to want to preserve it and see it as something important, are generally not comfortable or happy with the McDonaldization of the world. These are the people about whom I was talking in my post, but there was no real reason to have the first few paragraphs trying to rationalize why these people are okay with the corporate invasion of non-Western societies, because generally, they aren't okay with it.
The people who are spreading McDonald's or Starbucks or Seven-Eleven all over the world would probably not flinch and get uncomfortable with talk about changing those cultures. They would see nothing wrong with the idea, and thus really had very little to do with the argument in my post in the first place.
As I said, there's a continuum, and most people are somewhere in the middle, but most people also are more inclined one way or the other.
What I was really trying to get at with my last post, I guess, is that many people in the first group generally have this cognitive dissonance, these contradictory beliefs, of which they're not even aware.
Because it's the people in the first group who tend to be in groups like Amnesty International, who tend to feel outrage when they hear about atrocities happening all over the world, who tend to care when they hear about human suffering in far away places. Yet much of that human suffering is a direct result of the accepted culture in those far away places. And it's the same people, that first group, who are also inclined to hold culture up as something sacred and holy, and have a knee-jerk reaction against criticism of other cultures, let alone attempts to change them.
(Then, of course, there are people like Rachel, who commented on my last post, who appears to agree more with the second group than the first, yet cares about morality and human suffering.)
My post was really about pointing out the contradiction between the two ideals in that first group. The second group, while they're not generally the type of people with whom I usually agree or even the type of people whom I see as caring much about morality, at least appear, at first glance, to have internally coherent attitudes.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
On the Nature, Criticism, and Attempts to Change Culture
Is culture sacred?
Nowadays, in these 'enlightened' times, people get pretty spooked at the idea of interfering with a different culture. Sure, American capitalism, McDonalds and Starbucks and 7-Eleven and a hundred other corporations I could name are spreading all over the world. American movies and media also spread throughout the world. Most of those things actually don't exist here in Tanzania, Africa, but they've still spread far and wide, and people's levels of comfort with that do vary. But at least, we can say, the people in those other cultures are supporting it, to a certain extent. If at any given location, McDonalds didn't sell any burgers, or Baskin Robbins didn't sell any ice cream, you can sure as hell bet that they wouldn't stay for very long. None of these businesses would stay somewhere they didn't make money, so the locals must be at least implicitly supporting their existence.
(I've recently been told by the British woman who lives in my town here in Tanzania that the British have a very interesting way of celebrating International Workers' Day. They very reasonably celebrate it the first Monday after May 1st, the way we in America treat things like Presidents' Day and Labor Day, so that they can have a holiday from work or school.
(Anyway, that first Monday after May 1st, they celebrate International Workers' Day by smashing the windows of all the McDonalds and Starbucks in protest of American capitalism. The other 364 days of the year they're quite happy to buy delicious but over-priced coffee and kind of gross but low-priced burgers, but on International Workers' Day, they smash up all the windows. We imagine that all the McDonaldses and Starbuckses in the UK must just figure the cost of replacing windows at the beginning of each May into their budget.)
So that's one thing. As I said, some people aren't comfortable with American capitalism spreading all over the world, but most of us don't lose that much sleep over it. It's interfering with a culture, sure, but we can tell ourselves that it's at least, you know, in a collateral damage sort of way. (Because that's... comforting.) And a lot of the people who really care are more angry about the corporation, economic angle than the cultural.
It's an issue in itself, to be sure. But while it's the issue that people are most aware of, it's actually not the issue that I really want to discuss in this blog post. I want to discuss a more direct focus on culture, what it means, and what it doesn't.
Basically, I want to discuss my first line: Is culture sacred?
People tend to be really uncomfortable with the idea of judging a culture (especially a non-Western culture). The idea of actually purposefully trying to CHANGE a culture... now there's something that will get people up in arms, or super uncomfortable, or in some incarnation of “Eep!!,” “Danger, danger!,” and so on. In some ways, fair enough. Europe has certainly had a history of going in and changing cultures and, in the process, causing damage (if they didn't, America would be a very, very, very different place), and once America was so largely settled with Europeans, we followed suit. There are a lot of mistakes in the past that involved destroying culture that we don't want to repeat-- and well we shouldn't.
But this guilt, and the lessons we've taken away from those mistakes (often rightfully), have led a lot of people to consider all aspects of other cultures to be completely untouchable, something about which we have no right to any sort of opinion.
I mentioned a while back that a friend of mine decided to go teach English in Korea, with the idea that we'd be there together. But then, thanks to an invitation from Peace Corps that arrived many months before I expected, she ended up arriving in Korea the same week I left.
Well, sadly, there were a lot of aspects of Korea that she didn't like (and as promised in the post I just linked, I do feel super guilty). So on her blog, Curiosity Killed the Kat, she mentioned some of the things that she didn't like (as well as the ones she did). Well, apparently her posts criticizing aspects of Korean culture angered a Canadian teaching in Korea, because about a month ago, she posted this entry: Friendly Fire: Waygook-on-Waygook Flaming, or Why I Talk About the Bad Stuff.
For those of you who don't feel like clicking links to other blogs (though she is a good writer and I highly recommend hers), basically, this man sent her a flame about what she said. I'm going to copy and paste a part of the flame, because a lot of what I have to say directly references it:
'It's your fault for thinking it is “wrong.”'
It's a common attitude that Westerners have. While South Korea is a first world country and ought to be way, way past the point where we're tempted by the Noble Savage concept, I'd be lying if I said I didn't think it played a part in this kind of thinking.
Even just this little block of text says a whole lot of things. For one, that it's culturally insensitive to disapprove of any aspect of a culture that isn't your own. Look at the example he references: 'female teachers get harassed by their superiors.' That's on his list of things of which it's culturally inappropriate to disapprove? Sexual harassment? Really?
I knew a girl in Korea who worked at a hagwon, and yeah, they didn't pay her for months. Then, after not paying her for months, they suddenly fired her right before the end of her year, so that they wouldn't have to pay for her plane ticket back to America. This after not having paid her, so she certainly didn't have the money to get home herself. She had $100 to her name, nowhere to live, and no way to get home.
It's culturally insensitive to disapprove of this treatment of a person-- a human being? The mere fact that they're from a different culture gives them the license to treat people like shit?
His comment is disturbing enough to me. What I don't think he realizes-- what I don't think people realize when they say things like this-- is what happens when you follow that thought through to its logical conclusion.
These are the relevant premises that I see stated, explicitly or implicitly, in that comment:
Since Curiosity Killed the Kat is pretty clearly aimed at Westerners, the Flamer clearly thinks that 2b is wrong, but I'm going to want to discuss 2a as well, and thought I should make a distinction. I'm going to take a leap and say that that if someone things that 1 and 2b are bad, then they'd say 2a is bad as well.
So let's take those premises, shall we? Let's start with Premise 1. As I've said, South Korea is a first-world country. But if we're following these premises to their logical conclusion, we can bring in other cultures as well.
As you know, I'm a teacher in Tanzania. I have students who are the victims of female genital mutilation. That's the culture. That's how it is here. So it's our fault for thinking that it's wrong?
(True, Tanzania is trying to discourage this practice. Many Tanzanians have realized that it's not good, and they're trying to get rid of it. So it's Tanzanians changing their own practices; that's not interfering with another culture! Not quite. Whether they're trying to discourage it or not, it is at this point still a part of the culture. By Premise 1, it would still be my fault for thinking it's “wrong,” especially considering that Korean women are certainly trying to get their superiors to stop harassing them.)
In the Middle East (and parts of Africa, for that matter), women are stoned to death for adultery. Even if they were raped, and it was totally against their will, they have still been called whores and killed. That's the culture. That's how it is there. So it's our fault for thinking that it's wrong?
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in Burma, and I'm sure in many other places, rape is used as a military weapon against their own citizens. That's the culture. That's how it is there. So it's our fault for thinking that it's wrong?
In Somalia, thieves' hands are cut off at the first offense. Many of these thieves are poor and have no other way to eat, and don't have the skills to get a job. (Without hands, that will be a whole lot harder.) That's the culture. That's how it is there. So it's our fault for thinking that it's wrong?
I'm sorry. I couldn't keep up the quotation marks around the word “wrong” when I was listing those aspects of culture. We all know the quotation marks are there to negate the word, to belittle the sentiment behind it. And I do believe that each of those things are wrong, with all of my heart.
If you follow what he's said to its logical conclusion, it's not only disgusting, but one of the most destructive attitudes it is possible to have and, frankly, a menace to the attempt to improve the world. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I have a huge commitment to improving the world, and feel insulted not only on behalf of myself and my colleagues (who have enough to worry about trying to help Africa without having to deal with this kind of shit from people who should know better), but much, much more importantly, on behalf of everyone in the world who is being oppressed, beaten, abused, or neglected because it's "culturally acceptable" where they happened to have been born.
There is a reason that the international community has written “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” There is a reason they called it “universal,” and that is because too often people's fundamental rights are trampled, ignored, deemed unimportant, etc, because “that's the culture there.” That's why the international community has declared them UNIVERSAL. That means that it applies to all countries on the planet, and that “it's the culture” is not an excuse to violate a person's fundamental rights as human beings.
I've now taught in three cultures that are very different from my own. If another teacher harassed me, I WOULD NOT FUCKING stand for it. No, that is NOT okay. The fact that Flamer used that as something that is okay because "that's how it is here" is disgusting, misogynist, and downright sexist. (Incidentally, the "right to just and favorable conditions of work" is enshrined in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 23, as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, articles 6 and 7. Obviously, women being harassed by a superior would violate this.)
This man should understand that by saying what he has said, he is by direct logical continuation saying that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be considered void.
–
When I first arrived in Tanzania, fresh off the plane, bright-faced Peace Corps Trainee, I hadn't really thought about a lot of this stuff. I mean, when I was younger I was involved in Amnesty International, so I knew some pretty horrible things happened in parts of the world. But even just 6 or 7 months ago, I flinched at the idea of trying to change a culture. That's not what I'm here to do! (I'd have said.) They invited us! (True.) We're just teaching students math and science... helping people with income generation projects, making jam or clothes or wine or whatever else we can think of to help them make a living... teach them how to eat healthily, how to put together a nutritious meal that gives a family all the nutrients they need... trying to introduce positive reinforcement in schools and cut down on corporal punishment... running girls' empowerment programs, so that girls can go out into their community and take some power for themselves... teaching new methods of farming and gardening that take less labor and yield more food...
But what is education, what is a person's method of making a living, what is the kind of food they eat and how they cook it, what is how teachers and parents guide and discipline their students and children, what is the relationship between the genders and whether girls and women stand up for themselves, what is the method by which people grow their crops...
...but aspects of culture?
All of those things make up a culture, and some of them are a very fundamental part of culture. All of those things we Peace Corps Volunteers are attempting to change.
My experience as an aid worker has really taught me that we have to strike a balance. We don't want to destroy a culture, there are many important aspects that it would be a tragedy if they were lost. The world is just a complex place, and change is such a loaded concept. I won't say it's perfect, but Peace Corps has a method we try to use.
We Peace Corps Volunteers work with what we call “Counterparts.” A counterpart is basically just a friend of yours, who is a native of the country you were placed (HCNs-- “Host Country Nationals”). This is where we get into my Premise 2a: talking about what you see as wrong with a culture to a member of that culture. What makes this counterpart more than just a friend-- and you can have more than one-- is that whenever we do any of these projects, we do it with a counterpart. We don't jump in here, trying to impose our views on the locals. We collaborate with the citizens of the country, agree on a goal, on a positive change, and work towards it together.
While Flamer has the concept all wrong, cultural sensitivity is very real, very important, and something I must practice in order to live day-to-day here. It can be really difficult, because it's just not second nature yet-- sometimes I have to think beforehand about the right way to say that I disapprove of something. No matter how hard it can be, though, it's necessary.
If we never talked to any Tanzanians about the problems here, the things that we and they would both like to change-- well then, it would be pretty impossible to start any projects to change them, wouldn't it?
I have no problem telling the other teachers at my school that I disapprove of hitting the students. Cultural sensitivity isn't never criticizing anything about a culture-- it's about saying it in a way that doesn't insult people. It's exactly the way being polite isn't about never saying anything unpleasant-- sometimes you have to. It's about saying it in a way that doesn't insult people. Cultural sensitivity is really just knowing how to be polite within the framework of another society, and practicing it as best you can. As far as 2a goes, if you believe you can never, ever tell the friends you've made in a new country the parts of the culture that bother you... they're never going to become very good friends. We become close to people by being honest—which does not mean insensitive—about what we're thinking, feeling, and experiencing.
All I have to say about 2b is that if you can't talk about the things that are bothering you to people who are coming from the same place culturally and can really understand how you're feeling, you're going to explode. At least, from a Western (especially American-- and for that matter, Canadian) perspective. Westerners, and this is unlike many other cultures, believe we need to let our feelings out, and that it's healthy. Because that's how we've been raised, for us at least, it really is healthy. Sometimes you have to vent. Living in a really different environment is hard, and getting it out of your system somewhere people will understand is sometimes just the only way you're going to be able to get up the next morning and have the patience and strength to practice that cultural sensitivity.
There is absolutely nothing wrong-- and a lot of things right-- with changing aspects of a country's culture (in, again, a cooperative, collaborative effort with the people whose culture it will affect) in order to improve the quality of life of its citizens. Again, in Tanzania, as well as in a lot of places, education isn't usually a priority, especially for girls. That's the culture. But the only way that Tanzania is going to progress as a country, the only way that they will be able to work towards and attain a better life, is by making education a priority. By changing the culture. Because if they don't change some aspects of their culture, they will remain stuck in poverty.
As far as African countries go, Tanzania is not exactly the biggest violator of human rights. Generally the opposite, in the scheme of African nations. There are so, so many more horrible, cruel, torturous, INHUMAN practices throughout the world that are "part of the culture." Anyone who thinks that just by virtue of being part of the culture, we have no right to call an atrocious act wrong... well... that person is implicitly condoning all the things I mentioned above (female genital mutilation, stoning women to death for being raped, rape as a military weapon, cutting off thieves' hands), as well as so many more things, hundreds if not thousands, that I could list.
So... no. My answer is no. Culture is not this sacred, holy, untouchable thing. Culture is important, and there are parts of it that are well, well worth preserving. (There's a reason that the international community has also declared many World Cultural Heritage Sites.) There are many things about Korean culture and about Tanzanian culture that I really like, and it would be a true shame if those things were changed or lost. I don't believe that all the countries in the world should become just like each other, that we should all just be homogeneous.
Every culture has aspects that are good and aspects that are bad, but when we get right down to it, we are all human beings. I'm not denying culture shapes a person in an enormous way. It affects perception hugely-- two people from two different cultures can see the same situation so entirely differently that it's amazing. Yet, all of us have our humanity in common, and I truly believe that there are things-- like the rights listed in the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights-- to which every human is entitled. That every human being deserves.
Keep the good. Heck, keep the neutral too. But things that hurt people, damage them, deprive them of their health and their dignity and their safety, of their ability to, well, I'll be American here, to pursue happiness... those are also a part of culture. They are a part of culture we have every right to not only criticize, to not only call “wrong,” but to do our best to eradicate from the face of this planet.
Nowadays, in these 'enlightened' times, people get pretty spooked at the idea of interfering with a different culture. Sure, American capitalism, McDonalds and Starbucks and 7-Eleven and a hundred other corporations I could name are spreading all over the world. American movies and media also spread throughout the world. Most of those things actually don't exist here in Tanzania, Africa, but they've still spread far and wide, and people's levels of comfort with that do vary. But at least, we can say, the people in those other cultures are supporting it, to a certain extent. If at any given location, McDonalds didn't sell any burgers, or Baskin Robbins didn't sell any ice cream, you can sure as hell bet that they wouldn't stay for very long. None of these businesses would stay somewhere they didn't make money, so the locals must be at least implicitly supporting their existence.
(I've recently been told by the British woman who lives in my town here in Tanzania that the British have a very interesting way of celebrating International Workers' Day. They very reasonably celebrate it the first Monday after May 1st, the way we in America treat things like Presidents' Day and Labor Day, so that they can have a holiday from work or school.
(Anyway, that first Monday after May 1st, they celebrate International Workers' Day by smashing the windows of all the McDonalds and Starbucks in protest of American capitalism. The other 364 days of the year they're quite happy to buy delicious but over-priced coffee and kind of gross but low-priced burgers, but on International Workers' Day, they smash up all the windows. We imagine that all the McDonaldses and Starbuckses in the UK must just figure the cost of replacing windows at the beginning of each May into their budget.)
So that's one thing. As I said, some people aren't comfortable with American capitalism spreading all over the world, but most of us don't lose that much sleep over it. It's interfering with a culture, sure, but we can tell ourselves that it's at least, you know, in a collateral damage sort of way. (Because that's... comforting.) And a lot of the people who really care are more angry about the corporation, economic angle than the cultural.
It's an issue in itself, to be sure. But while it's the issue that people are most aware of, it's actually not the issue that I really want to discuss in this blog post. I want to discuss a more direct focus on culture, what it means, and what it doesn't.
Basically, I want to discuss my first line: Is culture sacred?
--
So... is it?
People tend to be really uncomfortable with the idea of judging a culture (especially a non-Western culture). The idea of actually purposefully trying to CHANGE a culture... now there's something that will get people up in arms, or super uncomfortable, or in some incarnation of “Eep!!,” “Danger, danger!,” and so on. In some ways, fair enough. Europe has certainly had a history of going in and changing cultures and, in the process, causing damage (if they didn't, America would be a very, very, very different place), and once America was so largely settled with Europeans, we followed suit. There are a lot of mistakes in the past that involved destroying culture that we don't want to repeat-- and well we shouldn't.
But this guilt, and the lessons we've taken away from those mistakes (often rightfully), have led a lot of people to consider all aspects of other cultures to be completely untouchable, something about which we have no right to any sort of opinion.
I mentioned a while back that a friend of mine decided to go teach English in Korea, with the idea that we'd be there together. But then, thanks to an invitation from Peace Corps that arrived many months before I expected, she ended up arriving in Korea the same week I left.
Well, sadly, there were a lot of aspects of Korea that she didn't like (and as promised in the post I just linked, I do feel super guilty). So on her blog, Curiosity Killed the Kat, she mentioned some of the things that she didn't like (as well as the ones she did). Well, apparently her posts criticizing aspects of Korean culture angered a Canadian teaching in Korea, because about a month ago, she posted this entry: Friendly Fire: Waygook-on-Waygook Flaming, or Why I Talk About the Bad Stuff.
For those of you who don't feel like clicking links to other blogs (though she is a good writer and I highly recommend hers), basically, this man sent her a flame about what she said. I'm going to copy and paste a part of the flame, because a lot of what I have to say directly references it:
I can think of only 2 options for the author of this post. I'm a Canadian with with 8 years of experience teaching in Korea. If you don't like it here, THEN GET OUT. Simple as that. Although you call yourself a "desk warmer", I believe I can safely make the assumption that you are not being held prisoner here.
Korea is NOT the United States. You complain about the work culture here. That's how it is here. It's your fault for thinking it is "wrong." Principals sleep, teachers in hagwans go months unpaid, and some female teachers get harassed by their superiors. This doesn't happen in every case, but it does exist. I'm a hagwan graduate and made my way to an international school. I would have left otherwise.
What your doing is similar to this: A person from Florida choosing to live in Alaska and then complaining about the cold weather.
Actually, you have three choices:
1) GET OUT.
2) Stay and be more culturally sensitive.
3) Stay and have a miserable year.
The choice is yours.
'It's your fault for thinking it is “wrong.”'
It's a common attitude that Westerners have. While South Korea is a first world country and ought to be way, way past the point where we're tempted by the Noble Savage concept, I'd be lying if I said I didn't think it played a part in this kind of thinking.
Even just this little block of text says a whole lot of things. For one, that it's culturally insensitive to disapprove of any aspect of a culture that isn't your own. Look at the example he references: 'female teachers get harassed by their superiors.' That's on his list of things of which it's culturally inappropriate to disapprove? Sexual harassment? Really?
I knew a girl in Korea who worked at a hagwon, and yeah, they didn't pay her for months. Then, after not paying her for months, they suddenly fired her right before the end of her year, so that they wouldn't have to pay for her plane ticket back to America. This after not having paid her, so she certainly didn't have the money to get home herself. She had $100 to her name, nowhere to live, and no way to get home.
It's culturally insensitive to disapprove of this treatment of a person-- a human being? The mere fact that they're from a different culture gives them the license to treat people like shit?
His comment is disturbing enough to me. What I don't think he realizes-- what I don't think people realize when they say things like this-- is what happens when you follow that thought through to its logical conclusion.
These are the relevant premises that I see stated, explicitly or implicitly, in that comment:
1.If a culture is not your culture, then you don't have a right to judge that culture. It is your fault for thinking that an aspect of that culture is “wrong,” even one that seems repugnant to anyone from your own culture.
2.It is culturally insensitive to talk about aspects of a culture of which you disapprove. I'm going to split this one into (a) and (b)-
(a) is talking about those aspects either to members of that culture or in a forum where they're likely to see it, and
(b) is talking about those aspects in a forum that is largely aimed at people from your own culture.
Since Curiosity Killed the Kat is pretty clearly aimed at Westerners, the Flamer clearly thinks that 2b is wrong, but I'm going to want to discuss 2a as well, and thought I should make a distinction. I'm going to take a leap and say that that if someone things that 1 and 2b are bad, then they'd say 2a is bad as well.
So let's take those premises, shall we? Let's start with Premise 1. As I've said, South Korea is a first-world country. But if we're following these premises to their logical conclusion, we can bring in other cultures as well.
As you know, I'm a teacher in Tanzania. I have students who are the victims of female genital mutilation. That's the culture. That's how it is here. So it's our fault for thinking that it's wrong?
(True, Tanzania is trying to discourage this practice. Many Tanzanians have realized that it's not good, and they're trying to get rid of it. So it's Tanzanians changing their own practices; that's not interfering with another culture! Not quite. Whether they're trying to discourage it or not, it is at this point still a part of the culture. By Premise 1, it would still be my fault for thinking it's “wrong,” especially considering that Korean women are certainly trying to get their superiors to stop harassing them.)
In the Middle East (and parts of Africa, for that matter), women are stoned to death for adultery. Even if they were raped, and it was totally against their will, they have still been called whores and killed. That's the culture. That's how it is there. So it's our fault for thinking that it's wrong?
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in Burma, and I'm sure in many other places, rape is used as a military weapon against their own citizens. That's the culture. That's how it is there. So it's our fault for thinking that it's wrong?
In Somalia, thieves' hands are cut off at the first offense. Many of these thieves are poor and have no other way to eat, and don't have the skills to get a job. (Without hands, that will be a whole lot harder.) That's the culture. That's how it is there. So it's our fault for thinking that it's wrong?
I'm sorry. I couldn't keep up the quotation marks around the word “wrong” when I was listing those aspects of culture. We all know the quotation marks are there to negate the word, to belittle the sentiment behind it. And I do believe that each of those things are wrong, with all of my heart.
If you follow what he's said to its logical conclusion, it's not only disgusting, but one of the most destructive attitudes it is possible to have and, frankly, a menace to the attempt to improve the world. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I have a huge commitment to improving the world, and feel insulted not only on behalf of myself and my colleagues (who have enough to worry about trying to help Africa without having to deal with this kind of shit from people who should know better), but much, much more importantly, on behalf of everyone in the world who is being oppressed, beaten, abused, or neglected because it's "culturally acceptable" where they happened to have been born.
There is a reason that the international community has written “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” There is a reason they called it “universal,” and that is because too often people's fundamental rights are trampled, ignored, deemed unimportant, etc, because “that's the culture there.” That's why the international community has declared them UNIVERSAL. That means that it applies to all countries on the planet, and that “it's the culture” is not an excuse to violate a person's fundamental rights as human beings.
I've now taught in three cultures that are very different from my own. If another teacher harassed me, I WOULD NOT FUCKING stand for it. No, that is NOT okay. The fact that Flamer used that as something that is okay because "that's how it is here" is disgusting, misogynist, and downright sexist. (Incidentally, the "right to just and favorable conditions of work" is enshrined in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 23, as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, articles 6 and 7. Obviously, women being harassed by a superior would violate this.)
This man should understand that by saying what he has said, he is by direct logical continuation saying that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be considered void.
–
When I first arrived in Tanzania, fresh off the plane, bright-faced Peace Corps Trainee, I hadn't really thought about a lot of this stuff. I mean, when I was younger I was involved in Amnesty International, so I knew some pretty horrible things happened in parts of the world. But even just 6 or 7 months ago, I flinched at the idea of trying to change a culture. That's not what I'm here to do! (I'd have said.) They invited us! (True.) We're just teaching students math and science... helping people with income generation projects, making jam or clothes or wine or whatever else we can think of to help them make a living... teach them how to eat healthily, how to put together a nutritious meal that gives a family all the nutrients they need... trying to introduce positive reinforcement in schools and cut down on corporal punishment... running girls' empowerment programs, so that girls can go out into their community and take some power for themselves... teaching new methods of farming and gardening that take less labor and yield more food...
But what is education, what is a person's method of making a living, what is the kind of food they eat and how they cook it, what is how teachers and parents guide and discipline their students and children, what is the relationship between the genders and whether girls and women stand up for themselves, what is the method by which people grow their crops...
...but aspects of culture?
All of those things make up a culture, and some of them are a very fundamental part of culture. All of those things we Peace Corps Volunteers are attempting to change.
My experience as an aid worker has really taught me that we have to strike a balance. We don't want to destroy a culture, there are many important aspects that it would be a tragedy if they were lost. The world is just a complex place, and change is such a loaded concept. I won't say it's perfect, but Peace Corps has a method we try to use.
We Peace Corps Volunteers work with what we call “Counterparts.” A counterpart is basically just a friend of yours, who is a native of the country you were placed (HCNs-- “Host Country Nationals”). This is where we get into my Premise 2a: talking about what you see as wrong with a culture to a member of that culture. What makes this counterpart more than just a friend-- and you can have more than one-- is that whenever we do any of these projects, we do it with a counterpart. We don't jump in here, trying to impose our views on the locals. We collaborate with the citizens of the country, agree on a goal, on a positive change, and work towards it together.
While Flamer has the concept all wrong, cultural sensitivity is very real, very important, and something I must practice in order to live day-to-day here. It can be really difficult, because it's just not second nature yet-- sometimes I have to think beforehand about the right way to say that I disapprove of something. No matter how hard it can be, though, it's necessary.
If we never talked to any Tanzanians about the problems here, the things that we and they would both like to change-- well then, it would be pretty impossible to start any projects to change them, wouldn't it?
I have no problem telling the other teachers at my school that I disapprove of hitting the students. Cultural sensitivity isn't never criticizing anything about a culture-- it's about saying it in a way that doesn't insult people. It's exactly the way being polite isn't about never saying anything unpleasant-- sometimes you have to. It's about saying it in a way that doesn't insult people. Cultural sensitivity is really just knowing how to be polite within the framework of another society, and practicing it as best you can. As far as 2a goes, if you believe you can never, ever tell the friends you've made in a new country the parts of the culture that bother you... they're never going to become very good friends. We become close to people by being honest—which does not mean insensitive—about what we're thinking, feeling, and experiencing.
All I have to say about 2b is that if you can't talk about the things that are bothering you to people who are coming from the same place culturally and can really understand how you're feeling, you're going to explode. At least, from a Western (especially American-- and for that matter, Canadian) perspective. Westerners, and this is unlike many other cultures, believe we need to let our feelings out, and that it's healthy. Because that's how we've been raised, for us at least, it really is healthy. Sometimes you have to vent. Living in a really different environment is hard, and getting it out of your system somewhere people will understand is sometimes just the only way you're going to be able to get up the next morning and have the patience and strength to practice that cultural sensitivity.
There is absolutely nothing wrong-- and a lot of things right-- with changing aspects of a country's culture (in, again, a cooperative, collaborative effort with the people whose culture it will affect) in order to improve the quality of life of its citizens. Again, in Tanzania, as well as in a lot of places, education isn't usually a priority, especially for girls. That's the culture. But the only way that Tanzania is going to progress as a country, the only way that they will be able to work towards and attain a better life, is by making education a priority. By changing the culture. Because if they don't change some aspects of their culture, they will remain stuck in poverty.
As far as African countries go, Tanzania is not exactly the biggest violator of human rights. Generally the opposite, in the scheme of African nations. There are so, so many more horrible, cruel, torturous, INHUMAN practices throughout the world that are "part of the culture." Anyone who thinks that just by virtue of being part of the culture, we have no right to call an atrocious act wrong... well... that person is implicitly condoning all the things I mentioned above (female genital mutilation, stoning women to death for being raped, rape as a military weapon, cutting off thieves' hands), as well as so many more things, hundreds if not thousands, that I could list.
So... no. My answer is no. Culture is not this sacred, holy, untouchable thing. Culture is important, and there are parts of it that are well, well worth preserving. (There's a reason that the international community has also declared many World Cultural Heritage Sites.) There are many things about Korean culture and about Tanzanian culture that I really like, and it would be a true shame if those things were changed or lost. I don't believe that all the countries in the world should become just like each other, that we should all just be homogeneous.
Every culture has aspects that are good and aspects that are bad, but when we get right down to it, we are all human beings. I'm not denying culture shapes a person in an enormous way. It affects perception hugely-- two people from two different cultures can see the same situation so entirely differently that it's amazing. Yet, all of us have our humanity in common, and I truly believe that there are things-- like the rights listed in the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights-- to which every human is entitled. That every human being deserves.
Keep the good. Heck, keep the neutral too. But things that hurt people, damage them, deprive them of their health and their dignity and their safety, of their ability to, well, I'll be American here, to pursue happiness... those are also a part of culture. They are a part of culture we have every right to not only criticize, to not only call “wrong,” but to do our best to eradicate from the face of this planet.
In fact, I consider it part of my duty as a human being.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)