I really enjoyed the culture shock video. I found it really interesting, because we heard things about American culture that aren't really though about by natives everyday.
It was coo, hearing about the different social aspects that are different between other cultures and ours. for instance, I had never thought that the way we greet each other in passing could be so confusing to others. What I found most interesting though, were the differences in educational systems and practices. I took it for granted that when you were writing a paper you were supposed to create a thesis and analyze the article, book, or issue that is your topic. In elementary school we are taught to write book reports, then as we get older and progress in school we are taught different methods of analysis to utilize while writing papers and reports. I had never thought that in other cultures this may be different. Hearing one person tell of the first time he had to analyze a book in a paper was interesting. It was part of our enculturation to develop opinions about something, and to think that this is an aspect of culture shock for someone was very interesting. This idea made me revisit our discussion on collectivist and individualist cultures, and think about how the formation of an opinion can be affected by which idea of self the culture promotes.
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