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I found it easy to relate to the international students of the video. One, because my family is Jamaican and being that I did not grow up around my extended family when we do come into contact I feel like an outsider and two, because I have witnessed, through my international friends, many of the bizzarre scenarios mentioned about adapting to a new life in the states. It's very important that when entering a 'new area', generally speaking, the perspective of the guest should be considered by the native and vice versa. I think the international students who gave their past experiences on how they were received noticed a lack of their feelings being considered by Americans they came into contact with. Because of the discomfort they feel with making relationships with Americans they then tend to turn to other foreign students also experiencing that discomfort.

Misunderstanding while communicating was also a huge issue I found in the documentary but not simply because of the language barrier. One example I took note of was of the male Chinese student expressing his frustration with not understanding the underlying meaning of his American friends. It's come to my understanding that language proficiency is possible but complete understanding of conversation that may be filled of innuendoes and location specific terms is near impossible if one is from outside of that community. While these seemly unsolvable obstacles are quite often faced by international students and can often be discouraging I've learned from their anecdotes that it is the most rewarding to press on regardless of the discomfort and enjoy the experience to the fullest. This documentary has encouraged me to not fear my own study abroad experience when the time comes. 

    I appreciated this video as a Journalism major aside from being a language learner. This is because I love to hear people's outlooks on things and especially in the context of the American culture. This video made me feel like making a stronger effort to get to know international students on campus.The reason behind this was found in the clip with the boy talking about "What's up?" He found that the American student who asked him that did not really care to know how or what he was doing. This is comparable to "How are you?" at UR. No one really cares how you are; it is just linguistically equivalent to "Hi." Everyone on campus encounters this , so I do not want the international students to feel they are the only victims of this.

   I also gained a lot of insight when the students mentioned they were basically geniuses in their native countries, but had the hardest time adjusting to the American way of learning. I hope to one day experience the learning styles in a foreign country. The international students had never had to write essays or analytical papers, which I envy.

  The video also makes me wonder if international students going to public universities or even private asaide from UR feel the same way. I feel like a majority of the UR student body is similar in mindset, so it is not an accurate representation of American students when it comes to international students exposure.

Just like American culture, Bangladeshis can often be heard saying “hey allah—o my god” as well as “en shallah—if the lord wills.”  However to greeting different people is entirely based on your location or your knowledge of their religion.  For example in Dhaka the capital it would be proper to say to anyone “the peace of god be with you” using the Muslim noun for god.  However in the villages or less prominent cities more people will greet each other with the Hindu greeting of “nomoskar” which literally means “I bow to you”. 

Suffice to say, knowing the basics of each religion and the words to describe their experiences are very important tools in understanding Bangladeshi culture and language. 

I think I have experienced culture shock at least ten times in the past six years. Luckily, the change was happening quickly, so I would not have a lot of time to think about it, but simply to try and adapt myself as quickly as possible.

For this assignment I decided to go through my journal from India and found the following entry:

"After three weeks in India, I feel I did I am finishing the physical part of adjustment on the new environment in Jaipur. Food was the biggest problem for me since I am not used to eating spicy and hot food. Traffic jams, and crowds on the streets are everyday reality here, and I am still learning how to manage basic daily routines -shopping and jogging for instance without getting too much attention from the locals for being a foreigner." Now I am not only able to eat spicy food and enjoy it, but also travel alone through India, shop and bargain on my own and be free to interact with local people.

Coming from a developing country, I was sure my cultural shock will not be as great as when I went to the US to study. However, I was wrong. My home country might be considered a developing country, but it is definitely better off in terms of poverty than India. Yes, it was the huge amount of poverty present everywhere which was the first shocking thing after my arrival, and I still think I am not (willing to) adjust to it. Just seeing poor people living on the streets, having nothing to wear, eat with children playing around and begging for money was the hardest thing to deal with. Living in a luxury hotel for a week in Jaipur, and having a poor family living outside my window made me wonder and think about the chance in life I have compared to them.

I tried to stay open mind and understand rather than criticize which enabled me to be aware of my cultural shock and find my place within Indian society. It is interesting to notice how hard it is for some, yet easy for other people to live in another culture. At this point I feel that no matter where I find myself in the world I will be able to manage and easily learn how to adapt to a different environment.

In this post I would like to remark on a rather recent event with my language partner that allowed me to observe the way in which individuals within the Polish culture treat anger and confrontation.  As usual, my observations concerning the Polish culture in this manner can not truly be assumed to be representative of the entire culture as a whole, however, as my language partner must be part of some specific subset of Poles i.e. the culture in which she was raised in and the culture therefore that her immediate and extended family were most likely raised in.

I have observed that emotions of anger and therefore possibly most disagreeable emotions are dealt with in private and not in a confrontational manner.  As professor Grove has explained this may be a result of the cultural concept of "saving face" or the refusal to offend anyone.  This cultural tradition of facing the most adverse situations with a smile is largely unintelligible to those of us who have been raised in an American culture.  It would seem to us that the most important aspect of a conflict is its resolution so that both parties involved can take part in the more immediate benefit that occurs after the resolution.  In our culture, the concept of "getting it off of your chest" is much more readily understood than that of "saving face".  As a result of this cultural divide, there appear to be no simple solutions when a conflict errupts between two people that do not share the same cultural understanding of how to deal with emotions.  Either party adapting to the other culture's methodology of resolution would appear to be a disasterous occurrence.  The American who is unused to the Polsih understanding of "saving face" would be also unused to harboring disagreeable emotions for a prolonged period of time until a natural resolution can be achieved and therefore would be prone to small emotional outbursts in the form of sarcasm or some other affront effectively prolonging the conflict.  The Pole who is unused to the American understanding of "getting it off your chest" would most likely lack the practiced model of refraining from recalling past insults and injuries into the conflict among engaging in other frowned upon practices that will also inevitably prolong the conflict.  Unfortunately in this case it would seem that there is unfortunately no middle ground by which the conflict can be resolved, no combination between "saving face" and direct confrontation that presents itslef to the logical mind as the two methods employed by their respective cultures are inherrently contradictory and cannot be mixed into some universal understanding.

Besides gaining this beginners understanding of how cultural barriers work, i have recently been expanding my methods of learning polish to the reading of polish children's novels which has been an unbearably slow process (since i am realizing in my frustration that a four year old polish child has a more extensive vocabulary than i do).  But at the same time it has proven a great opportunity to learn more about the culture in which polish children are brought up in and hopefully as my ability in and understanding of the polish language continues to increase i will be able to mirror the understanding of polish culture that their children grow up with through this new exercise.

I am interested in learning Farsi (SDLAP language) because it is not one of the mainstream languages offered at the University of Richmond. My parents speak a little bit of Farsi and I decided it would be cool to learn also.

Throughout my language learning, I have explored Spanish, a little German, and Japanese. I feel like Farsi is completely different from these, so it will pose a challenge for me. However; I am always up for a challenge. Farsi also requires that one writes from right to left, so I am quickly making that adjustment.

I am a Journalism major and I never know what country my job could take me to. I feel it is necessary to get a grasp of many languages in order to be successful and well-prepared for whatever my career may throw at me.

Then, for a semi-selfish reason, I am crazy about attractive guys. Why would I need a language barrier to stand in the way? I am so interested in learning languages, so that I can communicate with a future husband without any problems. Yes; this is slightly dramatized, but I want to be as prepared as I can.

I like SDLAP because I can learn at my own pace and specify what it is that I want to know. The one on one sessions offered and the continued help will allow me to learn Farsi more efficiently.It is very convenient to be able to learn a language while taking numerous other classes soley because you can pace yourself.

After English and Mandarin, Hindi is the third most widely-spoken language in the world. It is a subset of the Indo-European family, and I can sometimes find some similarities between Serbian and Hindi. The writing system of Hindi is derived from Sanskrit, one of the oldest languages in the world.

Hindi language came from Hindustani. During the ninth and tenth centuries, Hindustani was the colloquial language of in Northern India (area around New Delhi). The language was named Hindi by the Persian Turks who ruled in Punjab and Gangetic plains areas and created Delhi Sultanate within it.  Hindi absorbed Persian (and also Arab words) and therefore, the language was a mean of communication between the migrants and local population in the eleventh century. As the Delhi Sultanate was expending, so was the language.

Upon the British arrival to India, Hindi became a national language, as the British started using it amongst the government officials. In the eighteenth century it started to expand as a literary language. Hindi is written in Devangari script.

After the independence of India in 1947, government worked on standardization of Hindi language and in 1965 it became the official language of India. Different colonial powers influenced Hindi language. Thus, languages that enriched Hindi are: English, Portuguese, Farsi, Arabic, and Turkish.

Even though Hindi is a standardized language, there are many dialects of Hindi. While I was in India I studied the standardized Hindi, and often was not able to communicate with people living in villages who also spoke Hindi.

Sources:

http://www.jazykhindi.com/hindi/history.asp

http://www.hindisociety.com/ArticleHindiHistory.htm