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            In the course of this semester, I successfully learned how to express thoughts and ideas in Polish and mastered the vocabulary that would be necessary to navigate the country of Poland as a tourist, namely concerning food, lodging, and transportation.  I believe, however, that the most important skill that this class provided me was the knowledge and experience of how to be an autonomous learner.  I feel confidant that the techniques of self-regulation and self-discovery of the methods by which I learn the best will not only aid my post graduation studies in medical school, where limited time necessitates efficiency, but also promote my ability to be a life-long learner in the future.

            In my exploration to discover which methods of learning aided me the best I attempted different combinations of audio and visual learning techniques and assessed the effectiveness of each.  To accomplish this I studied word and phrase lists with BYKI, studied from a polish grammatical workbook, listened to polish songs and radio broadcastings, watched polish television, and listened in on Polish phone and Skype conversations.  After three months of experimentation, I found that I am much more of a visual learner than an auditory one.  Much of the Polish that I was able to use and understand had been a product of visual studies with BYKI flashcards and the Polish workbook while the amount of information absorbed from listening to Polish was minimal.  As a result, at the end of the semester I focused nearly all of my attention upon the BYKI program and the grammar workbook, greatly increasing the speed with which I was able to learn the language.

            As a result, one of the greatest challenges that I encountered as a visual learner was my less than adequate ability to process words spoken in the Polish dialect, though I am able to read them and speak them with a certain amount of fluidity.  My language partner and I attempted to address this issue by increasing our practice of inter-personal speaking and although this helped slightly, it also hindered my ability to understand other polish speakers as a result of my expectance to hear polish words and phrases in my language partner’s particular accent.  This struggle evidenced itself greatly in my oral examination at the end of the semester in which I was barely able to understand what the native Polish speaker was saying in some instances while I knew the meanings of the individual words that were spoken.

            I would recommend to a new self-directed language learner the importance of maintaining personal motivation in the desire to become fluent in a language.  If an individual has the proper motivation to learn the target language, the amount of time that is spent outside of actively learning the language becomes just as valuable to the language learning process as the amount of time spent with one’s nose in the books.  Realizing new terms that one does not know in the target language but uses on a regular basis, thinking about and discussing the differences in culture with friends, and identifying the application of learned vocabulary to the real world can each greatly increase the speed of learning as these “real life” mental associations are the first steps to fluency.  Without the proper motivation, the target language may be understood as “work” which will result in an inability to achieve any form of fluency in the language due to the inability to relax and interact freely within a mental environment which is thought to be stress inducing.

            I think that the only thing that would improve the speed of my progression as a self-directed language learner would be to fully immerse myself in the Polish culture via living in the country for a few weeks.  From what I have heard from other students that have returned from abroad, this is easily the quickest way to become fluent and as I have successfully uncovered the ways in which I learn most effectively this semester, I would be curious to discover the effects of employing these methods within the target country and viewing the resulting acceleration of my language learning process.

            The only area in which I believe that the MLC 105 course (and I am unsure if this area lies within MLC 105 or MLC 110) is if students and language partners met on a more frequent basis than for only two hours a week.  In my opinion, this is not enough time to fully take advantage of all the benefits of language learning that come from interacting with a native speaker.  It is extremely difficult to fit into two hours all of the questions about history, culture, spelling, grammar, and pronunciation that arise from a week’s worth of learning while still having time left over to practice interpersonal speaking and experiment with different methods of learning.  If any factor in the student’s learning process must be limited, it should not be this one, which, in my experience, provided a greater amount of cultural and lingual understanding compared to the semester of studying that I accomplished on my own.

In the chapter on communicative competence, I found the section on Functional Approaches to Language Teaching to be very interesting because of the seven function laid out as belonging in an advanced-beginner's language learning textbook. These seven functions are important to master in order to be culturally competent, but as we talked about, there are many other aspects that play into communicative and cultural competence, as well. I believe that person who understands these seven factors, and how they can change in various situations is competent. I also believe, that competence implies minor flaws, and that understanding, implementing, and accomplishing, are very different aspects. A person is likely to commit faux pas in their own culture, so it would be even harder to avoid committing one in another culture. A person can understand the rules and norms of a culture and a language, but implementing may even be able to implement them, but accomplishing that in perfection in very hard. the difference etween understanding and implementing what will make one communicatively and culturally competent, is understanding the difference between the mentality and physicality of an action. It is one thing to know what to do or say, and another thing to actually say or do it.

One of my most ambitious goals for the semester was to learn several expressive, but irregular verb forms. These sentence constructions are listed throughout my goal sheet.  I worked on these forms throughout the semester, and compiled some representative examples of each on these sheets.  The only verb form listed on my sheet that I did not cover was expressing "must." However, I did an additional form to replace this: "need" which is similar to "must."

This chapter on  sociocultural factors was very interesting. I believe that I found the section on 'Second Culture Acquisition' the most interesting. I had learned about enculturation in my anthropology class, but I had not heard of acculturation before. I found it to be a really interesting aspect because it is almost like resocialization, but from a purely cultural aspect. Also, we had, of course, touched on the topic of culture shock after watching the culture shock film. I enjoyed, though, how this section laid out a definition with all possible meanings and emotional effects it can have on a person. My favorite part of this section, and chapter, though, was when they broke down culture acquisition into steps. Sometimes it is hard to puts thing into steps or a series of events, because you run the risk of generalizing or oversimplifying the situation. However, I thought that this summed up the process of second culture acquisition admirably and quite succinctly. I had also never thought of it in such a way, or process, before. I had of course heard and learned about culture shock, but I had never though of it as part of a process of culture acquisition, and I never would have guessed it to be the second step. The word shock seems to imply something that happens instantly, so you would think that culture shock would be something experienced upon arrival in a new culture, but in fact, culture shock sets in after one as become disillusioned of the idea, that this new culture os mostly similar to their own.  I definitely found this section to be the most interesting and informative.

Jewish humor is a relatively new cultural aspect, but it is cultural none the less. Humor in Judaism can date back to the torah and the midrash. However, in more recent times there a pattern of self-deprecating, and often anecdotal humor has appeared. This type of humor originated in Eastern Europe, but truly took root in the United States, particularly during the vaudeville era. This humor was shared through radio, television, film, and stand-up comedy. In fact, a high percentage of comedians in America and Russia have been Jewish. Jewish Humor often relates to many different aspects of Jewish life, culture, and history. Religion, assimilation, self-hating, self-depracating, wits, and the ever loved rebbes are all common joke topics.

The Yiddish language has also played a large part in humor. The combination of hebrew and german often led to words that were found funny by non-yiddish audiences. Yiddish words were thought of as inherently funny due to their funny sounds, and odd letter sound combinations. The phenomenon of Shm-reduplication actually started with the yiddish, language; comedians started adding shm into a word or phrase for humor (ex. fancy-shmancy). many comedians also adopted the practice of ending sentences with questions, which is a Yiddish construction.

Another popular form of humor was the joke that exploited Jewish stereotypes. Jewish mothers, frugality, hypochondria, and the Jewish 'accent' have often been picked out as prime joke targets. My personal favorite idea, though, has to do with the Jewish stereotype of kvetching (complaining). many jokes that center around other themes, still have the element of kvetching. Jewish humor is often self-deprecating, and many people can admit that they kvetch quite often, so its great fodder for jokes.

Jewish humor is not only an aspect of Jewish culture, but it plays on many other cultural aspects as well.

[My favorite joke is: One early winter morning, Rabbi Bloom was walking beside the canal when he saw a dog in the water, trying hard to stay afloat. It looked so sad and exhausted that Rabbi Bloom jumped in, and after a struggle, managed to bring it out alive.
A passer-by who saw this remarked, "That was very brave of you! You must love animals; are you a vet?"
Rabbi Bloom replied, "And vhat did you expect? Of course I'm a–vet! I'm a–freezing cold as vell!"]

Throughout the semester I found the implementation of language partner interaction into this course to be extremely helpful as a motivational tool.  Without an accountability partner that tested my progress in my target language on a weekly basis I know that I would have fallen prey to the procrastination that I am naturally prone to.  The language partner meetings also served to bolster my desire to learn by reminding me on a weekly basis of the unique and interesting characteristics of the Polish culture that had inspired me to study it in the first place.  Throughout the semester, my language partner and I experimented with different theories and tools to determine how it was that I learned language the best and each approach met with varying amounts of success.  Although our initial attempts to teach me the necessary topics and phrases that I would be tested upon in the course through memorization were successful, they did not successfully lead me to any understanding of the language as a whole and I was completely unable to understand any of what was said in polish if the vocabulary that was spoken was outside of that limited to the specific topics I had chosen to study.  As a result, we next approached the language from a grammatical angle and through the learning of the most basic grammatical structures of Polish I became able to form my desired thoughts into speech, albeit in extremely broken speech, but in vocabulary that was independent from my topics of interest.  However, although this approach yielded success in self expression, it did little to allow me to express complex thoughts or understand spoken Polish.  To address these issues, my language partner exposed me to as much spoken and written polish as possible in the form of listening to polish songs, reading polish children's books, and watching her interact with other native polish speakers via skype and phone conversations.  As a result, my vocabulary slowly improved and I began to be able to identify certain phrases in heard Polish by markers such as common intonation gestures.  Although this methodology was extremely successful in expanding the nature of my polish skills even farther beyond that which was required to speak about my topics of interest and increasing my vocabulary, it was a gruelingly slow process and did not progress as far as I would have liked it to before the conclusion of the semester.  Unfortunately the downside to this method of learning Polish is that I became too familiar with my language partner's particular "lived in America for 8 years" polish accent which she also slowed down for me so that I could better understand.  As a result, when I was presented with another native polish speaker in my oral evaluation, I found her mannerisms in speaking and her accent much harder to understand.

Although my language partner and I experienced much success, my only regret is that she did not have more time in her schedule to meet more than twice a week as I believe that this occurrence would have improved my language learning greatly since learning on my own without a native speaker to confer with was often extremely frustrating and unsuccessful since it led both to incorrect learning and the positive reinforcement of incorrect speech for days before it would be noticed and then re-taught.  I believe that occurrences such as this wasted precious time in my attempt to learn an entire language in a single semester.  

Although Andrew's project was the only presentation I was able to see, I was extremely impressed with his delivery of the presentation in Bengali.  He seemed able to speak with reasonable confidence and only minimal notes, entirely in his target language.  The statistics that Andrew shared were very informative, and I liked the way that he gave statistics about the number of ICU beds, doctors, etc in America as well, for context.  I also liked his approach of talking to different people that he had met in Bangladesh about their experiences with healthcare.  I know, in India, that what is published can often diverge from what typically happens for working class Indians.  

I also enjoyed reading over some of Jason Stickel's blog posts.  I especially enjoyed what he had to say about politeness in Polish.  The article he cited about the percent of language devoted to politeness in typical conversation as compared to English was really interesting to me.  I think Hindi may actually have a lower percentage of language devoted to politeness, because as I noted in a previous culture post, Hindi incorporates formalities into the subject.

Presentation%20on%20Indian%20Education.pptx

My cultural project this year was very different from my previous one on Hindu death rituals.  I think a lot of the terms I learned for this presentation are more practical for everyday use and that I was able to incorporate slightly more of my language this year, or at least did so with greater complexity.  From looking at the literacy statistics I found through the Indian census, it is clear that India has made great improvements to its quality of education.  However, it is still disheartening to see the gap that exists between male and female literacy rate and access to education.  Literacy has been shown to be important for enhancing women's rights, improving quality of life, and reducing child mortality, so it is extremely important that India work to improve access to education for girls.  

Listening to other cultural presentations allowed me not only to learn more about Persian and Hebrew cultures, but also to notice some similarities between these two and Hindi culture.

Namely, I’ve learned that in Iran and Afghanistan people consume a lot of dairy, and sweet tea for breakfast and ice or vegetables for lunch. In India it is similar as they drink chai or milk for breakfast, and rice is a popular dish for lunch. Also, I found out that in these two Farsi speaking cultures people consume food that is high in fat. This makes sense due to geographical environments Iran and Afghanistan are located in. Dry and hot weather requires people to consume a lot food that will enable them to save energy much longer.

Considering Farsi speaking societies, I realized that Persian weddings are very similar to Indian weddings. This is in terms of the amount of people invited, rituals before and after the wedding ceremony. One interesting thing I was surprised with was the fact that a bride choses which present she wants to receive from the groom and his family. It is different in Indian society where the bride has to pay a dowry to the groom and his family.

An interesting observation I made was that in Farsi dost means “I love you”, while in Hindi it means “friend”. In some way I can understand the similarities between these two words, but I wonder if these two languages influenced one another in regards to this word.

On the other hand, I knew nothing about Jewish communities in Asia. I am glad Lily explained differences between Jewish communities around the world. I also never knew that Judaism was passed on by father, but by mother. India also has a significant population of Jewish people in Cochin. During my stay in India I visited this city, but I had no idea about large Jewish community present there.

Jewish weddings have many traditions and must include certain practices which follow Jewish law. Traditionally and historically a Jewish wedding included two stages the first stage was the kiddushin, meaning betrothal, and the nissuin, which is the marriage.

There are quite a few steps to a Jewish wedding. First, before the wedding ceremony, the marriage contract, or ketubah, must be signed in the presence of two witnesses. The wedding contract outline all the obligations the husband has to his wife. These marriage contracts are often written on elaborately illuminated manuscripts. The marriage contract, or at least parts of it, is then read aloud at the start of the ceremony, under the chuppah, as a was to both separate and transition from the engagement to the marriage ceremony. The chuppah is a wedding canopy and is meant to symbolize the home that the couple will build together. Another tradition that is still kept in many communities today is that of the unterfirers. This is the practice of the two fathers leading the groom down the aisle, and the two mothers leading the bride. During the ceremony there are also the seven blessings, and the breaking of the glass at the end of the ceremony. The seven blessings, or sheva brachot, are seven blessings that are recited by either the rabbi or selected honored guests. Being selected to recite a blessing is considered a great honor. After these blessings are delivered the groom drinks wine from a cup, and then the bride drinks from the same cup. At the end of the ceremony, the groom crushes the wine glass by stomping on it, and the guests shout 'Mazel Tov' to congratulate the new couple.

There are many other traditions though that have either been forgotten or adopted. After the wedding meal is finished, and the Birkat Hamazon, grace after meals, has been said, there is the tradition of the bride and groom each taking a glass of wine and pouring it into a third glass to symbolize their union and the creation of their new, combined, life. This tradition has become more uncommon, as has the yichud, which was the Ashkenazi practice of leaving the bride and groom alone for 10-20 minutes directly after the wedding ceremony to complete the wedding ceremony. There is also the common practice of lifting the bride and groom in chairs during the reception, and dancing around with them. This practice is a more contemporary addition. It is possible to place it in with the various traditional dances of Jewish weddings, such as the hora, mitzvah tantz, the gladdening of the bride, or the mizinke.

No matter whether a family is reformed, conservative, orthodox, ashkenazi, or sephardi, Jewish wedding traditions are abundant, and you can be sure, that many will be included in the wedding ceremony.

After learning about how many different Jewish ethnic division there were while researching my cultural project, I decided to do some further research on the Jewish ethnic divisions and subcultures of south and east Asia. In south and East Asia there are many different Jewish ethnic divisions. Among these groups are the Bene Israel, Cochin, Paradesi, Nasranis, Bagdhadi, Bnei Menashe, and Bnei Ephraim Jewish people who settled in various parts of India at various times. Most of these groups have migrated to Israel, though there are still some to be found in India. You also have the Pakistani Jews of Pakistan. There are some small Jewish communities in Krea and Japan, as well. Finally. In China there are many small groups of Jewish people, but the largest Jewish ethnic division in China are the groups of Kaifeng Jews.

I found the history of the Kaifeng Jews to be the most interesting, and so I decided to look into it a bit more for this culture post. The Kaifeng Jews were a small community of Jewish people who lived in Kaifeng in the Henan province of China. The Kaifeng Jewish community is believed to have been established sometime during the Tang dynasty (618-907) and have continued until the late nineteenth century. Today there are not many Jews in China but may of those who are have begun to reclaim there Jewish heritage and some have are once again claiming the title of Kaifeng Jews.

One of the most interesting thing I found in their history was the story that during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), a ming emperor gave seven surnames to the Jewish people, which are Ai, Shi, Gao, Jin, Li, Zhang, and Zhao. I found this interesting because in western societies there are some traditional Jewish names that are quite distinctive, such as Himmelfarb, Kaufman, and Steinberg. In fact, there many traditional surnames which end in either -stein or -berg. 

Not many people know about the Jewish divisions in south and eastern Asia, and I found learning about them very interesting.

I really enjoyed working with Shir this semester as I learned Hebrew. working with a language partner was definitely the most helpful aspect while learning this language. The materials available at the Global Studio were not that helpful to me. I found that by working with a language partner, picking topics to talk about, and creating vocabulary lists relevant to these topics I was able to learn more , and learn more efficiently. Shir was also helpful with grammatical and usage corrections, which much of the time I am a stickler for. a book or computer program can't really fix the way you are speaking, the pronunciation, or the wrong tense or gender of the word the way a human can, because they do not realize that you are making a mistake, or that you intended to say something different. Also, when talking with a person face to face, I feel that I process language differently. I search for the words I know in order to say something, because I am responding to someone's comment or question then work of their answers to gain new vocabulary, whereas with a book you can look up new words and figure out what you want to say. But, with a book these words will not stick as well, because you are not reusing them or actively associating them with conversation, statements, and as parts of your vocabulary. I found having a language partner the most useful tool available as part of the self-directed languages.

Shalom Rav Translation

The document attached to this blog post has a translation of the lyrics of my favorite Hebrew song. Shalom Rav is a song and a prayer that I learned in kindergarten.I've loved this song because of it's beautiful tune. I have been hearing it for years, and I've always understood that in context the song is about healing and peace, but I haven't been able to understand the individual words of the song. On of my goals for the semester was to understand the words to this prayer, so that the next time I hear it in temple I can truly understand it and appreciate it. I've put the words into an order to make sense, rather than a literal and direct translation. Also the words that are in brackets are words inferred in the message of the sentence, but not actually said in the lyrics.

I watched a clip of sesame street that was entirely in Hebrew. In Israel Sesame Street is also known as Shalom Sesame. What I understood from this episode was that grover was trying to learn how you are supposed to greet different people base on various factors such as age, time of day, and formality. I did not understand every word in this episode, but I found it easy to pick up the general gist of it. While listening I recognized the phrase בוקר טוב (Boker tov) which means 'good morning', but at some point people started responding בוקר אור (Boker or). I had never heard this second phrase before, so I decided to look it up. When some one say Boker Tove, or good morning, to you, you can either respond with the same phrase, or you can respond with Boker Or which directly translates to 'Morning (of) Light'. When you respond Boker Or you are in essence saying something along the lines of 'may you have a day of light' and such. To me this seems like it would be a way to greet someone you know well or care about greatly, because rather than just saying good morning back, you are saying that but also wishing them a light filled day.

This is an example of my Hebrew writing. Here I used the script rather than print lettering.

I found Nikolina's culture project on Rikshawalas very interesting. It was very interesting to look at the ideas of taxis, transportation, and one's interaction with them and the driver's as aspects of culture. I thought it was very original to look at the subculture of rickshaws. I thought Nikolina did a very good job giving a brief overview of the Rickshaw culture, explaining how one would go about getting and riding in a rickshaw, and giving us a brief vocabulary that relates to a rickshaw ride. 

Laila's presentation on food made me hungry to say the least. I did not realize how many different foods there were that were traditionally attached to the cultures associated with the Persian language. I also really enjoyed that Laila not only taught us relevant language, and the names of some of the more popular foods, but that she also taught us how to write these words and foods.

I did not get to see all of Danielle's presentation because I had to get to my next class though. What I got from the parts of her project that I did see, is that Persian engagements are weddings are both lengthy and intricate processes. There are so many aspects to consider when finding a spouse and planning a wedding. I really wish I had been able to see the rest of her cultural project presentation because it seemed very interesting. 

Proverbs in Hindi:

अब पछ्ताए होत क्या जब चिड़िया चुग गई खेत
(No use crying over spilled milk)

अंत भला तो सब भला
(All is well that ends well)

दूर के ढोल सुहावने लगते हैं
(The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence)

अपना वहि जॊ आवे काम्
(A friend in need is a friend indeed)

आमदनी अठन्नी और खर्चा रुपैया

(Income is half rupee and expenses are a full rupee)

One of my learning goals for the semester was to learn Hindi proverbs. The reason why I chose these five proverbs is because they also exist in English and Serbian. Even though I did not focus on reading and writing in Hindi script during the semester, I am able to read and write these proverbs. 

The third proverb is a universal one, but the reason why I wanted o include it was because one of my favorite Bollywood movies is called Three Idiots.In this movie the main song is called All is well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-LltgOtFSg

Aal Izzz Well

Murgi kya jaane aande ka kya hoga
Aree life milegi ya tawee pe
fry hoga
Koi na jaane apna future kya hoga

Honth ghuma
Seeti bajaa
Seeti bajaa ke bol
Bhaiyaa aal izz well

Aree bhaiyaa all izz well
Aree chachu aal izz well
Aree bhaiyaa all izz well

Majority of Indians still follow arranged marriage system, which might seem impractical to the western world. Spending time in India, I was able to learn that this way of marriage is the most preferred choice in Indian families. Indian families give a lot of importance to family relationship and protection. As marriage is considered one of the most important steps in life, as an act of family love it is carefully thought out and planned. Living in India for almost five months I learned about advantages and disadvantages of this practice. Even though I can say that I still do not agree with the idea of arranged marriages, meeting people and hearing their life stories enabled me to understand the reason for this practice. 

One of the main goals of arranged marriages is to ensure the separation between upper and lower casts in the society. It was important to keep the wealth within the family and the upper cast was strongly encouraged to make arrangements within their cast. Also, arranged marriages are often seen as a way to promote class system and are the best way to take dowry. Dowry system is very old and its purpose is to provide for the woman in case something unfortunate happens with husband such as divorce or death. Therefore, it all started as an honorable way to protect the bride and give her security. Sadly, today dowry system turns into bride-price system, where a good dowry size ensures a good match for a girl and her family. 

Closely related to arranged marriages are child marriages. In the past it was a common practice for parents to arrange marriage for their children during their childhood. This was a way to ensure that children will marry a person from the same cast and same economic status. It was also a way to prevent their children to fall in love or search for someone else, as from their early age they knew whom to marry. Those who would find their own mates would be threaten by parents, so the easiest way would be to accept the family choice in order not to invite shame for the family. Today child marriages are abolished by the law, but parents still do have a huge influence. 

Nowadays, once marriage is arranged two people are allowed to meet and get to know each other before the wedding day. However, it is important to notice that in India marriage is not only between a bride and groom, but rather between their families. This is because Indians mainly live in joint families and wives come to live with husbands’ family. By marriage woman enters into bondage, and her freedom is often limited. 

Sarees come in variety of colors, patterns, designs, and materials. Also the price for sarees can be from US $5 to a few thousand US$. The price range depends upon material and designer. Choosing a color for your saree often depends upon the occasion. For weddings, brides usually wear red or hot pink saree with many golden color details attached to it.

Most of Indian women wear sarees. My host mother needed a couple minutes to fix it and look amazing! Trying it for the first time was not easy. It took me more than ten minutes, and in the end I needed someone to help me out with putting it on. However, just like anything else I needed a bit of practice and after a few times I became more faster and more comfortable with putting it on. I am not an expert, but am able to fix it for myself.

Wearing a saree is as comfortable as wearing a dress. The only difference is putting it on and making sure it does not unfold. Indian women wear it throughout the year, since the temperatures never get too low. The photo below is taken in a saree shop at the local market in Udaipur, Rajasthan. 

Coming from a developing country, I was sure my cultural shock will not be as great as when I came to study in the US. 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. Just seeing poor people living on the streets, having nothing to wear, or eat, with children playing around and begging for money is 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. This is the main reason why I decided to include the picture Taj Mahal in this post. Taj Mahal represents the beauty and wealth and roofs of homes where the poor live.

The contrast on this picture also represents the beauty in variety that India offers. Not only in terms of wealth distribution, but also the cultural wealth this country has. Going the local market I was able to learn about different tradition from other parts of India. Clothing for example varies from state to state in India. I find it very interesting that there are 18 official languages in India, and that some people from the same country are unable to understand each other, unless they speak a common language.

Another thing I learned is how warm and welcoming Indian people are. Everywhere I went people were willing to talk to me, listen to me, and invite me to their homes. However, sometimes this welcoming behavior would become overwhelming, and I realized that this is another cultural difference I have with Indians. It is nice to feel accepted and appreciated, but at the same time, it is hard to get used to the lack of personal space I am used to having (even though Bosnian people are pretty similar to Indians in terms of personal space). As the picture depicts it, crowds and lack of space are nothing unusual in India. People are not physically close to each other, but also are very close in terms of “human relationships”. Neighbors spend time with one other and help each other. I like this close interaction between people present in Indian culture, as I think “westerners” often have no time for other people, or for relaxed social gatherings in the way Indians do.

A cultural difference I had a harder time adjusting myself to is the male-female relation in India. Taj Mahal was built by the emperor Sahan Jahn in memory of his wife.  Therefore, Taj Mahal can be seen as a symbol of a woman who is isolated in the society. Women do not have a lot of choice, and their lives change entirely once they get married. Arranged marriages still take place. In many traditions in India a woman cannot talk to all the members of her husband’s family and is in many ways often isolated and separated. That is the reason why I view a woman as Taj Mahal who is a part of the scenery, but at the same time is not entirely included in it.