Blogs

TukTuk.pptx

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. 

The Sephardi Ashkenazi Split

For my cultural project I decided to explore the split between the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi Jews. I had always known that there were differences between these two sub-cultures, and that they identified largely with different geographic locales. However, I had never realized before, how many differences there were between these two subcultures, nor that there were so many other Jewish subcultures besides Ashkenazi and Sephardi. The most interesting thing I learned during this project was about the various Jewish subcultures located throughout Asia. I had never learned a lot about Asia before, and I had never even heard about Asian Jewish cultures.  I truly enjoyed looking into the history of these groups and learning about how there traditions, history, and experiences were different from western groups of Jews. 

For my sources I used information gained from an interview with my Rabbi as well as:

History of Hebrew

This PowerPoint reviews a brief history of the hebrew language. It explores and sums up the various periods of transition that Hebrew went through. It also looks at some of the different current alphabets, and the different forms and populations of Hebrew spoken today.

In this article culture is explained as it relates to the scale of individualism and collectivism. I really enjoyed this article because it not only corresponded with my language learning and cultural understanding of my target language, but it also corresponded with some of my other classes, such as sociology and anthropology. Now in this article collectivism and individualism are explained as being the two poles--or extremes--at the end of the scale, and most culture fall in between them. The individualistic culture focuses more on the identity, needs and subsistence of the self, while the collectivistic culture focuses on those of the primary or immediate group, such as one's family, or a group one is greatly invested in. I've learned through this article and my other courses how important it is to look at all aspects of a culture, and not label them using a general term. most cultures fall somewhere between the two ends of this scale meaning that they adopt a subtle mixture of both collectivistic and individualistic ideals. This attitude translates to a few other aspects talked about in this article. Monochronic and polychronic ideas, internal versus external beliefs, and direct and indirect communication.

This article talks about how different people and different cultures relate monochronic and polychronic perceptions of time, external and internal views on the locus of control, and directness or indirectness of communication in a culture. In this article each one of these aspects is tied largely to either the idea of an individualistic culture, or that of a collectivistic culture. However, when you think about how most cultures fall in between these two definitions, you also have to think that as it relate to these other cultural and communicative factors, cultures must adopt a majority of their practice from one idea, yet traces of its opposite must likely be evident in small parts of each culture.

When I took a psychology class we touched on the various areas and parts of the brains and how they connected to various mental and physical tasks. We touched briefly on how they brain learned and processed language, and of course touched on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Broca's area, and Wernicke's area. I don't think I realized at the time how many different areas of the brain were involved in language, though. I also found it interesting to learn about these different aspects of language and then how they apply to learning and speaking foreign languages.

I found the section on slips of the tongue very interesting. I know I make then often enough, and I found it interesting to think about how they might happen in other languages. It is intriguing to think about how the slips we make in English may never be made in a different language, because the the similarities between words and phrases would be different, thereby affecting the sounds, syllables, words, and units of grammar differently.

Language%20Partner%20Reflections.docx

I found the following news article in the Hindi Bhaskar newspaper.  The original article can be found at <http://www.bhaskar.com/article/RAJ-JAI-the-lives-of-the-students-took-the-exam-stress-2635739.html?C3-JAI>

I wrote on my learning plan that I hoped to translate an article about immigration to America.  However, I could not find such an article written in Hindi.  Therefore, I chose to find an article that had something to do with education, since learning about education was my primary goal this semester.  I found reading newspaper articles to be a much more approachable and reasonable task this semester than I did last semester, so I was pleased with my reading progress.

I was very happy with my comprehension of the article. I was largely able to understand the events described in the article (many of which seem completely irrelevant to the point of it).  My vocabulary was sufficient enough to allow decent understanding and I also learned several new words that the article used repeatedly, such as exam, stress, police, and investigating.  I got together with my old Hindi partner, Prayas, for assistance with parts of the article that I found more difficult.  Prayas especially assisted me with unfamiliar verbs and with recognizing which words were actually proper nouns for places or people's names.  Sometimes it is difficult for me to distinguish between unknown vocabulary and names; Hindi does not use capital letters like English does, which I think adds to the confusion.  

The sad events in the article are, unfortunately, extremely relevant to Indian education today. Extreme stress is a growing issue for Indian students, as more and more young people compete for a limited number of degrees and jobs.  The stress has led to a large number of suicides in recent years, especially among university age students.  It inspired one of India's most popular movies, and my favorite Hindi film, Three Idiots, which raises awareness about the alarmingly high expectations that lead to extreme stress and suicides.  

जयपुर.सात दिन पहले परीक्षा देते वक्त तबीयत बिगड़ने पर एसएमएस अस्पताल में भर्ती युवक की रविवार देर रात मौत हो गई। जब वह वार्ड में लाया गया था, तो डॉक्टरों ने परीक्षा के तनाव की वजह से ब्रेन हेमरेज होने की आशंका जाहिर की थी। हालांकि, सोमवार को पोस्टमार्टम करने वाले डॉक्टरों के मुताबिक युवक की मौत के कारणों का पता एफएसएल भेजी विसरा रिपोर्ट से चल सकेगा। शिप्रापथ पुलिस मामले की जांच कर रही है। 

पुलिस ने बताया कि भैरूंराम (26) उर्फ भैंरू पुत्र कोजाराम गांव चिड़िया, बायतू बाड़मेर का रहने वाला था। वह करीब दो वर्ष से सोढाला स्थित रामनगर में दो साथियों के साथ किराए पर रहकर बैंकिंग व एसएससी परीक्षाओं की तैयारी कर रहा था। 4 दिसंबर को उसका एसएससी का पेपर था। वह दोपहर 2 बजे राष्ट्रीय संस्कृत संस्थान में पेपर देने गया था। 

वहां करीब एक घंटे बाद उसकी तबीयत बिगड़ गई और उल्टियां होने लगीं। इस पर उसने सेंटर से बाहर आकर दोस्त अशोक को फोन किया, वह भी किसी अन्य परीक्षा केंद्र पर था तो उसका भाई वहां पहुंचा और भैरूंराम को एसएमएस पहुंचाया। दोस्तों ने बताया कि भैरूंराम के दो बड़े भाई हुकमाराम व एक अन्य गांव में मजदूरी कर परिवार घर खर्च चलाते हैं। पिछली बार भी बैंक की भर्ती परीक्षा में भैरूंराम का चयन नहीं हो सका था। उसके बाद से वह असफल होने के डर से तनाव में आ जाता था। 

तनाव से ब्रेन हेमरेज और बिगड़ी तबीयत

भैरूंराम की हालत गंभीर होने से उसे मेडिकल आईसीयू में वेंटिलेटर पर रखा गया। मामला संदिग्ध मानकर अस्पताल प्रशासन ने शिप्रापथ पुलिस को इसकी सूचना दी। तब उपनिरीक्षक महेंद्र सिंह वहां पहुंचे। डॉक्टरों ने पुलिस को भैरूंराम के परीक्षा का तनाव होने से ब्रेन हेमरेज होने का अंदेशा जताया। इसके बाद भैरूंराम के परिजन भी बाड़मेर से यहां पहुंच गए। उनको भी डॉक्टरों ने वही कारण बताया। भैरूंराम ने रविवार देर रात करीब 2 बजे दम तोड़ दिया। सोमवार को पोस्टमार्टम के बाद परिजन शव बाड़मेर ले गए।

Take away words:

परीक्षा = exam

तबीयत = health (a different word for it than I already know)

बिगड़ने = deteriorate

मौत हो गई = died

तनाव = stress

पुलिस = police

वजह = reason

करीब = around

ब्रेन = brain

परिजन = family (a different word for it than I already know)

Translation:

The article is entitled, "Exam Stress Takes Student's Life!"

Jaipur. A man who was admitted to the SMS hospital seven days ago died on Sunday evening after he fell ill during an exam. When he was brought to the ward, the doctors suspected brain hemorrhage induced by stress to be the cause of death. The report of the postmortem that was sent to SMS hospital will confirm the exact cause of death. Sriphraphat police are investigating the case.

Police claim that Bhairuram aka Bhairu is a resident of Kojaram bird village. He has been living in Ramnagar with his two friends for the past two years and has been preparing for banking and S.S.C examination. His S.S.C examination was on the 4^th of December.

After an hour his health began to deteriorate and he started to vomit. He then called his friend Ashok, who himself was taking an exam. As a result Ashok's brother brought Bhairuram to SMS hospital. His friends confirmed that his two brothers are day laborers in another village and make their living from it. Last year he wasn’t selected for the banking job after the entrance exam. Ever since he was really worried and stressed about being unsuccessful.  

Tension causes brain hemorrhage and deterioration of health

Bhairuram was admitted to I.C.U and was kept in a ventilator because of his critical condition. Suspecting of wrong doing the doctors notified the Sriphraphat police. Then sub-inspector Mahendra Singh arrived. The doctors told the police that they believe the stress to be the cause behind his death. The family of bhairuram arrived from their village. The doctors confirmed the same with the family. Bhairram died around 2am on Sunday. The dead body was handed over the parents after the postmortem was conducted on Monday. 

I chose my cultural presentation topic of the Polish health care system in part because of my personal interest in the medical field, but also because of the numerous stories that my language partner had shared with me of her recent experiences in Polish hospitals with her brother.  She described that after her brother's brain aneurism and subsequent surgery to remove a piece of his skull so that his brain could swell and then return to normal that her brother was not properly cared for in the hospital where he was being treated.  Nurses went days without caring for him and checking to see if he was responsive after the surgery resulting in complications that required her family to seek the attention of medical specialists and embark on even more dangerous procedures to fix the damage caused by his neglect.

In my research, I expected to find that her brother's predicament was the result of a poorly equipped and poorly trained staff that was indicative of the Polish health care system.  This assumption turned out to be horribly predicated upon the tumultuous history of Poland as a nation which it was able to successfully climb back from in a rather short amount of time since its separation from the Soviet Union.  My research thus left me puzzled as to why my language partner's brother had received such poor statistics when all government documents and statistics that I found suggested that the Polish healthcare system was extremely successful and becoming even more so with each passing year.

These statistics, I discovered, completely ignored the widespread back-door dealings that the Polish health care system revolved around in order to boost the appearance of Poland among the world community.  In actuality there exists a certain type of accepted black market that revolves around selling the services and attentions of doctors and nurses alike for exorbitant bribes.  In this system, the cultural norm is to provide the physician and staff caring for a patient with an "envelope payment" to ensure that one receives the best quality care.  This cultural practice suggests that the bribe which my language partner's family may have presented to the nurses in the hospital where her brother was being treated may have paled in comparison to what other individuals in the hospital were paying and as a result, the nurses entirely neglected him and his condition, leaving him to suffer permanent brain damage and possibly even death.

This method of conducting health care and its cultural acceptance in Poland utterly disgusts me as someone who plans to enter the medical field.  I have always conceived of the practice of medicine as one of helping people regardless of their ability to pay for their treatment as reflected by the hypocratic oath that every doctor must take.  I can somewhat understand that in a country where the government does not provide adequate aid for medical practices to exist, doctors and nurses alike are forced to resort to such measures as taking bribes but I in no way see how a rationalization like this can lead one to simply allow one to neglect a patient with a clean conscience.  However, if a solution exists to this dilemma it lies not within attempting to change what has become the cultural norm of the Poles who have accepted "envelope payments" as necessary evils but rather in the redistribution of government wealth.  In America, the percentage of government spending that is spent on health care is over 12 times that of Poland and for a nation that has successfully reestablished itself economically, educationally and otherwise in its era of peace since the Cold War, perhaps it is time that the government cease projecting the appearance of adequate medical care to the world and begin the slow process of providing for the physical needs of its populace.

-Bangladesh Healthcare Presentation-

I found this presentation fascinating in its style, simply because the speaker was able to do the entire ten minute presentation in his target language.  The topic as well struck home with me as I intend to go into the medical care field in impoverished areas such as those that were described in the presentation.  What I found particularly intriguing was that in a nation in which the government only spends 3.5% of its GDP on health care, the costs that individuals must pay for treatment remains extremely low.  This lies in direct contrast with my own research of the Polish health care system in which, since only 4.5 % of government spending is directed toward healthcare, doctors do not treat patients with adequate care unless they receive substantial bribes that can amount to an average Pole's yearly salary.  The provision of treatment for $1 to $1.50 in Bangladesh therefore seems absurd and reflects the different moral solutions that cultures arrive at when presented with the same issue.  The Polish requirement of extremely high fees for medical service is not in every case a malicious act, but rather one of necessity to purchase equipment to provide adequate healthcare to the public while the Bangladeshi's affordable fee of $1 does not allow for the provision of state of the art equipment and therefore provides largely inadequate health care.  I also found it interesting that the Bangladeshi culture relies heavily upon the village pharmacy for medical care.  This adaptation of the medical care system is shared by Poland and many other european countries and it strikes me as particularly strange that the United States is so reluctant to adopt this system as self-medication extremely reduces the costs which individuals must pay to receive treatment and would be appreciated by many in the current recessions which have plagued our country.

-Education In India-

What I found fascinating about this presentation was not necessarily the educational aspect of the Indian culture but how the education of men and women reflected the lack of progression that their culture has experienced while much of the rest of the world has adopted a sense of sexual equality.  According to the statistics presented, women's education in India is not considered a priority either by them or by their parents.  Young Indian women are burdened with household chores and other responsibilities to such an extent that their education is often neglected and when the opportunity arises for a family to further invest in the future of their daughter they do not due to the effectual permanent transfer of the daughter out of her family and into another with marriage.  In the Polish culture, such a practice would be entirely unheard of since the family unit is valued over all else in life and the intentional removal of someone from the family or a neglect of any aspect of a family member's well being would be unthinkable.  I am curious however as to why there is such a slow progression of the concept of sexual equality in India since it does not have a religion or other cultural hallmark to prevent it from adopting the western understanding.  Polish's cultural malleability in their ability to accept such changes has occurred almost instantaneously in the past regardless of the contrary understandings that it presented to the widely held catholic religious doctrines that presented a barrier to such progress.

In my interactions with my language partner I have come to observe an astounding amount of interpersonal contact between her and her family on a daily basis.  Many of her stories told refer to her family and their interactions rather than the large parties and humorous events experienced between friends that those in the American culture prefer to address in conversation.  I initially discounted this trend, believing it to be the product of homesickness or some other emotion that produced elevated feelings for and desire to consistently recall her family but upon further reflection I decided to research the distinctive qualities of the Polish household, its history, and the values that emerge within its related community as a result.

What I discovered was that the Polish culture values family higher than any other achievable goal in life.  Contrary to the American dream of leaving home, going off and making something of one's self and striking it rich in some way or another, the Poles value a happy marriage and a happy family life over everything else.  The great importance of the family unit in Polish culture is a result of the condensation over time of a strong cultural bond with the community over time.  Scholars claim that in medieval times, when surrounding countries were experiencing peasant revolts and other types of rebellions to equalize the wealth and power of individual families, the Poles remained entirely peaceful toward their feudal leadership.  Nobles in the Polish community regarded themselves and their subjects as a cohesive family unit with different roles rather than as the common european understanding of a type of master-slave relationship.  Over time, the feelings of trust and respect that existed within this early Polish culture was forced to condense with the collapse of feudalism, causing what was once a great love of the nation of Poland and its fairness to become an equally great respect and trust of others in ones community.  Since, the size of what the Pole considered the family unit has shrunk to what the rest of the world conceives of it as, however the Polish culture still retains a nations worth of love, trust, and respect within a single household according to scholars.  As a result, anything that other cultures would seek outside of the home, such as finding a job, getting a loan, or buying an apartment the Poles seek within the home, often working for extended family or friends of relatives and living in additions built on family property.

Contrary to the common causes for dissolution of family bonds in Europe and America, where sexual preference, religious preference, and disobedience amount to unforgivable betrayals, studies have shown that the only offense that results in the expulsion of one from a family in Poland is the betrayal of the community or nation to a threatening power.  This understanding appears to be a cultural representation of the lingering age-old motifs of trust and respect that echo from the mediaeval period erupting in response to the hostile takeovers that Poland has experienced in the recent historical events of World War II and the Cold War.  Perhaps this is a factor in the cultural distrust and lack of communication with individuals who are unable to replicate the grammar forms of politeness in the polish language that I have previously described.  It is reasonable to think that those Poles who had spent so long in foreign countries that they were considered by their own countrymen as "betrayers" were identifiable through their awkwardness with the nuance of Polish language and therefore were largely spurned and ignored.  The ability for those who sold out their comrades to the invasive powers during this time period would still be able to mimic a universal nonverbal politeness which may explain why this is currently discounted and distrusted in the Polish culture.

In a recent encounter with a Polish speaker in which I tested the products of my Polish studies, I found that the woman with which I was speaking was extremely offended by my speech.  It was not a disrespect of her language that provoked such feelings as she later commented that my accent and vocabulary in the language was impressive for a beginner, but rather that the way in which I structured my grammar was insulting to her as an individual.  She claimed that this was a result of my "impoliteness" in not referring to her in the third person, apologizing or thanking her at the beginning of my sentences and my lack of reference to her as Miss.  As I thought that I had approached her in an extremely friendly and polite manner as she had acquiesced to aiding me in my studies this revelation left me utterly confused.  In my further research of the topic, I discovered a study by Professor Eva Ongiermann  in which she analyzes the use of polite speech and the importance of polite grammatical constructs in Polish as well as other european languages.  She concludes that the amount of necessary polite discourse in order to not offend the addressed party is 6 % of communication in English and approximately 20% in Polish and other Slavonic languages.

As none of her statistical data was directly presented in the study, I assume that this translates into some form of English requiring one to say "Please open that door" in order to achieve the threshold of politeness while in Poland the necessary phrase would be something to the effect of "Would you mind please opening that door sir?"  In addition, it would appear that this cultural construct has produced a type of barrier between native Polish speakers and those who are more ignorant of its grammatical constructs such as myself as the Polish understanding of politeness relies almost entirely upon speech rather than body language.  The 20% of necessary polite communication is therefore broken down into approximately 19% polite speech and 1% polite action while the 6% of necessary polite communication in English is essentially reversed, with 5% polite action and 1% polite speech.  That is to say that a native polish speaker who praises his audience to no end but does so with a grimace on his face would most likely be accepted as polite in Poland and offensive in America while the native English speaker who warmly smiles at every Polish individual he encounters but expresses himself with clumsy speech will be rejected outright.

I find this cultural construct of politeness requirements in the United States and other english speaking nations to be understandable since the language of english is taught around the globe and as such has been adapted into "Indian English" and "Chinese English" whose grammatical constructs are similar but are not always identical.    The average American encounters many different forms of broken english and strange accents on a daily basis and expecting conformity to a universal representation of politeness in speech in such an environment is absurd.  Thus the American understanding that a smile, a handshake, and eye contact indicate politeness is reasonable.  However, it appears strange to me that even though Poles do not encounter the same level of diversity on a daily basis that they would still emphasize the importance of politeness in speech over that of action and that they would place politeness in such high esteem that those who do not abide by its rules, such as myself and other tourists, are oftentimes completely ignored.  No doubt an explanation exists within the cultural history of Poland and its language development, however, I can not seem to find a reasonable source concerning this in my research.

I had originally intended to do this post on a uniquely polish traditional holiday however, I became particularly intrigued by this particular event which is celebrated in multiple nations surrounding Poland as well, albeit in a slightly different manner.  Dyngus Day (the same day as easter monday) is a holiday in which men douse women with water and whip their legs with switches.  The origins of this holiday are widely disputed among scholars, some claiming that it is an attempted adaptation of pagan purity rituals into the christian calender much like the tradition of spring fertility imagery has been adapted into the christian easter tradition while others claim that it is a long standing polish courting tradition that has nothing to do with religious practices and developed at least 200 years before the introduction of Christianity into Poland.

Although the holiday is intriguing in its originality and origins, what interested me the most about it is how changes that have developed over time in its practices reflect back upon the similar changes that occurred within the Polish culture and society.  Specifically that the longstanding cultural tradition was adapted in the late 1900s to allow for a day in which women were allowed to practice the same actions against the men in their community.  This tradition became associated with Easter tuesday, the day after Dyngus day.  A few decades later in the early 2000s the tradition adapted to men dousing men with water, women dousing women, and men and women dousing each other all on Dyngus day.  I find that this is a prime example of the ways in which Polish culture has reacted quickly to the changes in societal norms that have occurred over the last seventy years, namely the feminist movement and the introduction of homosexuality as a socially acceptable construct.  That is to say that the creation of the second day of the tradition which provide women the freedom to respond to the affronts they encountered on Dyngus day and the ability for men to douse men and women to douse women were not adaptations that were lobbied for and that struggled to gain momentum, but were natural and accepted additions which attested to the cultural malleability of Poland.  If such a shift in an American cultural shift would, in my opinion, take hundreds of years if it were not implemented by law.  An example of the United States' cultural rigidity in this regard is the difficulties and law suits that have arisen in attempting to remove the necessary recitation of "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance by children in schools whose families do not subscribe to the Abrahamic religions.  I think such radical differences between the cultural malleability of America and Poland reflect the ways in which the two nations have developed, namely that Poland's history has been fraught with being conquered by neighboring titans and forced to adopt their cultural understandings while America has remained entirely unoppressed and instead has become accustomed to asserting its understandings and practices upon other nations.  As such it may be that the Poles have come to understand the meanings of traditions not in their strict adherence but rather in their overall observation while Americans feel the need to remain unyielding cultural models for the foreigners they wish to change.

Basic Conversation: What time is it? Where are you from? How old are you?

Artifact5

This deals with weather as well as focuses on the usage of today,tomorrow,yesterday.

Artifact4

Brief conversation about food. Basically saying, I ate chicken at a restaurant. The food was good , but the restaurant was far.

Artifact3

Basic Conversation: How are you today?

Written twice for practice purposes

Artifact2

 Description: The alphabet which consists of 32 letters, most of which have full and half forms. I also listed the half forms.

Artifact1

The other day, one of the students I tutor asked me to do something for him at school the next day.  I waited and waited for him to say “Please,” as many an adult did to me when I was his age.  In the world of manners I grew up in, “May I…Please…Thank you!” were all requisites of any polite request to be granted.  When I explained what I was waiting for, he was slightly exasperated and bemused.  He said that this had been an issue before, but that the habit of please and thank you was not one he had yet developed.  He went on to explain that this is because please and thank you are words so uncommonly used in Hindi and Nepali.  In these languages, the subject that one uses to address a person indicates respect and incorporates the please and thank you formalities all into one word.  I was taught to always use the respectful form of the you (aap, versus tum) in order to avoid being rude in Hindi.  I thought it was interesting to see how a person’s background in one language can seemingly affect their mannerisms in another…

This is my first reading https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6QadW0J3Mo

And this is my second reading near the end of the semester.  I can reading the same passage over a minute faster. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycpC7IzAE2A