5/24/2021; Week 6: Response to "Personal Space Differences”.

Thinking about Personal Space Differences, I remembered the Tarzan episode when he meets Jane because of the personal space issue. It is a very funny episode because obviously, Tarzan didn’t know about the Friend Zone or the Intimate Zone, but it also highlights a reality that exists when two worlds meet, and it doesn’t always end well.

Appreciating the experience of the Japanese when they get on the subway impressed me, not because I had never seen anything like that before but because I thought that such things only happened here in Venezuela. Getting on the subway in Caracas or Valencia during rush hour is an odyssey, and in the rest of the country the situation is repeated with public transportation because the system is very deficient. But is it a cultural issue in this case? I have my doubts about that. In my personal experience, I appreciate that many people use it out of necessity, because they have no other means, and the only option involves sacrificing personal space. Usually, people over 35 are the ones who suffer the most because they were born in a prosperous Venezuela where everything worked. For young people who have never lived another reality, it’s probably not so uncomfortable, they may be used to it. Some might think, but why don't they complain? Because in communist countries you can't complain, the price for doing so is very high, even life. Those who resist and have the possibility to ride a bicycle, arrive sweaty to their destination but with dignity.

I believe that a healthy society needs to understand the limits of personal space. When they have been crossed, we are likely to be dealing with a very vulnerable society, and a responsible state should promote this through education. I believe that many sensitive issues inherent in humanity seek to be justified in the name of culture rather than calling a spade a spade. Certainly, there is a cultural aspect to societies, but it is worth thinking about whose hand moves the cradle? It won't be hard to find political systems that benefit from such differences. 

 

References:

Personal Space Differences

https://video.byui.edu/media/05+Personal+Space+Differences/0_yz4lk5f0

Personal Space Ownership

https://westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/book_of_body_language/chap9.html

Japanese subway station https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8FQsg12hoY

Image 2 by OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay

  

5/25/2021; Week 6: Response to: “Individualism vs. Collectivism”.

  

Something that is part of our group-oriented culture in Venezuela is the treatment of children. In the USA it is common for young people after the age of 16 - 18 to leave home to begin the independence of their lives, because they go to college, enter the job market, or get married. In Venezuela, it is common to see children living with their parents after the age of 20 and maybe more because independence is achieved in another way. If their sons/daughters go to university, they usually go to the closest university to the family nucleus, and if they get married, they may even build a second floor to the house to support the new couple. It is very difficult for a Venezuelan mother to separate from her sons/daughters and vice versa, and when I emphasize the role of the mother it is because there is also a strong tendency to matriarchy even though there is a father figure in the home.

Spanglish is a very interesting film that reflects very well a bit of that group-oriented culture in Latinos. In the film, a single mother from Mexico emigrates with her daughter to the USA and becomes a maid. After sharing some time with the American family, the daughter argues with her mother and says something that (obviously adopted from the American culture) almost breaks her mother's heart: -Respect my space! and the mother responds a little angry but with a lot of love: -No, there is no space between us!

Obviously, if we look deeper, we will surely find individualistic aspects in Hispanic culture as well, maybe less than in North America, maybe more than in Asia, because group-oriented or individualistic culture can vary from one culture to another, even within the same country. Where these tendencies fall on the value continuum depends on many factors, such as how much they identify with the local/traditional culture, their level of education, and their experiences in their community. Exploring and understanding the values of young people and their families in the TESOL classroom is an important key to planning and providing responsiveness and support in the process of acquiring a new language. Teachers need to be aware of the contrasts between individualism and collectivism and the cultural basis of their own values and practices.

 

References:

Individualism vs Collectivism https://video.byui.edu/media/05+Individualism+vs+Collectivism/0_ojon0rjc

Individualism vs Collectivism http://www.ncset.org/publications/essentialtools/diversity/partIII.asp

Image 2 by Arek Socha on Pixabay 

5/24/2021; Week 6: Response to " Differences in Emotional Expressivity "

 

As I watched Prof. Ivers' class, I recalled many experiences when I was traveling within my country and when I moved to the city where I currently live. I identified a lot with Prof. Ivers about his way of expressing himself for being from Philadelphia and the differences with his wife for being from Nevada. In Venezuela, as well as in the USA, there are important differences in Emotional Expressivity. Usually, people from the eastern and Midwest region are very loud and speak very fast. In fact, if you don't understand the cultural issue, you may think sometimes that they are fighting but they are not fighting, it’s just their way of expressing themselves. This is something that can make people in the central region very uncomfortable, or cause laughter. And when it causes laughter, then they think the people in the central region are making fun and get upset.

My family lives in the central region, but we are from the Midwest and eastern region, and also part of my husband's family are Italians, and Italians also have a pretty strong expressiveness, but they are great, they are good people. Usually, when we would get together as a family and with some friends to justify the fuss we would make with those gatherings before we said goodbye we would sing "happy birthday" so that people would think we were celebrating something and that's why the fuss, but the truth is that the vast majority of the times we sang birthdays none of us were having a birthday, we just didn't want the neighbors to get upset and a birthday party could justify the fuss.

I agree with Professor Ivers when he says that we should take these differences seriously and understand that they are just part of a culture and that it makes us neither good nor bad. The TESOL classroom is full of these nuances in expressiveness and it’s very important to be able to understand this cultural aspect to avoid misunderstandings and to get the best out of our coexistence in the classroom. I confess that this same expressiveness was contagious in my classroom, and in order to avoid being called to attention because of the commotion in my classroom, we ended up singing happy birthday.

References:

Differences in Emotional Expressivity https://video.byui.edu/media/05+Differences+in+Emotional+Expressivity/0_753le546

Imagen de Darkmoon_Art en Pixabay 

5/20/2021; Week 5: Response to "Culture Miscommunication"

 

While watching Professor Ivers' lecture and the HSBC Bank commercials on misunderstandings in communication due to cultural differences, I also recalled some anecdotes from the other people when they shared with other cultures.

I'll never forget the story a friend told me when she was in London. She had a boyfriend and for some reason, she got very upset with him. She was so angry that she told him she never wanted to see him again. As she expressed her anger her boyfriend cried a lot and then left. Days passed, and the boyfriend never came back. A year later, she happened to see him again and they talked about what had happened. She asked him why he never came back and he answered, surprised by the question: that's what you asked me. In Venezuela, when a couple gets angry, they can even tell each other how bad they are going to die, but many of the things they say they don't really mean. Usually, after the fight, it's typical that the man comes back, asks for forgiveness and they reconcile. But in other cultures like London, if you say goodbye you are really saying goodbye.

I had a good laugh watching Prof. Ivers' video because it also reminded me of an experience when my daughter visited the US for the first time with a US Embassy program. One of the first things she was warned about was not to refuse food if she really wanted to eat, because Venezuelans often say no at first and wait for you to insist a bit before they can say yes. This is typical so as not to appear rude or "starving". So, it was difficult for her because she didn't want to seem rude but she also didn't want to go without food.

When we see these anecdotes, we may laugh or find certain behaviors in the communication process illogical, but beyond laughter it’s a very serious matter where the people involved don’t conceive the world in the same way and don’t understand each other's vision. This observation is of utmost importance in an intercultural classroom and we must strive to maintain effective communication, to put ourselves in the other's shoes. To take off their borrowed glasses in order to see as they see. That ability to inquire, to know that our interlocutor also feels, fears, struggles, observes, and is a conscious mystery like us, is called empathy. And we teachers must be promoters of this important value.

 

 

References:

Culture Miscommunication https://video.byui.edu/media/04%20Cultural%20Miscommunication%20/0_3aaa6xxh/28027982

Series of HSBC Ads about Culture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALWwK7Vz4gY

Image by LUM3N on Pixabay