4th Seminar Reflection
Foreigners and locals, culture etc.
- This seminar was mainly about if we should follow “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”. We discussed upon the questions “how do you define local or foreign ?” “ How can somebody be local or foreign ?” “ Are there cultures that only insiders could understand and that outsiders couldn’t understand despite how they study on it?” “Do we have moral duties to make this place better even if it is against the cultures?” And an example for us to discuss.
- About the local and foreign questions , we went on to discuss the definition of local and foreign and connected with the concept of identity. There could be many ways to define those concepts. Firstly, is your physical identity, what kind of person do you look like, do you look like you are local to that place, your accent, your behaviors define if you are local or not. But in another case, your identity may be defined yourself, what you think you are, what you mentally believe you are. Also in another perspective , nationality may as well be a concept for defining if you are local or not. My own personal beliefs are that it may depend on what the situation is, such as if my nationality is American, but physically and mentally I feel that I am Chinese, than I am local to China more. And that the understanding of the culture depends on if your family are native to that place or that you live in that place since your childhood for 10 years or more. Because understanding build from your environment or your childhood, these shape how well you blend into the culture to understand it. Some people who study it for many years couldn’t achieve that because they take it as a piece of knowledge rather than blending in and trying to understand it fully. To them it is only some knowledge instead of culture.
- As for the moral duty question, at first there were many vague statements, but after someone defined moral and ethics, this question became clear. There were controversial statements about different examples, such as the Chinese FengShui culture, the Christian “Tolerance for my intolerance”, and the example of the ZhenQingGuan ( Not drinking beer inside the restaurant ). One statement I remembered was that people from different cultures have different beliefs, and that they all are doing what they think is making this world or place a better place. Personally I think that even if you have a different belief as the others, the best way is just to walk away and respect the cultures, because they are doing what they think is right, and if you have different perspectives just follow your own and don’t bother them. In some places, acting directly against the culture may cause anger the locals, in this case, you may get hurt, which leads to your own safety problems. The best way to make changes is to post some ideas onto social media or write to the government or so, when people that notice this problem grows, it would impact the people inside, which increases the possibility to make changes. Also direct interacting only makes small changes in some little places, which couldn’t change the whole thing.
- As for the organizing, overall it went well. There weren’t too much disagreements about that. The leaders only recorded a certain number of speakers to speak in order, and left the rest to add ones, which made the discussion free. The problem is that the some of the leaders are quite ones, which is not noticed. But the rest is good, has good organization.