Silva 1 Jssika da Rocha Silva Professor Kalajian Writing Level 5 19 March 2014 Culture: We See Everything, But We Are

Blinded Many times Culture is like eye color, its obvious for everyone except the one with the eyes. We just can know our own eyes color by feedback from outside sources. Thats what happens with our culture, many of its aspects are invisible to us, and we just can see it by contrasting what we know with something else different. One interesting cultural aspect hard to see is understand our beliefs about food, and the way that we separate the edible from the disgusting. For example, you probably know how one specific food is made, but probably in somewhere it is made using a completely different way. Maybe someone use sugar instead salt, or something like that, to cook your favorite food. You have a predefined idea about what is good to eat and what is strange and weird. You use a specific flatware to eat a specific meal or food. You also have the culture about what is the correct size for a portion of food. However, even around you, it is possible finding someone with different beliefs in at least one of these topics. Another cultural behavior is in our clothes, we really dont pay attention in what we reveal and what we hide by the clothes we wear until see something different from our habits. In many places, it's not hard to realize that people may have completely different beliefs than yours. For example, in some countries people probably wear more or less pieces of clothes than you. In this aspect the culture that I am talking about is a kind of individual culture. Dont you think people outside wear clothes shorter or longer than you? It also reflects in the occasion and the

Silva 2 environment. I think you probably will not use shorts and a t-shit in a business meeting. Its clear, but often we didnt pay attention to that. The hardiest cultural aspect to see is our way to maintain physical contact with people around us. Many times we dont know why we behave in a specific way instead another, it just is stuck in our habit. Think about you behavior for a while and try to define how near you are from someone during a talk. Do you think it is a rule for everybody? No, it isnt! In many countries people feel uncomfortable talking very close with someone. You have a ritual that you follow every time you know someone, it can be a shake or hold of hands, a hug, a face kiss, but people in others places may think it is not appropriate. In a way easier to understand, you can think about your different relationships, you probably have a way to greet your family and a different way to greet your boss. As you can see, a careful evaluation of some cultural aspects such as food, clothes and social interaction can easily show how we are blinded in our culture. I believe many of our cultural practices are no more than a routine that creates a blindfold around our eyes.