My parents are from Sri Lanka and we speak Tamil as our native language. I am also of the Hindu religion and our culture can also be similarly tied in with the Indian culture. I’ll point out some of my experiences with my culture exposed to the American people as well a few things about my culture that may seem unusual to others. One of the main things we are taught in our culture is respect. Respect for everyone but more importantly respect for elders. One way we respect our elders that I don’t see in anything other culture is we would bend down and touch the feet of the elder. This is a way of showing respect to our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even our teachers. It shows how highly we think of them and how grateful we are for having them in our lives. If I were to touch the feet of my professors at college their reactions would probably consist of being confused and disturbed. Another custom which we have is at my home as soon as we enter the house we take off our shoes. Walking in the house with shoes is considered disrespect in a way. Whenever we have guests over they would know to take their shoes off before coming in or we’d kindly tell them to do so. Another thing that I have noticed about my culture is the food. All my friends who have come over to my house and tried Sri Lankan food find it to be very spicy. I find it to be just fine, probably because I’m used to it but people who have never tried it find it to be extremely spicy. In one instance one of my friends had even shed some tears due to the spicy nature of the food. Here were a few examples of the customs we follow in my culture. Though it may seem out of the norm to many others it is quite normal to me.
I think that taking off shoes before entering someone's home is a tradition in many Asian cultures. It is always a sign of respect to the hosts that you do not wear shoes in their house and I never wear shoes in my own home. Even if I were outside and had to run in quickly to get something that I forgot, I would still have to take off my shoes because I feel very uncomfortable wearing shoes in my house. When I was young, I did not know that not everyone took off their shoes when entering other people's home so I found it very strange when I went to people's homes and they told me it was ok to wear shoes in their house.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the introduction to your culture. I like how you pointed out respect to the elders as a main feature of your culture. This is what I guess makes different Asian and Western cultures, whereas in one the elders are considered to be the wisest and therefore, they are shown more respect, while in the Western Civilization the young help the cultures to evolve, while the eldest sometimes considered less competitive. I was in San Francisco a month ago and local laws amazed me. In the BART (public transportation, just like MTA in NYC) they have signs "The law of California state requires that the priority seats have to be available for the elders and people with disabilities"...Interestingly enough in Russia they also have signs (but not laws!), such as "Give a seat to a pregnant woman or a senior"...And if i'm on the train to Brooklyn and some young people stand up and let the elders to seat, i know for sure that they are russians, because this politeness is part of a culture and morals...And this made me think that the "laws" (a can't get how something completely usual has to be granted a legal status in order to be executable), such as the one I just pointed out, are less effective, because people don't like following the laws or the rules. Instead, their inner system of morals (which is part of culture) makes them more empathetic and understanding and therefore, they will stay for 45 min on the train and will know that the choice they made was morally right...
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