issue63

换色UID: 2658709

TOPIC: ISSUE63 - "To truly understand your own culture-no matter how you define it-requires personal knowledge of at least one other culture, one that is distinctly different from your own."

WORDS: 644          TIME: 00:39:23          DATE: 2010-3-20 19:58:38

Culture is complex and containing information about many aspects of society. To truly understand a culture, one should not only know language and behaviors of its people but rather the background of the culture. Moreover, knowing at least one other culture is absolutely helping our understanding.

Though we live in certain culture, we can still do not fully understand our own culture without thinking seriously, since people probably focus more on the language and behavior of society in their daily life. But a fully understanding requires us taking history, politics, geography and customs into account, as they can indicate the inside impulses of culture. The history plays a significant role, because it represents the long progress of development in certain culture. If a country has witnessed many wars in the past, then the culture may obtain spirit that is easily get angry or anxious. The geographical environment also affects people. We can not tell why, but it is true that citizens of a water town are milder than others on average. Last but not least, politics, which can affect the ideas of public directly, can show an attitude and value of nation, since politicians are representatives elected from public. To truly understand a culture, and before looking into other culture, we should take our own culture into second thought and ask ourselves: Do we know her present and past already?

Ulteriorly, to truly understand our culture, we need culture distinctly different from ours and make comparison. The goal of the comparison is not to judge the better one but to find differences and similarities. Every culture has its value for some unique characters. Only through comparison can we find the special features of one culture. We should look at the history, politic and geography, factors mentioned before, and find difference in these aspects. Then we will acquire which is the particular and precious part of our culture. Thus can we really appreciate the advantage and try to improve the culture in a more appropriate way.

And the common parts make sense as well. For many culture, there are some parts that once were great influenced by other culture or even came from foreign countries. Since the strength of people is limited, communication of technologies and ideas is common and necessary for the development of the whole world. If we want to understand the foreign part of out culture, we have better find its source. For example, China and Japan is close to each other in geography. Some Chinese word was once transmitted to Japan while some ideas transmitted as well; result in some similarities between culture in Japan and in Chinese. Only through Chinese culture can historians get the inside impulses in Japanese. To truly understand our own culture, we need a comprehensive understand of every aspect of our culture, including the foreign one.

Furthermore, more than one perspectives are required when we want a fully comprehension without prejudice. If one only know his/her own culture, every idea in his/her head is from the culture, so that he/she may has little chance to realize drawbacks of the culture. That is the same as one usually can not see the disadvantage of one’s own clearly, and only by an examination or comparison can one find the shortcomings clearly. Additional, things are different in different perspectives. The same clothes may appear various textures in different light. So understanding of another culture provides us a new perspective to examine our culture again and find out if there is anything exists but has not been discovered yet. Through this examining, our understanding of our own culture can be more valid and convincing.

Even if we live in our own culture everyday, to truly understand it, we still have a lot to do. Knowledge of different cultures can provide us with much useful information and new perspective helping us understanding.