Culture is a big part of a lot of people’s lives, it makes up a lot of what they do, what they eat, how they act, and what their usual life is. Culture is the everyday life of a certain group of people, their normal lives. Every single culture is a least a little bit different than others, each is special or unique in its own way. It’s important to study other cultures so you can understand them and why they do things, reduce xenophobia, learn to be more accepting, enhance your lifestyle and the way that you do things, know things when visiting, create curiosity within yourself, know more about global awareness, and change your life for the better.
Learning about other cultures can be a really great thing. One of the things that you can benefit from is understanding them and why they do certain things. If someone from a different country or place has a completely different culture than what you’re used to they might do some things that make no sense here. For example in The Lost Boys of Sudan video, a group of young men came to America, they didn’t know much if anything at all about the U.S.A. They thought that you could just walk into someone’s house and ask for help because in their culture that’s ok. But in America that might be taken as a break-in and the police might be called. If you did know that about that certain culture the whole situation could have been avoided.
Xenophobia is the fear or hatred of other cultures. It is a very extreme hatred, it can be to the point where people will hurt others, completely avoid them, or are very rude and disrespectful. People who are xenophobes generalize, or put people in a certain group and assume they’re all exactly the same, people from other cultures think that for example, all Muslims are bad. John Dutcher, an American man, thought after 9/11 that every single Muslim was awful. But that all changed when a Muslim family moved in across the hall from him. He learned about them and their culture. Dutcher grew to love his new neighbors just by learning about their culture and how they’re not all the same.
You could learn to be more accepting as you find out new and different things about the culture you start to become more accepting therefore you become more accepting of people and their flaws overall.
If someone decides to learn about the culture it can benefit them in the long run because they could learn better and more efficient ways to do things they’re already doing. It could teach you a lot about certain tips and tricks for your life. It could make your life easier, reduce the time it takes to do things, and then give you more time to do stuff you actually enjoy.
Traveling abroad you are going to want to know what to do so you don’t offend or confuse anybody. Things mean different things in different places, for example, if you’re American it’s considered rude not to finish your plater but in other cultures, if you finish your plate it’s like you are questioning the generosity of the chef so they bring you even more. Knowing things about other cultures can help you avoid making anyone upset over something silly.
Learning about other cultures can encourage you to learn more and more. It can teach you that you love to learn and want to learn about different cultures and other subjects. It can also help you practice your studying, annotating, comprehension, and reading skills.
In conclusion, learning about culture can benefit your life in many ways. It can change bits of who you are and how you do things. It can change your lifestyle and the way you act. If you learn about other cultures it can reduce xenophobia, tell you why people do things, teach you to be more accepting, you can learn how to do new things, help you avoid offending anyone, encourage you to keep learning, make you more globally aware, and make your life even better than it already is.