Seeing as how I will be living in a foreign country for 1 year, I am sure that I will be having to reorient my way of thinking quite a bit. If I am unable to do so, it seems fair to assume that I will have a very difficult time adjusting to a new way of life (that might sound a bit melodramatic, but stay with me). For now, there is only so much I can so that I will swim rather than sink when thrown in the Japan’s cultural water’s so to speak. I feel after discussions had in class, these may be appropriate strategies to keep in mind during my adjustment period.
--- Empty Mindedness As children, we were constantly absorbing information about our native culture(s)’ customs, and learning about social norms and taboos through hearsay, personal observations, and by breaking these norms. As an adult, we may be hypersensitive to these customs because of our experience, but when being thrown into the thick of a culturally different setting, we may become like children again, having a lack of cultural know-how. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing however; we have been culturally conditioned at least once before, so being experienced in that regard, I feel that as adults we can speed up the process of cultural learning through conscious observation, and almost by approaching this with an empty mind. I use empty mind in a way that is like the term open mind, but with an emphasis on its neutral nuance. I find that the term open mind has a positive nuance that denotes cultural acceptance. This is nice, but my purpose here is not to hold another culture in awe, but to learn and internalize it in a way that I will come to understand it more naturally, like a child does when orienting to their native culture. How will this be accomplished? There is a myriad of ways one can accomplish this.
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May 2019
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