Cultural Lenses

  

It is true.  We all wear cultural lenses.  Culture is defined as a shared knowledge, beliefs, symbols, and interpretations within a human group.  We see, interpret, and evaluate many things from our perspectives through our own cultural lenses within our own human group. According to Nomadic Mike, it is because we are culturally ignorant.  It is true some people don't know what is going on outside their own borders, and they are afraid to wander outside those boundaries because the world is a scary place.  I am guilty of this also.  You can wear your cultural lenses in your own community and state also.


How some people view the world is based on cultural misunderstandings.  Florence Ferreira of Toastmasters International points out that these misconceptions are universal and that other cultures wear their own lenses.  However in order to obtain a deeper cross cultural understanding, you must be willing to take the glasses off to develop a better deal with differences. 


In order to view the world around us differently, we have to develop a realization that our own traditions, values, procedures, and social practices are different from those of other cultures.  Florence Ferreira does a great job describing the differences in the values and social practices of Americans than those of the shopkeeper in the Peruvian Andes.  Some people don't even take their cultural lenses off in their own communities.  It is hard for me to even imagine how my grandparents lived in my own community.  They too, had different social practices than we do today.  Times have changed.  Technology has changed the way we communicate and work. 


I'll be honest and admit that I'm a little afraid about our trip.  I have been to Mexico twice so it won't be my first time to leave the states.  It will however, be the first time I've ever been without my family.  I have travel anxiety, too.  Flying for the first time, budgeting money and time, and making sure I am culturally sensitive to others.