Learning to Eat, Pray, Love in Our Global World
When I was about sixteen, I read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. While it was not particularly lexically or stylistically challenging, it certainly was ideologically challenging. Through following Gilbert on her travels to Italy, India, and Bali, I gained a new appreciation for cultures outside of the United States and the “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant” world I grew up in. This appreciation manifested itself in a growing respect for both the similarities between value systems and the wonderful differences between cultures around the world.
While in India, Gilbert—a white, upper-middle class, Christian woman—explores Buddhist teachings through yoga. While religion was never very strongly
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During Gilbert’s time in Italy, she learned that Italians value in-the-moment pleasures, such as eating delicious food, much more than Americans do. As I read along with Gilbert as she combines values from all of the places she travelled—Italy, India and Bali—I realized that it is not only okay, but also beneficial to explore other cultures and even respectfully adopt their values and practices to create your own culture rather than passively accepting the culture in which one is raised. After reading Gilbert’s narrative about her time in India, I thought that cross-cultural similarities make various cultures valuable, but the book as a whole taught me that there is a lot that diverse populations can learn from differences between each other’s cultures and those differences can be much more valuable to learn about and consider than the similarities amongst all people. My bias towards beliefs with similarities to my “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant” upbringing did not indicate the value of these beliefs, I realized. Various cultures are valuable no matter how they are related to other cultures. There can always be something learned from exposure to different cultures, even if you don’t want to adopt Buddhism as your religion or hedonistically eat dessert with every meal. Simple tolerance and acceptance is a significant gain that can come from education on and experience with cultures and beliefs different than one’s
Overall, this book is an exceptional example of critiquing our culture with a firm grasp of the philosophies of the day. Our culture is rampant with idols that need to be destroyed. Twenty years have only made the idols more pronounced. This book ought to be required reading in Christian secondary education across the country.
Other cultures are interesting because they are different and we don’t usually understand the things that they do and why they do them. Learning about other people’s traditions from all over the world shows the diversity in people’s beliefs, habits and routine occurrences in everyday lives.
As much as we may think our lives are so much different from others, there are many ways that they can be similar. I learned this in a novel called “The Other Side of the Sky: A Memoir” by Farah Ahmedi. Although the similarities of our cultures are there, the differences are obvious from the beginning. For example, the way we dress, what religions we believe in, and the food we eat. There are many different ways that our cultures compare, including our religion, how we eat, and our languages.
Buddhism is considered as one of the leading religions throughout the world today. In order for a Buddhist to follow the religion, there are certain set of guidelines that one has to follow to gain a better life, but most people have other factors that they have to face along this path. The story, “The Journey of One Buddhist Nun” by Sid Brown, is an account of a Thai woman, Maechi Wabi, who entered a spiritual life along with life struggles and outside influences. According to Brown, Wabi faced many challenges along the way to liberation and two challenges she faced most are the gender and socioeconomic issues which she overcame during her spiritual journey.
Do cultures mix? If they do how long does it take? If it doesn’t, then why? Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible and Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, both tell a story about the adventures, excitement, and dangers of learning a new culture. They are both great novels that enables the reader to create an image of what is happening. Both novels also allow the reader to create an opinion on some of the matters that occur in both novels. Kingsolver’s novel tells a story about a very religious family that are on a mission trip to the Congo to enlighten their minds about Christianity. Kingsolver’s novel shows the reader that cultures may attempt to get along, do not fully engage in unity. McCarthy’s novel tells a story about a teen that
Likewise, we should practice incarnation of ourselves to the cultures we are to serve. Chapter two provides the model of basic values and a questionnaire designed to help the reader understand their own cultural biases. In Chapters 3-8, Leingrenfelter deals with each tension and explains their opposing views. These tensions include time-orientation vs. event-orientation (ch. 3), holistic thinking vs. dichotomist thinking (ch. 4), crisis orientation vs. non-crisis orientation (ch. 5), task orientation vs. people (ch. 6), status focus vs. achievement focus (ch. 7), and the concealment of vulnerability vs. the willingness to expose vulnerability (ch. 8). At the end of these chapters, Leingrenfelter implores the reader to be willing to adapt and accepting to any culture’s bias on this model of basic values. In chapter nine, he highlights that sin is social, not just personal and that we as cross-cultural ministers should bridge the gap between personal and other people’s values by becoming a 150-percent person whose incarnation requires complete submission and dependence on
“Rituals and Traditions; It Takes a Tribe,” written by David Berreby and “Indians: Textualism, Morality, and the Problem of History” written by Jane Tompkins, both exemplify a typical controversial topic in the United States of America today. The US prides there self on the basis of freedom, and how Americans are made up of individuals with backgrounds from all around the world. Many consider the US to be a “melting pot”, a society where cultures are just blended together and not recognized fully on their own, where as others consider the US to be a “salad bowl”, where people of international cultures hold fast to their traditions and practices and coexist with the cultures around them. Both authors of the readings propose that generally speaking,
Culture often means an appreciation of the finer things in life; however, culture brings members of a society together. We have a sense of belonging because we share similar beliefs, values, and attitudes about what’s right and wrong. As a result, culture changes as people adapt to their surroundings. According to Bishop Donald, “let it begin with me and my children and grandchildren” (211). Among other things, culture influences what you eat; how you were raised and will raise your own children? If, when, and whom you will marry; how you make and spend money. Truth is culture is adaptive and always changing over time because
Ruth Benedict’s anthropological book, Patterns of Culture explores the dualism of culture and personality. Benedict studies different cultures such as the Zuni tribe and the Dobu Indians. Each culture she finds is so different and distinctive in relation to the norm of our society. Each difference is what makes it unique. Benedict compares the likenesses of culture and individuality, “A culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought or action” (46), but note, they are not the same by use of the word, “like.” Benedict is saying that figuratively, cultures are like personalities. Culture and individuality are intertwined and dependent upon each other for survival.
Elizabeth Gilbert is an educated, ambitious journalist who had everything an average American woman would want - a husband, a lovely home in New York and a successful career. Aside from all the pleasures she already had, Elizabeth felt consumed by panic, grief and a great deal of confusion. After going through a divorce, a debilitating depression and a another failed love, Elizabeth decided to quit her job, leave everything behind and embark on a journey to find the art of pleasure, devotion and a balance between both worldly pleasure and spiritual devotion. Throughout her trips to Italy, India and Indonesia, she encounters various individuals that makes her trip that much more worthwhile. At her first stop, Italy, she enrolls herself in an Italian language class and submerges into the beauty of this romantic language. She learns the splendor behind the Italian culture and gains the best 23 pounds of her life. At her next stop in India, she spends hours of quite meditation at her Guru’s Ashram. At first, Gilbert finds it difficult to stay focused and meditate whole heartedly, being ...
...der or the importance of virtues such as humility. Unfortunately, there are people who act immorally in every culture, but that does not mean that one culture is more inclined to this behavior than another culture. Likewise, this same logic can be applied to goodhearted people who promote knowledge and wisdom. Good, intelligent people are plentiful across all cultures of the world. One cannot just “sit in the bush” if he or she expects to find them, but instead he or she must interact with them like Laura Bohanan or Richard Forsay Lee did with the various tribal peoples of Africa.
Experiencing a society of multi-cultures is beneficial through a variety of concepts to epitomize each individual identity. A person may vary in the degree to which he or she identifies with, morals, or...
In the end, what we learn from this article is very realistic and logical. Furthermore, it is supported with real-life examples. Culture is ordinary, each individual has it, and it is both individual and common. It’s a result of both traditional values and an individual effort. Therefore, trying to fit it into certain sharp-edged models would be wrong.
Ma specifies that one of the ways to learn about foreign cultures is to experience them. The author also states that those who share their knowledge are even more curious and fascinated by different cultures. The author also says that traditions are created by sharing the ownership to it, but everyone has their own meaning behind it. Ma gives a few examples in regard to keeping the local traditions alive through movies, museums, and cities. He also mentions that immigrant groups coming from different countries can teach us about their values, and vice versa, without causing any harm to their culture. Furthermore, the author points out some ideal ways of education that would encourage children to learn not only about their traditions but others as well, such as encouraging
How do personal values shape culture, and how does culture affect our understanding and interpretation of seemingly ordinary things?