Cultural Reflection Essay

I did not particularly learn anything new about myself, but the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) enabled me to reflect more about my culture and beliefs. I had expected myself to be in the polarization stage as I recognize that I often try not to identify the similarities of a different cultures. I also realize that I tend to have the “us” and “them” judgmental orientation about the culture in Malaysia and the culture in the United States of America. I tend to recognize the differences, but differentiate them and fail to observe the similarities within these differences. For example, the level of respect given to authority and to people who are older than me is practiced differently in my culture and in the Western culture. I had observed

Most of the time, one’s cultural disengagement does not tend to be resolved. I was actually surprised at this result as I had thought I scored lower in the cultural disengagement. The definition of being unresolved in cultural disengagement is when one experience a lack of involvement in core aspects of a cultural community as I do not believe I know much about my culture. One reason is because the Malaysian culture is a combination of at least three cultures. These cultures may include Chinese, Indian, Malay, and these cultures are different in East Malaysia too. As a result, the Malaysian culture is a combination of these cultures. I am not familiar with this Malaysian culture as I had been more exposed to a Chinese culture than other cultures. There are some cultural differences within the Chinese culture. Since my family is mainly Hokkien, we celebrate the fifteenth day of Chinese New Year, which other Chinese cultures rarely observe these days. We, however, do not celebrate in the same way as other Hokkiens as the rituals are against Christian teaching. At the same time, I did not have much exposure to other cultures as I was not in Malaysian public schools for most of my life. I was only exposed for the first 7 years of my life, but was more exposed to Indian and Chinese culture for the last 11 years before I came to America. I believe that the main culture I was