Examples Of Cultural Differences In America

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The person I interviewed is my grandfather, who lived in the Republic of China and Singapore for 16 years before he moved back to the United States in 1984. The reason he moved over there in the first place was because he and his wife were missionaries. One of the questions I asked him was what cultural differences he noticed immediately upon moving there. The first thing he told me was that the time was so much more relative. Everyone worked really hard in the mornings and took the afternoons off since it was so hot and humid; known in Spanish speaking countries as a “siesta”. He also noted that traffic was extremely hectic, “The biggest vehicle gets the right of way and if you don’t move out of the way, they’ll push you with their car.” The next thing we talked about were the family dynamics. He told me that in every church that he preached in, women sat on one side of the church and men sat on the other side. Couples also very rarely showed affection in public. In addition, he explained the idea that extended families all lived in a single house or compound, whereas in America, families are mostly nuclear, with only the parents and children living in a single house. …show more content…

She lived on a compound with her parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Despite having so many people in one area, the family dynamics were incredibly strong. They value family so much, that poorer families even get involved in criminal activity to support them. However, he mentioned that during the time that he was over there, parents often didn’t let their children marry for love. They wanted their children married off to higher positions in society or to wealthy families so the parents would be taken care of in old

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