Mirror for Man - People are the way that they are Raised

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Kluckhohn explained the differences and similarities among the world's peoples by taking different life examples of different cultured people and compared them to another person who was raised up in a different lifestyle. At first, he brought up several questions, asking why certain people do or don't do certain things. These questions were served as guides, which led on to the examples. They also served as attraction to the readers who are curious about different people from another culture. Then he went on to compare people from different cultures in his examples. He compared an American woman, who restricts her husband to only one mate, with a Koryak woman, who shares her husband with another woman; an American raised in China with the Americans raised here in the United States; and lastly, he compared people's reactions from eating the meat of chicken or tuna fish to that of a rattlesnake.

Kluckhohn has a strong point in viewing human's culture. I agree with his definition of culture -- "the part of the environment that is the creation of human beings." People react to things differently because they were raised up in different environments with different cultures. No matter who the person is, or where he (or she) was born, his behavior and his personality traits developments would depend on the environment that he is living in. The way people think, feel, react, and behave also are depended upon life experiences. They feel different emotions because they have felt this emotional happiness or sadness before. They think what is right and what is wrong because they have learned from past experiences. They react to different things because they experienced things that please them and the things that displease them. They behave in certain ways because they want to design their way of living into what they have admired from other people's lives.

I was born in Hong Kong, the school systems and the people living there are very strict in comparing with the United States. Over in Hong Kong, students go to school for seven hours and then they would go home and spend another seven or eight hours on homework. The school system really forces you to study and do your homework to stay up with the rest of the class. But yet, the students would accept the homework assignments without complaining because they are use to doing so much homework and taking the pressure.

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