Hi there!
As the Americans had a few days off for spring break, there will not be a report about my conversation with Sharon this week. So this post is going to be quite different from the previous one ;-)
Today I’d like to concentrate on my personal learning…But not in the same way I did during the last semester. Ok, I’ll explain it better: I do not want to focus on my language skills, but rather on the aspects of America I am learning more about. From the very beginning I liked the idea of getting to know another culture and improving my English at the same time. I must say I was right…so far the exchange has been really stimulating!
As the Americans had a few days off for spring break, there will not be a report about my conversation with Sharon this week. So this post is going to be quite different from the previous one ;-)
Today I’d like to concentrate on my personal learning…But not in the same way I did during the last semester. Ok, I’ll explain it better: I do not want to focus on my language skills, but rather on the aspects of America I am learning more about. From the very beginning I liked the idea of getting to know another culture and improving my English at the same time. I must say I was right…so far the exchange has been really stimulating!
Mmm…Intercultural competence…It sounds as something pretty difficult to gain ;-)
I have always thought it is quite hard to become familiar with any culture you did not grow up into. Even though you spend some time abroad, I think your idea of the country you are living in will always be influenced by your own culture. This often prevents you to get a clear and objective view of how things really are.
This is basically what I reflected on after our meeting with Chiara last Monday. And these three weeks working on the Wiki and reading the forum just confirmed this conviction.
I have always thought it is quite hard to become familiar with any culture you did not grow up into. Even though you spend some time abroad, I think your idea of the country you are living in will always be influenced by your own culture. This often prevents you to get a clear and objective view of how things really are.
This is basically what I reflected on after our meeting with Chiara last Monday. And these three weeks working on the Wiki and reading the forum just confirmed this conviction.
I have realized that the world tends to have quite a distorted view of the US. I noticed it also when I was in Germany and had friends of many different nationalities.
On the one hand, some people see America as the country in which everything works perfectly: everyone has a good job, an excellent wage, everything is big, technology is high-developed and the economy is thriving.
On the other hand, some others see America as the root of all evil. They associate this country only with inequity, war, army, disaster and junk food. They think it is impossible to find something positive in this culture.
As regards my personal opinion and experience, I must confess it is hard not to be influenced at all by one of these two (extreme) views. To tell the truth, I used to be quite critical towards American society sometimes and I often wondered how Americans could be so presumptuous and think they were “the best“. These months spent with Sarah and the meeting with Chiara proved that American people are much more critical towards their own society as I actually thought.
Americans ARE NOT Bush (and Bush does not represent ALL Americans) ;-)
On the one hand, some people see America as the country in which everything works perfectly: everyone has a good job, an excellent wage, everything is big, technology is high-developed and the economy is thriving.
On the other hand, some others see America as the root of all evil. They associate this country only with inequity, war, army, disaster and junk food. They think it is impossible to find something positive in this culture.
As regards my personal opinion and experience, I must confess it is hard not to be influenced at all by one of these two (extreme) views. To tell the truth, I used to be quite critical towards American society sometimes and I often wondered how Americans could be so presumptuous and think they were “the best“. These months spent with Sarah and the meeting with Chiara proved that American people are much more critical towards their own society as I actually thought.
Americans ARE NOT Bush (and Bush does not represent ALL Americans) ;-)
I really liked the discussion with Chiara last week since we stressed both the positive and the negative aspects of the US. It was made clear that both countries could learn a lot from each other.
As it came out in a discussion last semester, we (Italians and Europeans in general) seem to import only the worst things frm America...That is a real shame, and there is nobody but ourselves to blame.
So, after all it is always the same old story…you cannot judge something you really do not know.
See you next week
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