weekly overview 3/20

This week, our classmate Ian got up and taught us a little more about Canada. Most of the things that he went over were things that I kind of knew but there were a select few things that really interested me.  He said that Canada didn’t become its own country until the 1980’s! They were more a settlement of Britain until they officially became a country. The other thing that I enjoyed was the video he found that stressed out all the Canadian stereotypes that people have. It made me laugh because that is how most people think they act! The funniest part was when the guy in the video poured maple syrup on every bit of his food for like ten minutes! Most everything they do there is similar to what we do here today. They really are not that different from us at all!

On Thursday we watched a video called the world of language. This video described us as animals living in the wild, which I thought was different because I have never thought of us in that aspect before.  The guy in the video talked about how we all have different reactions to different things in our cultures. Things as simple as a handshake can be elaborated not for the fun of it, but because that is a custom in their country.  The thing that interested me most was how we show anger compared to how other countries show anger. We usually flip people the bird or swear at them in our country whereas some countries lift two fingers at people or show them horns with their fingers. The other thing that interested me was how different countries say no.  Some wobble their head while most just shake their head no.

You do not think about all these differences until you see them first hand and once you do realize it it interests you to learn more about the other interesting things that different countries do that we do not!

weekly overview 2/28

This week we spent more time looking at indigenous people. We watched a film about Pine Ridge, SD. On that reservation they live from Government paycheck to Government paycheck. They live off of food that is very unhealthy for them and most of them spend their money on alcohol. It frustrates me that they can’t do anything for themselves because they need the money to get a vehicle to be able to transport themselves to a job off the reservation.

I have mixed feelings about this situation. On one side of the situation they wanted to be treated as equals but they are not even trying to do anything about it but on the other hand if I was put on a little patch of land with no jobs available and no way to get to a job off of my given land I would probably give up too.

The other thing that we watched this week was about food and how different countries have different customs and how we wouldn’t imagine eating some of the things that other countries eat on an everyday basis. One of the thing that interested me the most was how people in the UK think that the combination of peanut butter and jelly is one of the oddest combinations. That is something that is so normal for us that it is different to hear that some people have never heard of it.

The other thing that interested me was the spitting in the cup experiment. I, as well as most of the other people in the experiment would never re-drink my own spit. When that guy that was asking them all the questions said that the spit was something that came out of their mouths it made me realize that a lot of people are like that including me. The sight of some things make us thing that it won’t be any good.