Cultural Heyday

I do apologize for my prolonged silence. Country-hopping around Asia kept me preoccupied for quite some time; after that, it was readjusting to life in America. So that’s the biggest news – I am safe and sound, back in Columbus. However, as I mentioned earlier, I am not quite done with this blog yet. I would like to put up some posts about my travels as well as one or two more posts concerning China. Today’s topic: the influence of culture on our daily lives.

Our lives are so intricately shaped by culture that most of us don’t even realize it – and continue to be oblivious until we see an entire other culture doing things differently. Much of my experience in China this past semester revolved around this idea; as it turns out, far more is cultural than I had ever thought.

Consider money habits. When counting money, Americans tend to shuffle the bills from hand to hand. Go grab some bills and try it out – I’ll bet you didn’t even have to think about it. Chinese people, though, count money differently; they fold the bills in half, hold them in one hand, and in the other hand unfold each bill one by one as it is counted. Like so many cultural habits, neither method is superior – just different.

Also, when cashiers give you change back in America, they usually hold onto one of the shorter ends of the bill with one hand and extend it towards you longways. In China, however, they use two hands, one on each of the corners of a long side. I always felt like I should accept the change the same way, but somehow never remembered and only used one hand. Old habits die hard.

Chinese people also give you business cards in a similar fashion. In fact, Chinese business card etiquette is very specific and must be followed exactly to prevent insulting the person you’re talking to. They hand you the business card the same way change is returned; you accept it in the same fashion and stare at it for thirty full seconds; then, for the duration of your meeting, you put the business card out in front of you in plain sight.

Even facial expressions are cultural. Some are innate, to be sure – smiling and crying transcend cultural boundaries. But the subtler expressions, like displaying pleasure, these are the ones that are shaped by the culture you are immersed in. For example, when Chinese women are pleased, they tend to hide their smile behind a hand, as though they know they’re taking more pleasure than they should. I have also been told that, say, when I speak French, my facial expressions change – I forgo the American facial expressions and use French ones instead.

And, believe it or not, the way people run in public is also cultural. Chinese women do a little shuffle-run that I have never seen anywhere else. When Americans run in public, it tends to look a little more natural to my eyes (for lack of a better, culturally-neutral expression). That is, it’s more along the lines of how someone would run if they were going to be running a long distance. But Chinese women only run for very short distances in public – thus the shuffle-run.

In fact, our lives are so dependent on culture that I feel very little is actually innate. I mean, think about it. Where does cultural influence end? Even many ideas people have are cultural. The opinions many Americans express about things like respect and independence are different from the ideas many Chinese people express about the same topics. In China, family is everything; in America, it’s important to strike out on your own. So how many of your thoughts are actually your own and not part of the culture you were raised in? Does this affect free will? That’s not to say we don’t have free will, but the actions we are free to take are also shaped by our cultures (as well as other factors, such as gender and religion).

I suppose the whole point of this is to suggest that far more is cultural than most people think.