Choose one idea from thinking about maps, Plato's Cave, the distinctions I've made in class, comments people have made in class, or any of the other texts and sources we've looked at. From that starting point, elaborate your thinking about this idea, showing how it might apply to one of your subject areas, a real world situation, your own experience, or another text you have read or watched.
When we looked at maps we saw how the person's culture
impacts their perspective. And last class I mentioned that I was raised Swiss, meaning
that I am excruciatingly punctual and I hate, like truly hate, being late. For
you to truly understand I'll tell you that last year before my first day of school I made my driver take me to school so I would arrive there no later than
8, to have a idea of what the traffic would be like on a morning. It worked; I wasn't late once last year, with exception for days that I had a doctor’s
appointment or was sick in the morning.
To
me being late to a “professional” situation is something that is not tolerable;
it was the way I was raised and one of the very first things that my parents
taught me. As a kid I was the first one EVERYWHERE but this made me prepared
and is probably the reason why I'd rather be 1 hour early rather than 10
minutes late. Because I was taught that those 10 minutes are big enough for you
to miss something that is really important. In class those 10 minutes could
have been used to explain how you are supposed to format future essays or how
osmosis works. And then comes time to format your essay you don’t know how to
do it and you could loose points for that, or there is a question about osmosis
in a quiz and you can't remember the exact definition because you missed it. To
me there is no excuse to be late, it's simply “get out of your house earlier if
you know you live in a city that is prone to traffic”, because if you lived
here for over 2 weeks you kind of figure that out.
But
once I was here in Brazil for about 2 months my original perspective shifted to
one that allowed lateness for social events, my rule for this is that it must
be ore than me and one other person or else I feel guilty making someone wait
for me. But this change was caused by Brazilian culture, in which being 15 minutes
late is not considered late, a concept I did not truly understand until living
here. And when they tell you to get that the event starts at 10 they really
mean anytime after 11. My mom likes to call the time they give an indication of
what time not to arrive at. And though arriving
late feels wrong to me, it doesn’t to the people who have a Brazilian perspective
on the topic of timing.
Great post Nina. I really liked that you compared how different cultures affect maps, and the time you should arrive at events. Being late to events is in fact a brazilian tradition, I have lived in Brazil my whole life and am very used to arriving late, which means on time to Brazilians. However, when my family and I travel to the U.S. and make a reservation to go eat at a certain restaurant we suffer a lot to arrive at this restaurant and the designated time. We don't want to be late, but it is impossible for us to arrive on the exact time. Some restaurants will hold reservations, while others will simply discard it, forcing us to go to another place. Culture will immensely affect what time to arrive on events. Arrive on time at a certain Brazilian event, is not considered disrespect. However, arriving late at a swiss event is. Therefore, I admired your attitude to try to keep up your punctuality at Brazil.
ReplyDeleteGood start, Nina. You've done a fine job of identifying your own perspective and trying to trace its origins. What I especially like, though, is the next step you take, which is to recognize the need to evaluate this automatic perspective you have. You show an open-mindedness that allows you to see that you cannot impose your perspective of lateness in an absolute way when living in another culture. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteHere's a knowledge question: how can we know when our own perspective is preventing us from gaining knowledge?