REFLECTIVE WRITING 1

About culture

“Culture becomes visible when we travel between cultures” (Ryan, 2010), as an exchange student from Taiwan, I can absolutely feel the meaning of this sentence. Not only food, values we hold and teaching methods in school are quite different. Just like Hall’s iceberg analogy of culture (2010), culture includes behavior, beliefs, values, and think patterns. When I started to choose a picture that represent my culture, firstly, I used the concept that I learned from Hall’s iceberg analogy of culture and the readings which I got from the lecturer. Secondly, I asked myself” What will I introduce Taiwan to foreigner? What is the most special things we have in our mind and society”, and the answer came out, Taiwan night market. The reason is night market not only shows the way Taiwanese act, for instance, the way we cook and eat, but also shows our value of life, these are what we call culture.

About identity

   Previously, I thought identity is only what makes us special. It really interesting that after reading, I realize that the root of the word” identity” is Latin idem, which means “same”. This means we do share common identity, but the things I care more is about what makes us unique. The answer I have got so far is we have different “soul”, this is the part that deep inside our mind (Lawler, 2008). The differences are due to we all have a different life. Because no one has only one identity, I spent a lot of time to figure out which identity can represent my identity. At the end, I chose two photo, it shows that I am a women, sister, teacher and Asian. I chose them, because it show both common identities and unique identities I got. Moreover, these identities build up who I am today, and remind me which responsibility I should take.

Historical influence and society

At the beginning of the lecture, Professor Judy Mcgregor (2015) give us a brief answer of “why is history important for understanding today?”. The answer is the history gave us roots, it grounds our understanding. In my point of view, history not only shapes the society and culture today, on the other hands, it also teach us some lesson. I chose photo of History textbooks to represent “my view of historical influences in today society”, because we learn our culture, values and country though History textbooks, and the history events influences our thinking and the way we act today. When Professor Mcgregor was talking about Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the period of time when Japan colonize Taiwan burst into my mind. This part of history did shows influences today society, for example, building and langue. Lot of elders can speak Japanese, but some of them hate Japanese due to the terrible history events they had been though.

Human right

    Human rights is for everyone on the earth. It about many things, includes eating, liberty, education, marriage and so on. We all knows it important, but still, there are a lot of people lost their rights. For example, the homeless people on Queen Street, and the refugee all around the world. I have hold a value that I think all people are equally and as a world citizen, we should stand up for those who lost their human rights, so this is way I join the ”TPPA-WALK AWAY” protest.

References

Lawler, S. (2008). Identity: Sociological perspectives. Malden, Mass: Polity Press.

Ryan, M., Ingram, B., & Musiol, H. (2010). Cultural studies: A practical introduction. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hall, Edward T. (n.d.) Cultural Iceberg model. www.constantforeigner.com

Professor Judy Mcgregor’s lecture and slides (29/07/15)