Cultural dissonance in childhood friendships and international experience

¶ … Exercise

Cultural intricacy may be associated to superior cultural relations, which is a positive and constructive setting. To further its incessant positive improvement, it may require taking into consideration the complication through superior understanding of the developing matters. One of these issues encompasses cultural dissonance. In definition, dissonance infers to an essential absence of agreement. Dissimilarities and variances between cultures are intrinsic. In a common way, cultural dissonance is employed to outline a sense of disharmony, discomposure, and disagreement that emanates from cultural variances or discrepancies, which are unforeseen or unsolved and for that reason a challenge for individuals to negotiate (Bohannan 1995).

In essence, the experience of dissonance that can be felt by all parties in the aspect of cultural exchange and endeavors to offer a resolution to conflicting issues, can be perplexing or troubling (Gordon and Yowell 1999). Cultural dissonance is an occurrence that might show itself when an individual that takes part in several cultures are confronted with situations where he or she observes conflicts between a number of guidelines from one culture and the guidelines of another culture (Gonzalez, 2009). This occurrence might even come about or be perceived in the same culture and cultural dissonance can be experienced on a day-to-day basis, when the principles of one culture come into conflict with the principles of another culture (Gonzalez 2009).

In my life, I have faced several instances and occurrences in which I experienced cultural dissonance. While growing up as a child, my parents raised us as a household within an environment of several different cultures as we had neighbors coming from disparate background. However, one thing that stood out above everything was the level of spirituality that we were raised up in. It transcended the cultural differences that we experience as we had to go to church every Sunday, follow the beliefs and the aspects of Christianity and following the word of God. In my childhood neighborhood, we had different neighbors who hailed from different cultures.

I had friends who were Chinese, Arabs, and also French. The constant aspect of laughter and joking was the different accents that we all had while talking to each other. However, most of all I remember making fun of the Chinese and Arabic kids who found it very hard to communicate and talk in English. On several occasions, they found it much more difficult to speak proper English and understand some basic words.

I often called my Chinese friend "Bruce Lee" or "Ching Chong" from the characters that I saw in television. In addition, I made fun of his eyes and the manner in which that was distinguishing factor that caused several people to consider him different. However, irrespective of this, my friend considered himself to be American and not Chinese as he already had become a citizen of the country.

I happened to go on a trip to Kenya, a country located in the Eastern side of Africa, a year ago. While travelling by road and touring several different parts of the nation, I actually came across vast expanses in which the residents had never seen light-skinned individuals in their lives. I was surprised to learn that I was labelled an "Mzungu," a term that means a 'white person'. This was the most bizarre and outlandish experience that surprised me no end regarding my individuality.

This is owing to the fact that it was the first moment in my entire lifetime to be categorized as a white individual. During my trip, I came to the understanding that a white individual was related with those hailing from America. As a result, from the numerous discussions and dialogues that I had with different people that I met, I got used to the term and the curious looks I kept getting.

Having lived in America my entire life, it was the first time that I was labelled and considered to be a white individual or perceived to be different from the rest. It was during this trip that I largely came to understand the manner in which my Chinese and Spanish friends felt when they were labelled different and considered peculiar for the manner in which they spoke.

I did manage to overcome the cultural dissonance that I experienced and also attained several lessons from this experience. It is imperative to say that in all of these cultural dissonant encounters and experiences, I have come to understand that through being spoken as to who I "ought to" be, I endeavor to understand who I am as a person in the perspective of society and carry on through verbal and unexpressed anticipations and expectations.