¶ … setting collaborated interacted people experience / beliefs differ . Address initial feelings, feeling change experience.
Living in a 'different' world
I like to believe that all people are united by their similar background and by the fact that they tend to enjoy a particular set of values in addition to the values they have been taught to respect. However, upon interacting with Fullara, an Indian friend of mine, I came to see life from a completely different perspective. I was initially impressed with how I was previously inclined to associate individuals coming from certain environments with stereotypes relating to them.
The first few times we went out together we discovered that we had a great deal of things in common and that we were not as different as we initially believed. However, as we became closer and as we almost came to see each-other on a daily basis I realized that we were experiencing a cultural clash. It is not necessarily that we were contradicting each-other with regard to particular things, as we simply had different beliefs and we respected each-other's type of thinking. The fact that we managed to get a complex understanding of the different cultures we came from played an important role in helping us appreciate how we each expressed ourselves.
Stereotypes are typically harmful because they bombard people with information that either much too general or that is simply meant to discriminate particular groups. In spite of the fact that Fullara was born into a middle class family and lived most of her life in an environment...
The fact that I ordered steak made her feel uncomfortable and she actually started to speak about how her culture considers cattle sacred. She did not criticize my choice, as she simply wanted me to learn more about her and this made me realize that differences can sometimes be used as a tool for two persons to know each-other better.
I initially had the tendency to be amused with regard to something that seemed so pointless at the time. I was practically unable to understand how someone could believe that a cow can be considered a holy animal. Being born and raised in a society that taught me that some things are normal and some are not, I found it difficult not to be influenced by prejudice. Even with this, I gradually came to gain a more complex understanding of her position and I learnt that one should not be judged on account of the environment that he or she was raised in. It was not that Fullara did not want me to eat beef, as she simply pointed out that her culture shaped her perception of particular concepts. The fact that she actually felt relaxed enough to put across her thinking actually proved that she was able to accept…
