How can we learn to see things from another culture´s point of view? Why is this
important?
If we develop this skill, how could it lead to greater harmony and understanding?
In all over the world there are many groups of people, which has in common culture, political
situation, history, traditions etc. They live together in society and in they get in touch almost
every day. They perceive each other differently and they have fear from one another.This
important fact implies the problem called xenofobia, which has roots in subconsciousness of
everyone. Xenofobie1 is „aversion or fear from foreigners and everything strange“. If we
could be able to put out this problem, life would become much more easier.
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First of all I would try to answer the question: „How can we learn to see things from another
culture´s point of view? In my opinion there are several ways to do so. Very important one is
education, which contributes to higher understanding and also tolerance to other cultures, for
example: give the knowledge about cultures, teacher´s role, discussion. We can be able to
understand, clasify and know them better. It forms our own attitude on this topic. Educated
people make their own opinion based on the facts and they are not easily manipulated by for
example media, which give us only the stereotypical point of view. For example in Czech
Republic, we have got the problem with Romanias minority. There is a big difference
between Romanian culture and majority of society. The reflection of the difference is a
problem, not the difference itself. The biggest part on this bad reflection has media. They
present the situation in which the Romanias are the one, who are always problematic, such as
robbaries, they are not working, they are stealing etc. That´s why we have a picture, the
Romanias are all the same. Which is in fact hasty generalisation and that leads to the bad
reflection of this minority.
The second way to see things from another culture´s point of view is to stay abroad. If we go
abroad it is necessary to know the language, area, religion, customs etc. We have probably
some positive feeling, which motivates us to discover something new. Usually we are alone in
foreign country, so we have to be flexible and subordinate But it is the best way to gain
experience, which changes and enriches us. From my own experience, I spent 10 months in
Mgr. David Václavík: Etnické a kulturní minority ve střední Evropě 1. Technická univerzita v Liberci. Liberec.
2001. ISBN 80-7083-457-9
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France, working as au-pair. I was in touch every day not only with „my“ english familly, but
also with the friends from french course. If I think about the familly´s way of living, I was
fascinated by their cooking. They have been using basic ingredients such as pasta, couscous
and fish with, for me until that time,undiscoverd vegetables, such as aubergine, courgette,
asparagus. They prepare fantastic and light food in 30 minutes every time. During my stay
there I learnt the recepes and now I am introducing them into my board. The next positive
aspect, which I found pretty exciting was they had somebody unknown in their house. They
lost their privacy but it didn´t seem they were worry about it. They behaved naturally without
any pretending. They were able to respect my private life. I can´t imagine I would do the
same. I would not have a confidence in a strange person especially in somebody who would
také care about my own children. During my stay there I was going to Geneve quite often, and
I felt there relaxed. People talked about this town as „the place where the people meet“. I
agreed with this statement, because there are a lot of different nations, such as Italian,
Portuguese, Japanase. Everybody usually talked in English, which is considered as the most
important language not only for business, but also for understanding between people.
The third way is dealing with close relationships with a stranger. If we get married to or fall in
love with somebody or just have a friendship we learn how get on well together in a pleasent
way. Of course, it is more difficult, because each of us grew up in different childhood
environment. We have to try harder to overcome a lot of barriers, such as language, distance
(one of the partner has his/her close friends and familly far away), religion. Personnaly I find
it enriching, if the partners are easy-going, and they let partner have his part of different way
of living, but almost impossible in the case of intolerance. It is unreasonable to forbid or
transform partner´s own world to get what is satistying us. The respect and tolerance are the
most important factors.
Now I would like to answer the question, why is this important? I think we live in
multicultural society, which is getting more and more interconnected. Globalization plays the
big role from the economical, social and political point of view. It is not a right solution stay
in our shells and be inattentive to everything what´s going on around us, but I think we are not
alone so we should learn from others and became stronger. This is the way to solve the
problems more effectively. It is essential to put away phenomenom such as xenofobia and
other negative feeling. It is the only way to survive in such a complicated world.