Heelotia

Today, during our simulation, I was a Heelot. I thought the simulation did a surprisingly amazing job of showing what it’s like for different cultures to interact. It showed how when you go over to, say, the Middle East, wearing short denim cut-off’s, and people give you weird looks, I now know why.

In our culture, we have freedom of speech, and the news companies basically say whatever they want; however, in other cultures, this is not necessarily the case. For example, China, a communist government, only allows news shows to say what they have prescribed.

Often, we tend to judge the other culture without thinking about it first. For example, in cultures in which they have different eating habits, we are quick to call them weird or we look disgusted, just as today, the Hoakies were freaked out when we hissed at them. This can be referred to as “Culture Shock.” We aren’t used to things being different, we feel awkward in their culture; we feel excluded; we feel as if they are doing something wrong, so we judge them. On another note, when we see someone in our culture doing something we traditionally do not do, we tend to try to make them feel inferior.

This all just shows why countries have trouble working together. Many times, when two countries work together, you find that they may have the same language, same habits, same religion, related governments, or a mixture of all of these. We need to take steps to prevent discord and conflict from happening because in order to become a world of global citizens, we must break down the barriers standing between us.