culture SHOCK...

While playing the card game in class, I knew that there was something different bound to happen with all the different groups. When the first game was over and someone new came, the new game started out fine until she was getting confused. I saw the looks on her face and tried to help with hand gestures since we weren't able to talk. She just went along with it (our table way) and kept going. When the game was over and realized that different directions for different tables were handed out, we were considered 'different cultures'. I thought it was interesting to see everybody's reactions when they realized what happened with the game. I felt bad because our table or 'our culture' made the new people who came over basically conform into our own culture. Even though one did wonder what was going on and why our game was different, she went along with it like most do when they come to a different culture. She respected our way of playing and kept going. I didn't judge or have much of a culture shock when playing, maybe because I stayed in my same culture and didn't have a different experience. I liked this experiment because you got to see the differences in culture and how people treat it and respect it.



When after the game we talked about toliet paper and how in different countries and cultures that you sometimes have to BYOTP (bring your own toliet paper) which was a total culture shock to me. It made me think of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine doesn't have any toliet paper in her stall and asked the person in the next stall for a square, but apparently there was no "square to spare." So if in a different culture you had to BYOTP you would have been fine. I thought that it was cool that you would never end up in that situation in a different country. I think now I will have a more open mind to the different cultures and how they do gestures to BYOTP and have a better understanding that everybody doesn't have the same traditons as me.