Different Cultures

Our new unit in class is discussing different cultures. It's so cool how different all of the world's societies are. A big difference in culture is hand gestures. In the Western world a gesture means one thing and in another culture it can be completely different. I think it'd be awesome to travel to other countries and experience the way they live their lives. Even though it would be hard to adjust at first, I think it would be well worth it. We talked about the types of toliets that are in other countries. In Japan the toliets are very low to the ground and you need to squat to use them. Americans think that is so strange but we need to let go of our ethnocentric perspective in order to see it is just normal life for the Japanese.

Down here my guys bigger than yours is

In the movie A Bronx Tale, Sonny is like a god to C. C looks up to him in every way possible but he doesn't really fit in with Sonny's crowd. C is apart of 3 major groups: Sonny's gang, his friends, and his family. His father is trying to look out for him and do whats best for him but C just wants to do what he has his mind set on. He wants to be Sonny's friend. I don't really think he fits into Sonny's group. C is trying to be something he is not and he's better off just being himself. His friends also are not the best indication of who he is as a person. I don't think he agrees with all their beliefs in reference to African Americans and violence. I think C is best off just representing his family. His father is a hard working man who takes pride in what he does. As the movie continues, I hope that C realizes he can be amount to more than what people around him have achieved.

Gang Leader For A Day

I thought this article was very interesting. It's cool that the authors research started out with surveys and questionaires and ended up becoming a real life experience. I don't think I would have the courage to do what he did. I give him a lot of credit for hanging out with these thugs to further his sociological knowledge. This article defintely made me realize that I take for granted many aspects of my life. I have a loving family, a roof over my head and I'm on my way to recieving an excellent education. What more could I truly want? I also thought it was really cool that a girl in our class had come for this type of lifestyle before going into high school. Although she said it was hard at first, she has made a really good transition. It got me to thinking what if the situation was vice versa? What if I had been thrown into the world of "thug life" on the street of Chicago? I don't think I would ever make it out alive. I'm very grateful to be where I am today and have the love and support from my friends and family.

What's for dinner?

For homework we had to read the Suvivors of the F227 article. The story talks about a rugby team from Uruguay that was on a flight. The weather wasn't too great but the pilots persisted. Unfortunately, the plane crashed and many of the passengers died. The others were left to struggle for survival in very harsh winter conditions. With very little food and shelter, all the survivors could do was hope. When they found out that the search for them had been called off, they didn't know what to do. They saw dead bodies lying around in the snow, being preserved, and knew what had to be done. They had to eat their friends and family to survive. Many people in class said this story grossed them out. For some reason, I didn't have the same reaction. As terrible as it may seem, the people did what they needed to do to survive. Like the article said, this is no different than recieving a heart or kidney transplant; the dead sustained the living. It's hard to comment on such a serious situtation when I myself was not in the place of those people. But I can say rather confidently that I would have done the exact same thing. Does that make me a bad person? Should I be stigmatized for this? I would say no. The social construction of reality says that different rules apply to different societies. Up on that mountain, the game was completely different. The survivors had no choice but to eat the other's remains if they wanted to survive. You gotta do what you gotta do. And I definitely feel that these people by played the correct rules for the situation they were in.