Cultural Awareness - Essay 1

Nowadays, cultural awareness can be lived so differently than before. Internet, globalization, transportation makes communication easier between countries. However due to this situation, countries have adopted things from others countries. So cultural awareness is not like used to be before. Therefore, the countries are so different in a lot of things, even in the same country there are differences among people.  

In this way, the food is one of the major factors that change. Gastronomy is a characteristic of each place, and it is a touristic attraction. In Asian countries like China, people eat small animals like scorpions, but in the occidental  countries like England people eat big animals like cows. So it is very interesting to see that the animals that could be delicious in one place, at the same time could be disgusting in another place. These differences are more obvious in some places than others, because the culinarian traditions are been losing over the years.

Another difference is the way people communicate, and this is an interesting thing. In the hispanic countries there is a lot of differences in the meaning of the words, even when speaking the same language. For example, “guila” in Costa Rica means “girl” and people is used to use it, but in México the same world means “prostitute”, so a mexican girl could be offended by a costa rican guy. that calls her “guila”. And this kind of embarrassing situations can happen even in the same country, for example in Caracas, Venezuela “chola” means “sandals” but in my city, Barquisimeto, Venezuela that word means “penis”. This differences sometimes are so funny, but not always because it could be an embarrassing situation too.

Traditions are a fundamental characteristic of countries. Santa claus, in Venezuela, doesn't come with  gifts but “el niño jesús” does, and in Spain who came with gifts for the kids are the three wisemen, but in January, not in December. I think that christmas is one of the tradition that the majority of countries celebrate, however, there is particular traditions of countries like “the day of the dead” in México, Thanksgiving in USA, Easter in Israel, etc. It is very interesting to see traditions of other countries because it is an expression of their culture.

Finally, cultural awareness is so important, because people needs to feel part of something. In one hand, culture is the reason why people are different in the way they live and think, but on the other hand, people need to be more tolerant and respect the differences.