The cultural plunge project is meant to expose myself to other cultures and their lives. For this specific purpose, I choose to go to Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles. I don’t have friends or acquaintances that are from China or that have Chinese heritage. In all honesty, I only considered Chinese culture in relation to food or restaurants. Apart from its Americanized food, I haven’t before exchanged thoughts and ideas with a person of Chinese descendancy. Therefore, the experience of connecting with other unknown cultures made me more interested and enthusiastic about what I could learn from it. Specifically, the Chinese culture has always been looked down by Americans, so I wanted to see if it was a sustained stereotype. As a consequence,
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I didn’t have any hopes whatsoever, yet I still felt that I wasn’t going to waste my time. Once I started walking towards Chinatown, I started to feel a bit doubtful of the possible outcomes that I could take away from this experience. However, during my time at Chinatown I had the chance to talk with the community and experience an exchange of ideas and thoughts. By then I was convinced that I was going to have a good time with one of my friends that came along on the trip. Afterwards, I honestly didn’t miss not being in Chinatown; though I know now that going there is going to bring me a different type of adventure. Apart from my experiences there, I didn’t had any concerns before going there. During my experience there I had certain concerns towards been able to communicate with the Chinese people because some of them didn’t know how to fluently speak English. This concern did unmotivated me to continue asking for interviews, but I gave it another try as one can see it resulted in an adventure with this amazing lady that I even had a connection with. In order for me to address that language barrier, I always tried to speak as slowly as I can and also use my hand to express what am saying. Usually, it works out and they do end-up understanding what I am trying to say, yet in this experience the language barrier was …show more content…
I got to know a new culture and a community that wasn’t at all in my top interest since I arrived to Los Angeles in 2014. I always thought of Chinatown as any other cultural force that wasn’t able to assimilate to the United States without fully understanding that they have to great a mixture of culture. In some ways this is still true because an outsider has to become more aware of its surroundings in order to feel that he or she belongs into the atmosphere. Further on, I think I will try to continue exploring new communities and cultures that I haven’t experienced yet. This mini-ethnography project led me to believe that there is actually more than what meets the eye in order cultures. There is more than one can take away from an uncomfortable experience. Also, meeting new people no matter who they are or where they come from is highly important for one to be more cultural in a society where culture is usually left behind. As Americans, we usually try to just assimilate and forget about the past. However, sometimes the past does define us and makes us even stronger; as well we can learn from it. Not forgetting our culture is one of the top lessons that I got from this experience. I hope that further on I can explore more about how to stay true to myself and still enjoy my
I didn’t have any hopes whatsoever, yet I still felt that I wasn’t going to waste my time. Once I started walking towards Chinatown, I started to feel a bit doubtful of the possible outcomes that I could take away from this experience. However, during my time at Chinatown I had the chance to talk with the community and experience an exchange of ideas and thoughts. By then I was convinced that I was going to have a good time with one of my friends that came along on the trip. Afterwards, I honestly didn’t miss not being in Chinatown; though I know now that going there is going to bring me a different type of adventure. Apart from my experiences there, I didn’t had any concerns before going there. During my experience there I had certain concerns towards been able to communicate with the Chinese people because some of them didn’t know how to fluently speak English. This concern did unmotivated me to continue asking for interviews, but I gave it another try as one can see it resulted in an adventure with this amazing lady that I even had a connection with. In order for me to address that language barrier, I always tried to speak as slowly as I can and also use my hand to express what am saying. Usually, it works out and they do end-up understanding what I am trying to say, yet in this experience the language barrier was …show more content…
I got to know a new culture and a community that wasn’t at all in my top interest since I arrived to Los Angeles in 2014. I always thought of Chinatown as any other cultural force that wasn’t able to assimilate to the United States without fully understanding that they have to great a mixture of culture. In some ways this is still true because an outsider has to become more aware of its surroundings in order to feel that he or she belongs into the atmosphere. Further on, I think I will try to continue exploring new communities and cultures that I haven’t experienced yet. This mini-ethnography project led me to believe that there is actually more than what meets the eye in order cultures. There is more than one can take away from an uncomfortable experience. Also, meeting new people no matter who they are or where they come from is highly important for one to be more cultural in a society where culture is usually left behind. As Americans, we usually try to just assimilate and forget about the past. However, sometimes the past does define us and makes us even stronger; as well we can learn from it. Not forgetting our culture is one of the top lessons that I got from this experience. I hope that further on I can explore more about how to stay true to myself and still enjoy my