Culture’s Instilled Perspectives A combination of customs, attitudes, and beliefs that distinguishes a group of people from other entireties is known as culture. In three texts, culture is most evident as it exhibits the diversity in established ideas, difficulties induced by discrete societies, and differences in lifestyles. One being an excerpt by Dave Barry from, “Dave Barry Goes to Japan,” about an American man visiting Japan who encounters copious dissimilarities between his culture and Japan while trying to comprehend Japan’s language and dialect. Furthermore, an article by Miguel Helft, “Matrimony with a Proper Stranger,” discusses the pros to arranged marriages in Indian culture, relating stories of happy matrimonies, and also the modern spin of that tradition. The last text is a letter by Robert Lake, “An Indian Father’s Plea,” that an indian father writes to his son’s teacher asking her to respect his son and widen the eyes of students of their culture by incorporating into a lesson. Robert talks about all the traditions and aspects of his culture that have made the way his son the way he is today. The amalgamation of “Dave Barry Goes to Japan” by Dave Barry, “Matrimony with a Proper Stranger” by Miguel Helft, and “An Indian Fathers Plea” by Robert Lake, show evidence of different perspectives in discrete cultures that root from where and how an individual is raised, proving that culture informs the way we view others and the world around us. There are plentiful American tourist sight seeing in other countries, in which they may find the different ways of other cultures intriguing, new, and maybe quite strange.
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This was definitely the case for Dave Barry, author of “Dave Barry Goes to Japan”, when he went to Tokyo with his family. In the excerpt, he discussed that the Japanese are not direct, because it is considered rude in their culture. This gave Dave and his family some complications in communicating, especially his wife during a call with a Japanese travel agent. The agent would ask indirect questions like, “I see, you want to take a plane” (Barry 5), after the wife had directly told him that she would like to take a plane. The questions were redundant, and Beth became upset. The author even described her as a “raging mad woman” (Barry 5). She then proceeded to yell, “What is the PROBLEM??. . . Why can’t these people COMMUNICATE???” (Barry 5), which displays the struggle in communication due to different dialect. Beth felt that the Japanese could not communicate simply due to the fact of different dialect and mannerisms. In the American culture, most people are direct and get straight to the point— varying on who the person is, but in one form or another they are not tip toeing around the subject to avoid any disrespect. This is because in the American culture it is not considered rude, thus causing a barrier in the language between Americans and the Japanese. To be quite frank, this means the Japanese may think we are a rude and disrespectful. Conclusively, due to American and Japanese’s differentiating ways of speaking, it creates different views on how to go about things because of separate cultures. The Japanese find the Americans rude by being direct, and the Americans find the Japanese lacking in communication. On another note, Dave is amused yet annoyed of the Japanese’s usage of the English language. The Japanese use English, “purely for decoration purposes” (Barry 2), which is amusing to the author, because the words are used at random and create exotic word combinations—like “BONERACTIVEWEAR” (Barry 4). While this is humorous to Dave, the Japanese do not see the humor or flaw, because they do not acknowledge what it says—it is just a fashion state or just aesthetically pleasing to them. Since the Japanese culture thrives on these randomly chosen English words, they do not feel foolish for using it for those purposes. On the other hand, the American’s may find them foolish, humorous, or clueless, because their culture does not consist of another’s language randomly used all over stores, merchandise, and other things. This soon became “frustrating” (Barry 3) to Dave, because in one scene especially he went to a fast food restaurant. Dave Barry asked for a simple condiment, and the Japanese could not comprehend what he was saying—even though there was an American
This was definitely the case for Dave Barry, author of “Dave Barry Goes to Japan”, when he went to Tokyo with his family. In the excerpt, he discussed that the Japanese are not direct, because it is considered rude in their culture. This gave Dave and his family some complications in communicating, especially his wife during a call with a Japanese travel agent. The agent would ask indirect questions like, “I see, you want to take a plane” (Barry 5), after the wife had directly told him that she would like to take a plane. The questions were redundant, and Beth became upset. The author even described her as a “raging mad woman” (Barry 5). She then proceeded to yell, “What is the PROBLEM??. . . Why can’t these people COMMUNICATE???” (Barry 5), which displays the struggle in communication due to different dialect. Beth felt that the Japanese could not communicate simply due to the fact of different dialect and mannerisms. In the American culture, most people are direct and get straight to the point— varying on who the person is, but in one form or another they are not tip toeing around the subject to avoid any disrespect. This is because in the American culture it is not considered rude, thus causing a barrier in the language between Americans and the Japanese. To be quite frank, this means the Japanese may think we are a rude and disrespectful. Conclusively, due to American and Japanese’s differentiating ways of speaking, it creates different views on how to go about things because of separate cultures. The Japanese find the Americans rude by being direct, and the Americans find the Japanese lacking in communication. On another note, Dave is amused yet annoyed of the Japanese’s usage of the English language. The Japanese use English, “purely for decoration purposes” (Barry 2), which is amusing to the author, because the words are used at random and create exotic word combinations—like “BONERACTIVEWEAR” (Barry 4). While this is humorous to Dave, the Japanese do not see the humor or flaw, because they do not acknowledge what it says—it is just a fashion state or just aesthetically pleasing to them. Since the Japanese culture thrives on these randomly chosen English words, they do not feel foolish for using it for those purposes. On the other hand, the American’s may find them foolish, humorous, or clueless, because their culture does not consist of another’s language randomly used all over stores, merchandise, and other things. This soon became “frustrating” (Barry 3) to Dave, because in one scene especially he went to a fast food restaurant. Dave Barry asked for a simple condiment, and the Japanese could not comprehend what he was saying—even though there was an American