Summary Of Crazy Like Us

1. To me localization is an exchange of culture. By that, I mean, localization is a two way street where the cultures is influence by the something that they take-in from other cultures, but it also modify that something and make it work with their culture. For example, when KFC enters Viet Nam it introduces the Vietnamese people to the world of deep fried chicken. As good and different as the deep fried chicken the people still missed the traditional side of rice that comes with every meal. So KFC had to introduce a rice dish that comes with the meal to make the Vietnamese people happy. In this example you can see that the Vietnamese people was localized with the introduction of the American deep fried chicken. While that is happening the …show more content…
Mental illness is universal, however, symptoms, understanding, the diagnostics, and treatments of mental illness is not universal. This question is parallel with the question “what is normal and is normal the same for all cultures”. Mental illness is something that causes the people within the culture to decide that the person is not well in their head and that they needed to be treated. Every culture understands and defines the discourse of mental being differently. There is no universal mental illness because that is like saying that all culture is the same and that their understanding of mental illness is the same. The author of Crazy Like Us tried to explain some of these concepts throughout his book. The example of “PTSD” with the Sri Lanka Buddhist monks, they have their own understanding and reason for why they must live their lives the way they do. But according to Western doctors they are experiencing “PTSD” which strip them of the meaning of their cultural practice. So there should not be a universal mental illness unless we are willing to give up our cultures and have one universal culture. The pros of having a universal mental health is that the treatments would be the same for everyone and they will not be stigmatized just because they have mental illness, and the treatment will be more accessible than it is now. Even though there are pros to a universal mental illness the cons will surely out weight the pros. For example, the diagnostic of “PTSD” gave a different understanding to the suffering of the Buddhist monks, which then strips down the cultures of other cultures. Or fitting the symptoms of mental illness into a known disease only to start the cultural feedback loop. A physician that is trained in the West to diagnose is bias and will tried to fit the symptoms of an illness into a disease that they are trained to identify. So if we have them treat a non-Westerner then there would be a conflict of interested where the doctor is focus in