Culture

Culture includes a lot of things such as the way we think, act and interact with others. When we think about culture, we think about culture from countries and nationalities. From this point of view, there are a lot of cultures in the world. Nevertheless, culture is not only about that, it also concerns our beliefs, gender, occupation, age, class… All those things can influence us and our writings.

• ·         Understanding our culture to understand others better

As I said above, our culture has a huge impact on us and on the way we think. Our culture affects inevitably our point of view. Personally, I cannot express my opinion on the use of weapons in the United States without having my French background influencing me. In France, we do not use weapons and I do not really understand why they authorize them in the US. However, I know it is at the basis of the American identity for them to be able to defend themselves and I admit it exists different point of views on this topic.

It is really interesting to see how people act differently according to their culture. For instance, to say “yes” in India, they nod whereas in France, it means “no”. If we are not aware of that when we meet Indian people, it can create numerous misunderstandings and we can hurt people. An other example, if we want someone to be comfortable, for example an Asian person, we must avoid putting her at the center of the attention or asking questions which are too personal.

I think it is really important to notice how our culture affects us in order to understand how it could affect anyone else and become better at listening to other people.

• ·         The influence of my French culture on my writings

Culture flows through our interactions, acts, beliefs and our writings. I think that the culture we have influences the way we think and how we see the word.

As a French student girl and coming from a middle-class, I think it is normal that everybody has access to a free education or that we can make fun of politicians. Also, some topics such as money are kind of taboo and I would not be comfortable if I had to write about it. Coming from the country side, I love nature and it would be weird for me to write about city life. 

Furthermore, my academic profile (I love literature and writing) make that I like writing long sentences and I do not write in a synthetic way like scientists may do (even though I am trying to learn!). So it must be true that my culture (the fact I am French, having the opportunity to study, etc) affects me and my writings on different levels.

To sum up briefly, our culture shapes our human-being and our writings are culture-bound. Besides, globalization and technology build an open world which brings cultures closer together. The thing is that nowadays, we are often influenced by several cultures. So can we speak about one culture or several cultures?