In today's society it is not uncommon for Americans to view different cultures that live here as having become “Westernized” as it has been stated in the book or “Americanized”. In our textbooks throughout our schooling and listening to what is going on in other countries on our news gives us this idea of how other countries are and we portray them in a stereotypical way. Therefore, when we see them acting and participating as “Americans”, Americans tend to portray these people as being “Westernized”. With that said, there might be some that follow the guidelines and beliefs that we learn that occur in other countries but that does not necessarily mean that all participate practice these values. Also, the ones that do participate in it might also have different traditions and do things differently that we are unaware of and have not been taught. For instance, the book gives an example of when a teacher thinks that her two Chinese students are not participating in a class discussion due to Confucianism. In Confucianism it is viewed as impolite to question authority. In this specific example it would be impolite for a student to question a teacher which is what occurs during classroom discussions. However, when the student confronts the teacher about it, he states that that is not the reason and that there are classrooms where discussions in the classroom take place. The teacher claims that this shocks her due to her having heard this more than once. This example gives evidence of how people can just assume things by just going off of what they have heard and not having experienced it. Sometimes when people tell us things that have experienced it that go against what we have learned before and are different than what we already know and have heard, we tend to either be skeptical of it or not to listen. In this example that is what the teacher does. She has heard it more than once that Confucianism does not necessarily play its role in the classrooms where discussions take play with the students and she still continues to believe and question that that is the reason why her Chinese students are not participating.
The readings have also opened my eyes up to things that I was unaware of such as the portrayal of Iranian women. I believe that it is important to be placed outside of your comfort and have experience with different cultures instead of just listening to what is on the news and in our textbooks. This way we will all be able to be more understanding of others and not be as ignorant as to what is really going on in the rest of the world. This will also decrease the amount of the stereotypes that there are of diverse groups of people, and hopefully create better relations among those from different cultures.
