Awareness enriches our experience
University of Michigan researchers have found that when shown a photograph, North American
students from European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a
scene. Students from China spent more time studying the background, according to University
of Michigan researchers.
Asians and North Americans see the world differently and those differences are cultural. The
researchers backed up their theory by studying Asians raised in North America. And guess
what?
Asian Americans fell between Asians living in Asia and European Americans, leading the
researchers to hypothesize that Asians live in a more socially complicated world than
Westerners. They have to pay more attention to others than North Americans who are
culturally destined to be individualists.
Actually this is a very useful analogy when traveling in Asia. Instead of shaking our heads and
asking “why”, we can more easily accept that the differences are deeply cultural. Asians can’t
override their culturally contextual world any more than we can override our
individualism.
Nevertheless, awareness goes a long way to being a culturally aware traveler.
Source material used with permission from The Associated Press, August 23, 2005
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