Cultural immersion occurs when a person surrounds themselves in another culture to learn more about it. Typically, this happens while traveling abroad, but I had the opportunity to immerse myself in another culture from my own country. I accomplished this through the formation of deep personal connections and friendships with several foreign exchange students from my university. This immersion helped me develop and master the skills of self-awareness and of knowledge and understanding.
My cultural immersion opened my eyes to the life of an exchange student and caused me to become much more self-aware. My friends came to the United States from several different countries in the Middle East, mostly from Saudi Arabia. Before I met them, it never really crossed my mind what it must be like to be studying in a different country. They told me about many of the cultural differences that they’ve noticed while living here, both big and small. For example, in Saudi Arabia it is custom to wash your mouth out after every meal. It’s not that strange, just different. I always followed suit when I ate with them, and even to this day it’s still a habit of mine. I shared many traditional meals with them, and they taught me the customary way to dine. In their country, when they shared meals with people they would cook a huge feast (normally a rice dish with chicken or lamb) and serve it all in one large tray. Meals are eaten on the floor, so they taught me the proper way to sit (the soles of the feet must never be displayed). They also don’t use utensils to eat, so they demonstrated how to eat with my right hand. I could never get it right so they gave me a pass and let me use a fork at their meals. These are just a few of the cultural differences that I noticed. There are so many more cultural nuances that unknown to me, and that would take years to understand. Truly understanding another culture is a difficult process that I have only scratched the surface on, but trying to do so is what helps develop global citizenship.
My cultural immersion opened my eyes to the life of an exchange student and caused me to become much more self-aware. My friends came to the United States from several different countries in the Middle East, mostly from Saudi Arabia. Before I met them, it never really crossed my mind what it must be like to be studying in a different country. They told me about many of the cultural differences that they’ve noticed while living here, both big and small. For example, in Saudi Arabia it is custom to wash your mouth out after every meal. It’s not that strange, just different. I always followed suit when I ate with them, and even to this day it’s still a habit of mine. I shared many traditional meals with them, and they taught me the customary way to dine. In their country, when they shared meals with people they would cook a huge feast (normally a rice dish with chicken or lamb) and serve it all in one large tray. Meals are eaten on the floor, so they taught me the proper way to sit (the soles of the feet must never be displayed). They also don’t use utensils to eat, so they demonstrated how to eat with my right hand. I could never get it right so they gave me a pass and let me use a fork at their meals. These are just a few of the cultural differences that I noticed. There are so many more cultural nuances that unknown to me, and that would take years to understand. Truly understanding another culture is a difficult process that I have only scratched the surface on, but trying to do so is what helps develop global citizenship.
Sharing many meals and conversations with my friends greatly developed my knowledge and understanding skill. We discussed a broad range of topics during our time together, including language, traditions, politics, and more. I learned things as little as how to count to ten in Arabic, to larger topics like the politics concerning women in Saudi Arabia. This was a topic I was especially interested in and discussed often with them. Women in Saudi Arabia live a completely different type of life than they do in America, and I could get some insight into what it is truly like. Another thing I was particularly interested in was the religion of Islam. I was raised catholic and never had any exposure to any other religion. We had many long talks about the religion, and I was interested to find out that Islam and Christianity are actually much more similar than I had originally thought. I learned the meaning behind Ramadan and everything they had to do during that time. These are just a few of the many things I learned from my friends. This experience has taught me more about culture than any class could have, and has given me a deeper understanding of the Arabic culture.
Out of all of my global citizenship experiences, I believe this to be one of my most meaningful. Not only did this experience allow me to learn more about another culture, I also made many friendships that I still value even though they are all back to their home countries. This was an unforgettable experience for me that also helped me master parts of my global citizenship competency.
Out of all of my global citizenship experiences, I believe this to be one of my most meaningful. Not only did this experience allow me to learn more about another culture, I also made many friendships that I still value even though they are all back to their home countries. This was an unforgettable experience for me that also helped me master parts of my global citizenship competency.