A Question of Culture

I've been thinking a lot about culture recently. The word culture can be defined in so many ways, in very concrete and also very fluid ways. Some would define culture in terms of traditions and festivals. We have traditional Thanksgiving day food or a Hindu cultural festival celebrating a particular god with
particular kind of prayers. We hear terms thrown around like Islamic culture and European culture, and the connotation associated with culture changes depending on who the word is applied to. Does culture apply to clothes, food, behavior, or religion? Yes...depending.

My journey with culture began several years ago, with my introduction to the life of international students from all over the world. I condensed to focusing on the cultural perspective of students from Nepal, intensified when I married a man from a different country, and has continued with our move to a new state. Most recently, I opened an insightful book called Culture Making by Andy Crouch. He has a fascinating take on culture that is helping me think outside the box a little. His definition is "Culture is what we make of the world. Culture is, first of all, the name of our relentless, restless human effort to take the world as it's given to us and make something else." Crouch goes on to write about culture being the way we make omelets and the kind of chairs we sit in. My translation is that culture is the details in everyday life.

Before I got married, eggs were simple. I fried them in a pan with salt or sometimes rosemary. I rarely made fancy eggs just for me, and oftentimes eggs were not reserved for breakfast. After marriage, my husband improved on my eggs by adding turmeric, cumin, onions, tomatoes, much more salt and sometimes hot peppers. It has been an interesting journey blending our two cultures to make a home life that we can agree on and both be happy in. Overall, its been a really fun path of discovery. However, it isn't always comfortable and does require some sacrifice and compromise.

Before marriage, I didn't really think I had a culture because I thought of culture in terms of events and traditions. However, after marriage, I realized that culture is much different than I thought. Culture is the way your treat elders, the way your talk to your spouse, the way you parent your children. Culture is cooking your meat with oil and spices or not eating meat at all. Culture is going to a church, mosque, temple or not believing there is a God. Culture is the way you greet your friends, the way you meet people for the first time, and the way you behave at parties. Culture is old and new, traditional and current, dynamic and constant.

Americans definitely have a culture, but not all American culture is equal. You will feel a cultural difference if you go north or south or east or west. There are accent differences, food differences, relationship differences. The same is true with countries all over the world. Just because a person you meet is from a particular country, we shouldn't assume anything about that person. Generalizations about culture and people get us in trouble and prohibit successful cross-cultural friendships and understanding. Our world is small and we are in contact with people from all over the world on a regular basis. Be humble, ask questions, and take time to listen to other people's stories. Share meals, try something new, be uncomfortable. It will be the most rewarding thing you could do.