Multiculturalism is what defines me. I have spent my whole life studying people and uncovering what makes them tick.
I am madly in love
with humans.
Especially the strange ones.
For it is ever so beautiful to be strange.
To see things in a new light.
To do things differently than others.
To me, that is gold I carry.
Born in the Netherlands and to a loving Dutch family, at a young age I discovered a very rational, logical and egalitarian way of looking at life. I like to believe that that is what has given me the ability to always be open-minded, organized and a team-oriented player with a knack for being open to other points of view and managing people in a way that everybody’s opinion counts.
As I then went on to be raised in the South of Spain, I was introduced to a world of strong emotions, where people have immense love and passion for life. I realized how powerful these emotions can be to make strong connections with people, which led me to master the art forging relationships - in life and in business.
While I battled through growing up with two extremely different cultures, I became interested in not only deeply understanding my own culture, but - as I travelled around the globe and saw other places and people that were drastically different from what I had ever seen before - I also became interested in understanding other cultures and the outlooks on life of those who are different to me.
At the age of 8 years old, I became inexplicably interested in China. The Chinese culture and language was so fascinating, unique and different from anything I had seen before. That allure has, and continues to fuel my passion for Chinese culture even today. It is what led me to start studying Chinese language and culture at the age of 8 at a school for first generation Chinese children in Spain. I then went on to live for a summer with a Chinese family in Shenyang at the age of 14, and again for 5 months in Shanghai when I was 20.
At the age of 17, I moved to the US for college. As I have now spent 5 years in Boston and New York, I am able to thoroughly understand and adapt to American culture and society - at a personal and a professional level.
I speak 6 languages; have lived, studied and worked in 4 countries; and have been extremely fortunately to have traveled to 5 continents to dozens of countries that include Tanzania, Cuba, Sri Lanka, Panama, Oman, China, Italy, the US, Greece, Thailand, Costa Rica, Morocco, the UK, Canada, Jordan.
During my life and my travels, wherever I go - as my family has taught me growing up - I have always put an emphasis on being a traveler, not just a tourist: to try new things, meet new people, and look beyond what's in front of you to truly understand the cultures, people and world we live in. This is what I have done my entire life, what I love to do most and do best, and what I aspire to continue to do every day: to study people and figure out what moves them to think, act and live the way they do.
The Importance of Cultural Relativism.
This is an essay I wrote for my Cultural Anthropology Class. While it is focused on the importance of cultural relativism, it also equally reflects the importance of striving to understand other people's different points of view and outlooks of life, including those who are from the "same culture."
When I first came to the United States to study and told other people that I come from Spain, many people directly mentioned how outrageous the Spanish tradition of bullfighting is. “I can’t believe the Spanish kill bulls for entertainment. That’s inexcusable!” I often heard. But “don’t Americans do the same?” I then asked. We do not need to eat beef to survive; however, Americans, just like many others, kill bulls for the meat, for the taste. Thus, it could be argued that they kill bulls for “entertainment,” just like the Spanish do. This cultural clash gave me a sense of the importance of cultural relativism: “the principle that all cultural systems are inherently equal in value, and therefore, that each cultural item must be understood on its own terms” (ACA: Glossary). To be a cultural relativist, however, does not mean that we necessarily need to agree with other cultures; it means that we have to engage with them, to understand them in their own particular context. It is only by doing so that we are able to make the right ethical judgments and calls, and to even be able to succeed at changing other cultural systems. Cultural relativism is in this way an important first step that needs to be taken before deciding whether or how to take action to change or improve a culture.
Throughout the years, scholars have struggled to agree on a concrete definition and on the benefits of cultural relativism. According to Rosaldo, for example, cultural relativism is merely “the urgency of studying and learning from other cultures and the belief that because somebody has a different form of life, they’re not deranged, or evil” (2000:3). In the case of bullfighting, for example, Americans and others view it as a mere act of animal cruelty, which would make them think of the Spanish as evil people. But if they studied what Spaniards’ own take on bullfighting is, they would maybe come to understand that the reason why Spaniards agree to such an act is because they regard the act in a very different way. For them, bullfighting is not an inhuman act of animal cruelty or a sport; for Spaniards, it is a form of art, a beautiful image that pits matador and bull in a unifying image of power, courage and glory. What cultural relativism thus tells us is that bullfighting must be viewed from the perspective of the culture in which it takes place – its history, its folklore, its ideas of bravery, its ideas of sex roles. By doing so, we are at the same time reminded that not only do others have culture, but “we” do have culture too. In this way, as Rosaldo well stated, “some things we do and take for granted can inspire other people's abhorrence” (2000:6). While Americans might find killing bulls for the act of bullfighting unconceivable, at the same time Hindus might feel disgusted by the idea that Americans kill cows and bulls to eat their meat, since in Hinduism the cow is revered as the source of food and symbol of life and may never be killed.
Cultural relativism thus calls us to understand, but we must remember that “to understand is not to forgive. Just because you come to terms with how something works in another culture does not mean you have to agree with it” (Rosaldo 2000:5). Unlike what Abu-Lughod claims, cultural relativism need not necessarily mean that we must respect whatever goes on elsewhere as “just their culture and not my business to judge or interfere, only to try to understand” (2013:136). Cultural relativism is not meant to be a way of justifying ideas or ideologies such as Nazism, by claiming that these should just be understood as cultural. However, to look through the lens of cultural relativism is the first thing we need to do before allowing for any kind of critique or action to change a cultural system.
Abu-Lughod criticizes the concept of cultural relativism because she claims that to merely understand others’ beliefs, values and practices is not enough. As she argues, we must also examine our own responsibilities to change situations in which others find themselves and interfere when we believe is necessary (2013:137). However, to change a culture’s notions and beliefs is often a very difficult task because, as Rosaldo explains, our own imagination is limited by the culture we have grown up in. However, “if we actually go elsewhere and look at what other people do, we can expand our world and challenge our own notions” (Rosaldo 2000:4). As Geertz argues, humans are “unfinished animals,” by which he means that we are not genetically programmed to do what we do, and the way we humans finish ourselves is through culture (1973:49). But, as Geertz claims, all “our ideas, values, acts, emotions are cultural products, products manufactured” (1973:50).
In conclusion, our culture is a product we ourselves have created, and that is thus constantly changing. This means that we are in fact capable of modifying those beliefs, values and practices. We are capable of changing a culture, and of ultimately changing men, since “culture provides the link between what men are intrinsically capable of becoming and what they actually in fact become” (Geertz 1973:52). Thus, it would be possible to change beliefs about, for example, bullfighting, in different directions: Spaniards might start to view bullfighting as an act of animal cruelty, while Americans could also change their ideas to now regard it as a form of fine art. In either way, by changing such notions, we are at the same time changing the people and the cultures behind them.
However, in determining whether and how to change a culture, it is crucial to be a cultural relativist first. We must first move away from our ethnocentric ideas and try to study and understand that culture in its own terms, "recognizing and respecting differences—precisely as products of different histories, as expressions of different circumstances, and as manifestations of differently structured desires" (Abu-Lughod).
We need to accept the fact that we may differ from other cultures in our ideas, wants and needs in order to not get lost far enough into our ethnocentrism to think of our Western values and standards as universals that we must impose on to other cultures in order to "improve" their societies.
The reason for the major importance of being a cultural relativist before taking any type of action is that if we fail to do so, we may not succeed at changing the culture or, even worse, we might change the culture in a way that does more harm than good. Abu-Lughod, in her article “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” gives a clear example of such a case. In her article, she explains how Western people assumed that Afghan women needed to be liberated from the Taliban, believing that the ultimate sign of their oppression was that they were forced to wear the burqa (2013:135). Consequently, in trying to “liberate” them and provide them with better lives, they started all kinds of actions to “unveil” these women. However, Westerners failed to understand that Afghan women have different notions of veiling from them. While Westerners may consider women covering themselves as a sign of their ‘unfreedom,’ for the Afghan women it is often regarded as the opposite: as “a liberating invention because it enabled women to move out of segregated living spaces while still observing the basic moral requirements of separating and protecting women from unrelated men” (Abu-Lughod 2013:135). The Western people failed to be cultural relativists first, and thus focused on the wrong things, which ultimately resulted in Afghan women’s increased hardship, instead of in their salvation. They had to “be aware of differences, respectful of other paths toward social change that might give women better lives” (Abu-Lughod 2013:137). Even before that, they needed to understand the Afghan culture in its own context and ask whether Afghan women even have any desire for liberation or more freedom.
Cultural relativism must thus always be taken into serious consideration and be regarded as the first necessary step in order to make the right judgments or changes to a culture. Had the Western people closely observed and understood Afghan culture from a cultural relativist’s perspective first, maybe Afghan women would now be living better lives.
EAST MEETS WEST:
Brilliant Illustrations of Western and Chinese Cultural Differences.
The Chinese-born German artist Yang Lin explains how these two cultures part ways in a series of clever images.
EXPRESSING AN OPInION
ME
Individual vs. Collectivist Society
TELLING THE TRUTH
TALKING ABOUT MONEY
CULTURE AND POINT OF VIEW.
I often talk about how living, studying, working, advocating and consuming in 4 different countries and traveling to dozens more has given me an ability to “see things differently.” But what does that exactly mean?
As a colleague once told me,
“discovery is looking at the same thing as everyone else and seeing something different.”
And that is exactly what I mean, and what I myself often experience as a result of being part of different cultures my whole life: discovery. People from different cultures see things differently, and therefore, when placed in other cultures or environments, they are able to discover a new way of looking at things that is different from people in that culture. It is that ability of looking at things from new and different perspectives that empower them to come up with original ideas and solutions, ultimately leading to innovation and creativity. Throughout this paper and through different studies, I will do my best to explain to you how culture and point of view are related, why it matters, and why you too should encourage yourself to "see things differently."
Professors Richard Nisbett and Takahiko Masuda conducted a study in which they presented 20 second animated video vignettes of underwater scenes to Japanese and American participants (see below). Afterwards, participants were asked what they had seen, and the first sentence of each response was categorized.
The results of the study were remarkable. While the Americans mentioned larger, faster-moving, brightly colored objects in the foreground (such as the big fish), the Japanese spoke more about what was going on in the background (for example, the plants or the small frog to the bottom left). In addition, the Japanese spoke twice as often as the Americans about the interdependencies between the objects up front and the objects in the background. As one Japanese woman explained, “I naturally look at all of the items behind and around the large fish to understand what kind of fish they are.”
In a second study, Americans and Japanese were asked to “take a photo of a person.” The Americans most frequently took a close-up, showing all features of the person’s face, while the Japanese showed the person in his or her environment instead, with the human figure quite small in relationship to the background (see below).
In a third study, Nisbett and Masuda asked American and Taiwanese students to read narratives and watch videos of silent comedies - for example, a film about the daily life of a woman, during which circumstances conspire to prevent her form getting to work - and then to summarize them. In the summaries, Americans made about 30% more statements referring to the central figures of the stories than their Taiwanese counterparts did.
Notice the common patterns in all 3 studies. The Americans focus on individual figures separate from their environment, while the Asians give more attention to backgrounds and to the links between these backgrounds and the central figure.
When Westerns and Asians discussed these studies, a Western participant said: “But the instructions said to take a photo of a person, and the picture on the left is a photo of a person. The picture on the right is a photo of a room. Why would the Japanese take a photo of a room when they have been asked to take a picture of a person?”
An Asian participant respondent to the Westerner: “The photo on the left is not a photo of a person. It is a close-up of a face. How can I determine anything about the person by looking at it? The photo on the right is a photo of the person, the entire person, including surrounding elements so you can determine something about that person. Why would the Americans take a close-up of a face, which leaves out all of the important details?”
Clearly, Westerns and Asians look at the world very differently. But it’s not surprising that they display these different patterns of interpretation. A common tenet of Western philosophies and religions is that you can remove an item from its environment and analyze it separately. Aristotle, for example, emphasized focusing attention on a salient object. Its properties could then be assessed and the object assigned a category with the goal of finding rules that governed is behavior. He referred to items as each being a separate and isolated object in its own right. Cultural theorists call this specific thinking.
Chinese religions and philosophies, by contrast, have traditionally emphasized interdependencies and interconnectedness. Ancient Chinese thought was holistic, meaning that the Chinese attended to the field in which an object was located, believing that action always occurs in a field of forces that influence the action. Taoism, which influences Buddhism and Confucianism, proposes that the universe works harmoniously, its various elements dependent upon one another. The terms yin and yang (literally “dark” and “night”) describe how seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent.
With this background in mind, consider the comment another Asian participant gave to the study:
“Chinese people think from macro to micro, whereas Western people think form micro to macro. For example, when writing an address, the Chinese write in sequence of province, city, district, block, gate number. The Westerners just do the opposite - they start with the number of a single house and gradually work their way up to the city and state. In the same way, Chinese put their surname first, whereas the Westerners do it the other way around. And Chinese put the year before month and date. Again, it’s the opposite in the West.”
People from different cultures perceive the world and think about it in very different ways.
"Westerners are inclined to attend to some focal object, analyzing its attributes and categorizing it in an effort to find out what rules govern its behavior. Rules used include formal logic. Causal attributions tend to focus exclusively on the object and are therefore often mistaken.
East Asians are more likely to attend to a broad perceptual and conceptual field, noticing relationships and changes and grouping objects based on family resemblance rather than category membership. Causal attributions emphasize the context. Social factors are likely to be important in directing attention. East Asians live in complex social networks with prescribed role relations. Attention to context is important to effective functioning.
More independent Westerners live in less constraining social worlds and have the luxury of attending to the object and their goals with respect to it. The physical “affordances” of the environment may also influence perception. The built environments of the East are more complex and contain more objects than do those of the West. In addition, artistic products of the East emphasize the field and deemphasize individual objects, including people. Western art renders less of the field and emphasizes individual objects and people.
Perceptual processes are influenced by culture.
In conclusion, Westerners tend to engage in context-independent and analytic perceptual processes by focusing on a salient object independently of its context, whereas Asians tend to engage in context-dependent and holistic perceptual processes by attending to the relationship between the object and the context in which the object is located. And these studies only compare Asians and Westerners, but even people from different Western countries, one same country or one same group have unique ways of thinking that are shaped by their culture and environment.
Participating in different social practices leads to both chronic as well as temporary shifts in perception. These findings establish a dynamic relationship between the cultural context and perceptual processes.
Tanzania (2000), I am the girl in the middle of the picture.
Perception can no longer be regarded as consisting of processes that are universal across all people at all times. Rather, perceptions are shaped by culture and shifted through the different experiences and social practices we engage in. My own life track is evidence to it. Engaging with different cultures and participating in different social practices my entire life has given me an ability to see things from multiple and different perspectives that has an effect on everything I do - in my personal and professional life. It has enabled me to come up with original ideas, to find different solutions, and to be on a constant journey of discovery. And let me tell you, it is far more exciting this way.
That is why I encourage you to you too be a traveler: to try new things, see new places, meet new people, and look beyond what's in front of you to truly understand the cultures, people and world we live in. Being a traveler broadens your mind, gives you new perspectives on the world, and enables you to experience everyday things as if for the first time. And ultimately you will see that,
