Journal #27

So the conversation on culture shock got be thinking about my experience with culture shock and the different parts of it. I thought it was interesting that different people explained the different ways that they experienced culture shock, yet everyone agreed that what they had experienced was in some form, culture shock (or at least the irritability stage of culture shock). However, with the discussion we had I wasn't really satisfied with the definition we had of biculturalism. From what I understood from what people were saying, they believed that biculturalism is when you take one part of a culture and make it into your own. If this is the case, then I don't think you necessarily even need to go through the other stages of culture shock in order to do this. We come in contact with different cultures on a regular basis and generally that contact leaves an influence on our lives. For example, I remember reading an article where in California there were gangs from Mexico and gangs from Laos who were fighting and did not like each other at all. However, what was interesting about these gangs was that the members both spoke English with a Mexican accent. So even though technically the members of the gang from Laos did not ever go through the stages of culture shock from being in a Mexican culture, they still were affected by that culture. I guess you could argue that since they lived in a heavily populated Mexican area they could have passed through culture shock, I would think that they were passing through culture shock from being in the US, but taking on attributes of the way Mexicans speak English. I think that in order to be truly bicultural, it takes years of living in one place. And even then, I don't know that it is ever truly possible becuase I think that in some way we always change the way we adopt a certain part of another country's culture. For example, after living in Chile, I have become accustomed to drinking Mate. Even though this is a custom done in several countries in south America, the way that I drink Mate is Americanized...so is this really bicultural if it is changed? I guess I still haven't come to a complete conclusion, but it is intersting to think about.