Learning from Other Cultures
October 30th, 2007 by Anindita Sengupta
I came across this article in Ode Magazine today. It talks about what the West can learn from the rest of the world and highlights some key values, habits and priorities in countries in Africa and Asia. As someone from the ‘rest of the world’, and because India featured more than once, it was interesting to see that some things that one considers rather commonplace in one’s own culture are thought of as worth learning by someone, somewhere else. Undoubtedly, if I put together a similar list, it would reflect things about other cultures that they take for granted.
Anyway, the article talks about learning humility from Sri Lanka, community and raising children from Kenya, democracy from Ghana, work from Nigeria, the village from Tanzania, and ingenuity, non-violence, yoga and food from India. My favourite is happiness from Bhutan:
The king of Bhutan introduced the concept of gross national happiness (GNH), which is based on the idea that true development of society takes place when material and spiritual development occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other. That’s why for the past two decades, happiness has been incorporated as a guiding principle in Bhutan’s policies.
Over the years, we’ve made Bhutan greener than most countries and despite the advent of satellite TV and the Internet, the social fabric is still intact. These policies have also made Bhutan more secure than ever before. To us, these are all indications that our policies are beginning to realize the goal of making people happy. And that’s what all of us want: to find more ways we can engage in the pursuit of happiness.
An entire country which pursues happiness — what can be more fabulous than that? No countries from South East Asia and the Middle East feature. Zen and the art of eating fish from Japan? Martial arts and food from China? Well, I suppose it’s impossible to be really inclusive in any list.
Increasingly, there’s a lot of thrust on cross-cultural learning and the importance of understanding other cultures because of the shrinking world we live in. With the Internet at our disposal, it’s easier than ever before to know about other cultures — at least at a prima facie or superficial level. Whether or not, this fuels more unity is still debatable. In some case, knowledge does equal understanding and better empathy. But in others, a single cultural tradition or habit that you find distasteful or unethical can turn you off a particular culture and prevent you from caring enough to find out about other aspects. Sometimes, there is an uneasy balance of respect of repugnance. On the whole, I would say it’s better to know rather than not. I think one of the measures of the Internet’s success is that there is still a great deal of communication and harmony between individuals in different countries today despite overwhelming counter factors like terrorism and war.
The Centre for Intercultural Learning and the Cultural Profiles Project are great sites for those who want to know more about people elsewhere in the world. Go on, take a virtual dip into another culture. Have fun!