Intercultural Competence

  In the summer semester of 2021, I was enrolled in Spanish 112, where I was presented with a final paper assignment that asked us to compare and contrast an aspect of two different cultures. The assignment did not ask us to articulate that one culture was superior  or “better” to the other, but to look at both cultures objectively and find similarities and differences.  When I first had to create the thesis for the paper, I had so many different topics run through my mind on what two cultures to compare. My original list included: women’s rights in the Middle East and China, cultural dress in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and finally religious freedom in African culture and the Middle East. I wrote, and re-wrote multiple thesis statements and finally landed on one that ended up being a slight combination of them all comparing Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian religions and the impact they have on women's status, places of worship and dress. I knew this assignment would be challenging but I must have really been up for an uphill battle, as the two cultures do not have many similarities at all so I had to do a great amount of research and deep dive into the history and cultural importance of the main religions in each culture.  

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    This type of paper was challenging in many aspects for me but one of the biggest learning opportunities that presented itself was writing a comparative essay.  I am not the strongest compare and contrast writer. I would much rather write a lengthy research paper or argumentative paper, so the concept of writing a compare and contrast paper without proving that one was better was intimidating. I learned throughout the writing process that I had to intuitively check myself and ask if the way I was writing about one culture was more biased than how I wrote the other’s. While this took me some time to adjust and added many nights of extra proofreading, I’m thankful I had the opportunity to work on strengthening a writing style I'm not the most comfortable writing in. Not only did it challenge me writing wise, but even challenged me in the topic, as I typically do not choose to write about different cultures and history. I honestly learned so much more than I anticipated, and not just about the cultures, but the predominant religions in each culture as well. I assumed that there would be predominant religions for both but I was actually shocked to see the breakdown. For example, Southeast Asian’s predominant religions are Buddhism and Hinduism, which I expected, but most recently they have had an influence of the west and have large numbers of countries that predominantly practice Islam and Christianity. By putting aside some of my assumptions, I learned more about the makeup of these two cultures and also the deep rooted importance of their ancient religions that still have strong impacts on their modern society. This helped me accomplish my first goal of learning more about the backgrounds of different cultures so I can fully understand traditions and how certain cultures came to be. I learned about the differences in Mosaic Law (Jewish law) and Sharia (Islamic law) and the impact on the cultures that hold today or lack thereof in some countries in the Middle East. 

    

     Reflecting on this assignment, I did leverage a tool that I have not used in the past which was to make a physical compare and contrast venn diagram. I am a kinesthetic learner so I like to hand write my notes and draw pictures when learning so taking the time to write my facts down on hard physical paper compared to typing on the laptop helped my process in seeing connections and differences that I used in my paper. While I received great feedback from my instructor, I always feel there is something to improve on.  I wish I had spent more time in my research phase of the process. I gave myself around two weeks to complete the assignment but I believe if I had given a couple more days to do pure research, I could have found more similarities to pull from and even maybe more historical connections between the two cultures. I also may have found more aspects of religion's impact on the cultures that may have had more similarities than the three I chose to write about. My takeaway is that I will try to allot more days into my planning to allow the opportunity to research more, or simply use those days for review or more proofreading if need be. I do believe that I met my second goal of using bias sources when researching information on other cultures so that I could absorb and learn about different backgrounds and check my own biases. I used credible sources, not from google or news sources, but from historical journals, religious documents, and university thesis papers to make sure that not only did I provide factual information from a non biased perspective but to ensure I was confident in what I was writing about. My intent was to make sure I wrote from a clear and understanding point of view with my paper, and not one of judgement, or misunderstanding, which I believe I accomplished very well.