Ethnic Relations in The God's Must be Crazy

Ethnocentrism:

Believing that one’s culture is typical or all cultures; also viewing one’s own ethnic group as central and correct and judging others according to this standard. (p.27)

6. What DANGERS does the failure to understand different cultures pose for all people concerned?

          There are many dangers when you fail to understand different cultures. An example would be the part with the bottle. It could cause physical harm or mental harm.

Not knowing how to use a device that is used in a culture may cause physical harm. The bushman leader did not know what the bottle was for, and eventually it became a battle for who would use it. After so many of the tribe members were relying on it, it caused them to want this item which lead some harm towards the other members. The leader threw the bottle up many times to try and “give back” the bottle to the “God’s” which lead to the bottle falling down on top of his daughters head.

          Another danger would be causing personal harm towards someone. Not knowing about someone culture could risk you offending their culture. This could lead to being “racist” or “discrimination”. Like when the bushman though he might be able to share the animal a police man killed, but while running up to the animal the police man thought he was going to steal the animal. This was wrong because in the bushman’s culture he believed that when killing an animal they would share it about the family but in the police man’s culture when you take something for yourself you only take it for himself.

3. What specific cultural examples did you see portrayed in the movie?

In the African scenes you could see how many different culture examples. One example was all the different colors on peoples clothing, and the different types of jewellery. There was another scene that showed a lady walking throughout the town and viewing other people in their natural environment. She was fascinated by all the different cultural aspects of what they were doing.

Within the bushman culture they sacrifice the animals and then pray to the God’s so they could be good to them. They also believe sharing the animal throughout the tribe and nothing being selfish. Another example would be equally splitting the work among the tribe to make it easier and fair for each one. The women aren’t doing all the cooking, sewing and taking care of the children and the men just hunting and sitting around. The men and women both do the cooking and flatten the snake, and teaching the kids. They share the responsibility within and believe in family as a way of life. Women and men don’t had the need to worry about what people think of them, so women wouldn’t wear anything to cover their chest and the men wouldn’t do anything to cover their bum.

In the American culture as demonstrated by Marius Weyers, and Sandra Prinsloo. In the culture they drive cars, make fires through matches and fire wood, and having the need to cover them when others are around.

7. How can you relate this to REAL life, your life, current events, etc?

Not understanding how to perceive someone’s culture may be hard and a little confusing when dealing with someone of a different culture. An example in my life would be when I go to the Chinese night market and see all the different kinds of food and objects. Seeing the dog ears and different deep fried creatures hanging throughout the food areas, it is kind of hard to understand why someone would want to eat that stuff. It is hard for me to understand how they could eat it but it is their culture. Also during the Chinese New Year’s it is very bright and festive with dragons and handing out money to workers as a token of luck. The festival may be a good show to us but to truly understand what it is about, we have to understand what the culture is about.

Another way is viewing the war in Iraq and the Middle East. Religion is a big part of someone’s culture and that is hard for some people to understand. In the Middle East they believe that women should cover their faces and not show any part of their body. They also don’t believe that women should go to school or get jobs and that woman should stay home and take care of the children. It’s hard for us to understand because that is not the way we know of things in our North American culture.

In the East Indian culture they believe in family; when getting married that the couple should live with the father’s parents and generations. Their food is very spicy and that’s how they like their food, as well as many different kinds of desserts. They also believe in turbans and wearing bright colourful clothing. The more they decorate their mosques, the more they believe of praising their God and more fortunes to bring in their families.

10. What were the overall impressions of the movie, what surprised you, what amused you, what other things did you learn, etc?

          I could not believe when I saw the bushman people on firstly what they were wearing. I could not imagine wearing no clothing in front of a whole tribe, as well as having the wobbly bites hanging all over the place. Then I couldn’t believe how the bushman people survived. In today’s society we are computer generated and becoming more individualistic. With the bushman people they believe in human power and sharing the responsibility. Seeing that boy catch that snake was pretty cool but pretty terrifying know that with just one bite of that snake he could die a very severe and painful death. How they live day by day is fascinating, the way they prepare their food and set up camp, it makes you truly understand what it was like before technology.

I also found it amusing when the bushman was throwing the bottle into the air and it just keeps falling downwards. Another seen was when the man, Marius Weyers, was trying to impress the women, Sandra Prinsloo, but kept either knocking down a bunch of things or talking gibberish. It was funny to see him make a fool of himself, but in the end getting the girl.

          I have also learned a great deal from this movie, like how a culture can be judged upon when not understanding why they do things. After doing research I found that African culture is fascinating, like all the different colors and the tribal dances. In the bushman tribe they use the skin of snakes as a tool. All the different things they use that can be used for something else are amazing. Like with the bottle, they found so many different uses for it, like flattening the snake skin and scrapping the bark, while we can really only use a coke bottle for one thing; drinking from it.

11. What changes in values and behaviours occurred in the Bushman’s culture when the coke bottle arrived?

          The Bushman’s behaviours changed when the coke bottle arrived. In the beginning of the documentary they said that the Bushman tribe never really cared for wanting things but when the coke bottle arrived everything seemed to change. The Bushman started using it for many things like flattening the skin of the snake, carving into the wood, noise maker, and a playing tool. After being so reliant of the bottle everyone seemed to have a use for it. When the person was flattening the snake and placed it down beside herself someone took it causing that woman to get very frustrated. The same women walked up to the women who stole the bottle and they started arguing, this lead to one of the women smacking her upside the head. They became very reliant on the bottle which had lead to harm.

          The values of each other were changed when introduced to the bottle. The bottle became the center of what they believed in. The value of family became hostile and frustrating as did the duty of everyone became confusing.

12. What is the coke bottle that should be “thrown off the edge of the world” in your life, your families life, and your culture? That is, what thing has come in from outside and has disrupted the good order of things.

I believe the coke bottle represents technology such as computers, cell phones, Ipads, and music devices. Computers and other devices that can go onto the internet are good resources to information, expect it makes us very lazy. Being able to go onto Google and type in a word and get a billion sites about that topic is amazing but it makes us lazy because we don’t take the time to sit at a table in the library and look through the encyclopaedia. Also with cell phones, you can text the person right beside you instead of talking to them face to face. Through texting and calling we seem to be more dependent on these technical devices. For example my friend can’t be more than 10 centimetres away from her phone at all times. When having sleep over’s she has the phone plugged into the wall and sitting on her pillow with her. It is amazing how reliant we are on our phones.

          In the education system technology is primarily taking over books. In math classes some schools have their own personal iPod touch to write down notes or instead of school supplies, students have to bring a laptop to school and type everything out. What happened to a pen and paper for writing essays, now they have to be double spaced, 12 font, indents, and Arial printing. Instead of learning from people we can learn so many other things online.

          I believe the computer has done a great deal for today’s society except I think that without it we might be more globally interactive. Instead of texting your friend, why not just walk down two houses and ask them to hang out. So many things have been improved from technology but other things in our life are being impacted in our lives, way beyond our control.

Zoloft (framing)

Have you ever woken up one morning to feel sluggish, tired, and down on yourself. Depression is a known disease that affects many people throughout the world. Depression makes you feel like you’re in black hole and there is no way of getting out of it. Depression can be hard on yourself as well as your family and friends around you. If you have a loss of appetite, find it hard to sleep or focus, think suicidal thoughts or become irritable very quick, these are the symptoms of depression. Zoloft is a prescription that reduces the symptoms of depression, leaving you able to function that way you use to be. Zoloft has helped over 100 thousand people help to reduce the symptoms of depression, go back to the way you were and start living again! Take Zoloft! If you call right now you can get a free sample:

1-800-I-HAVE-DEPRESSION

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The Notebook

      Memory is the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences. In the movie The Notebook, Duke reads to an elderly women named Allie. They both live in an assisted care facility. Allie has a disease called dementia. Dementia is a severe impairment or loss of intellectual capacity and personality integration, due to the loss of or damage to neurons in the brain. Every day Duke reads about a love story between two characters, Allie and Noah, in hopes that someday Allie will remember that the love story was actually of their life together. After reading the story multiple times Allie remembers who she is, and remembers that Noah is actually Duke and they are married with children. Moments later Allie reverts back to having dementia and forgets everything that she had just remembered.

      In the movie Allie has no problem talking, or doing things like eating or walking. While reading online i have read that people that have dementia cannot remember how to do everyday things, and can’t speak in clear sentences because they cannot remember what some words mean or how to put them into a sentence. Another point is that most dementia patients remember their past but only in short stages or forms. For examples they won’t be able to remember what they got for their birthday 2 years ago but they would be able to remember when their children were born, and who they were (not in severe patients). In the movie Allies personality changed throughout the movie, in the beginning she would talk to Duke but only some words. She grew to not talk with anyone, not even the care aid, and became depressed. Allie was in a care home because she couldn’t do things for herself, like cook- she might forget what she was doing and leave the stove on.

      I gained a great deal of information about dementia, and how it could be hard to have it. Dementia is irreversible and causes you to forget who you are and who the people around you are. Since dementia is irreversible, living with it may leave you feeling depressed because you wouldn’t be able to remember who you were, and be confused about the people around you.

      The emotional understanding i gained was pretty hard. I watched a few dementia videos on YouTube and saw how families and loved ones had to deal with having someone dear to them with this disease. They said that they would walk around their house dazed and confused. They couldn’t remember where they put their car keys or where they left their shoes. Little things they noticed but took for granted was one thing i found while watching the videos. Every person speaking of it said they didn’t think anything of it before because those little things can happen to anyone. Then eventually they found that, they started to lose things about themselves, like forgetting to brush their teeth, or remembering to eat. Soon they would slowly start to forget who they were as well as the people around them. Some symptoms of dementia is becoming irritable and depressed, which could explain why they get nervous or scared around people because they don’t remember who they were. Emotionally for the person who has dementia or any other mental disability it seems hard on the loved ones too. Eventually a dementia patient’s family and friends lose contact with them because they just forget who they were when they visited; just as Allie forgot who her children were, as well as Duke. The children of Noah and Allie tell their father, Noah, to go back home with them because their mother doesn’t remember who they were. Being forgotten can be hard, especially when they grew up with their mother and now she doesn’t remember all the memories they shared, and she can’t experience her grandchildren growing up.

Dreams....

I was walking down the hall to my room when I realized that my light was still on. I entered my room and found that my boyfriend was sitting on the bed waiting for me to get ready for dinner. I told him to leave and that I would meet him at the restaurant. After he left, I got a phone call. It was of a man, he was speaking in a low monotone voice. He said that if I didn’t leave with my boyfriend that he would die and that he would come after me. I got scared and hung up on him. I called my boyfriend and heard that same man on the line. I hung up and ran out of my house. While running I saw my boyfriends car in the driveway, then I came to the conclusion that it might have been just him trying to scare me. I woke up from my dream and realized that I had left my television on while watching Criminal minds. I turned off my television and went back to bed.

I envisioned myself on a surfboard in Hawaii. When going back to shore I saw my boyfriend waiting for me on the shore. When getting closer to the shore, he got up and left. I remember yelling at him to stop but I he just kept walking. When I got to shore I realized that the person that was my boyfriend really wasn’t it was a man. I saw that he was staring at me from across the street. I watched the man as I dried off on the shore, and realized after grabbing my towel that he had my bag. I chased after him and followed him into an alleyway. At the end of the street I saw my actual boyfriend waiting for me with candles and food. Not the most romantic place for dinner, but as I got up he pulled out my chair and he gave me a box, with a Pandora bracelet in it.

I woke up the next morning quite scared because I didn’t remember what the man that took my bag looked like.

1. Psychoanalytic Perspective (wish-fulfillment theory)- A desire of my dream may be that I am scared that my boyfriend will be killed one day leaving my house. During late nights he gets really tired and has to drive 30 minutes to get to his house, I am scared that he would get in a car crash. And also my desire for a Pandora bracelet could lead to my boyfriend actually giving me one. The manifest content of my dream was that I getting ready for dinner with my boyfriend, while a man was calling me and taking my stuff. The latent content of my dream refers to the unconscious meaning of the dream, maybe an unfulfilled wish or desire. I believe that my latent content was that for Christmas I asked my boyfriend to buy me a Pandora bracelet, and take me out for dinner. I could have been scared of the man that I didn’t know because I was watching criminal minds and a similar scene was being played out.
2. Biological View (Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis)- the activation-synthesis hypothesis is the brain’s ways of making sense of the activity during REM sleep. A biological view of my dream may have been the fact that I was watching criminal minds before going to bed. Criminal minds is a twisted show and the episode I was watching was of a truck driver taking older women to find a queen for his daughter whom is being taken away. This episode may explain why he was in two places, by my house and in Hawaii, because he travels around a lot. Following the man and finding my boyfriend may have been that I was trying to find my king, and it just happened to lead to my boyfriend. But this approach doesn’t explain why he was calling my house after my boyfriend and left, and telling me that my boyfriend was going to die if I didn’t go with him. 
3. Cognitive Perspective- I agree that dreams can help you solve your problems that may be being faced throughout life, but sometimes dreams can make you feel something that has nothing to do with what is trying to be solved. My dream helps me realize that my boyfriend should get more sleep and go home earlier if we hang out till late. I should be more considerate of him, and he might just buy me what I really want. I can’t understand why I was dreaming of a man calling my house, and watching me but I can say that I will not be watching criminal minds that soon before I go to bed, and to not take that show to heart.

Advantages About Being Deaf and/or Blind

            When one of your senses is taken away from you all your others become heightened. An advantage about being deaf is that telemarketers will not call you if they know that that person is deaf, or hard of hearing. Noises that usually wake up people in the middle of the night won’t wake a deaf person up. When loud noises outside, like drilling and jack hammering, they don’t have any effect to you at all. Having no effect to loud noises is a good thing but what’s even better is that when not wanting to listen to anyone near you, when someone is deaf they won’t be able to hear that person or if hard- of hearing they could turn down their hearing aids. Sleeping beside someone who is snoring very loudly won’t be disturbing them throughout the night due to the fact they cant here them. A hearing aid can make a person a better listener, considering they have to listen more closely to what someone is saying, but also when being deaf can make you pay more close attention to what their mouths are saying. Another reason being deaf has its advantages is that when being deaf or hard of hearing you actually have to think what to say before you say it, usually this doesn’t get someone in trouble but may make you miss the rest of the conversation. Being deaf does seem to be a hassle but it seems to have some advantages; closer parking stall to a store, being a greater listener, and having people (like friends) treat you with respect.

Becoming blind also heightens your senses, being able to smell or feel an object by evaluating it and making a judgment that way.  Having sight means you are able to see what an object is and go from there, but when someone is blind they have to evaluate to determine what they are experiencing. That determining is unique to the person because everybody may see or feel some things differently. An article said that when someone is blind they have a certain type of confidence in them selves that most people don’t have. They have to trust what they are feeling or smelling, which creates trust within someone. Another advantage would be when going on a date or hanging out with someone you aren’t able to judge that person by their looks but how they talk to you and their personality, sometimes people just look at appearance and judge from there without even viewing their personality. Sighted people judge how everyone looks but when being blind you can think that everyone is beautiful/handsome, you become a better person because you aren’t judging people. Being blind also makes you a better listener because you have to understand what the person is feeling and doing without looking at the facial expressions of them.              

Having a handicap, like being blind or deaf, can have the disadvantages but having this sort of handicap doesn’t have a big negative effect on how you are as a person, it simply makes you a better one.

Scavenger Hunt

      I went to Target in Bellingham at Bellis Fair. The Barbie dolls of different racial colors were difficult to find, I found 3 black dolls and 1spanish dolls. But the Barbie dolls that were white were very easy to find, most of them were white. The holiday cards were a bit tricker because they had no cards out for Christmas, just Halloween and fall. Some people don’t celebrate Halloween so the fall cards seemed to be there alternate. I did not find cards that were for LGBT couples. but I looked at the wedding/ anniversary area and I saw some didn’t have to be just for heterosexual couples, most were like "To the women I love" or "To my husband", they could of been used for both kinds of couples.       
      I saw shopping carts that had electric wheel chair accessibility, and the isle seemed to be bigger (may have been a coincidence though).  I didn’t see many signs for people over 60. The pictures frame fillers were had a variety of races, many were white but I saw some that were black and Asian. I did not find any Native American sports teams, did only found Seattle Blackhawks. Native American style blankets were popular, but other than that nothing seemed to be Native American.
      The clothing sections were fairly spaced out, but I think that if an elder person or larger person were going shopping they may find it hard to navigate their way around all the racks. The racks weren’t all in a straight line; they seemed to be cascaded everywhere. In America I always see plus size sections in different stores for both men and women; the store signs usually say “Plus Size”, there is also a section for maternity clothes. For the men I believe the larger sizes are mingled in with the other types of clothes men would wear.
      The workers in the store were a variety of people, from black to Chinese to white and many more. The employees seemed very happy and welcoming even to the questions people had to ask, they had no problem dropping everything and helping them. The customers were pretty much the same, a variety of different races. Lots of families were shopping for food and electronics. I only saw a few elder people as well as a few larger people. The average age that were shopping there would have been between the ages of 30-45.  

      This assignment was a little difficult because of all the things we needed to find, like the cards, but since the holidays were pretty general, like birthdays and Halloween, finding a variety was difficult. Finding cards for homosexual couples were a little difficult because I was a little bias due to all the cards could have been used for heterosexual or homosexual couples. The customers were a little pushy and rude waiting in lines or walking behind you, but overall they weren’t bad. The employees were/seemed friendly when I asked them where something was. I found it interesting when we needed to do this assignment because when doing it I finally paid more attention to the other stuff, like usually I would know what I would want and then go for that but this time I had to pay attention to the signs and stuff. Overall I thought this is assignment was pretty neat to learn some interesting stuff about things I usually don’t pay attention too.

Writing Assignment #1

My experience with creating my first blog wasn't as challenging as i thought it would be. It was a hastle to to create another google account but that was easy. My password wouldn't work for a little bit, but eventually i did it. I have not had or made a blog before creating one on blogger , i have facebook but thats not technically a blog just a page with some info and photos of my friends, family, and myself.
Doing a blog makes me feel important, seems like people are following what i am doing. They can read and follow what i am writing about psychology. I think creating a blog was a good idea because we usually use a computer while doing our homework. computers are easier because they don't waste any paper, and isnt as hard or slow as writing it down on a piece of paper. I think that blogging my assignments might be a better way in organizing all my activities in psychology. What would be bad though is if the power went down in ttown, and you wouldn't be able to do an assignment and it got late because of that.
The feeling of having other student and teachers reading my assignments is kind of nerve racking because i get very nervous about people reading my writing. I dont usually write down assignments and have other people reading it. But while thinking that strangers are going to be reading my assignments is kind of creepy, why would they be looking at a students assignments anyways...?