Introductory task:

● Going to Church every Sunday

- As a Christian family, we must always put God first in everything we do.
Whenever it is Sunday, we drop our work or whatever we do to attend church
service together. We also have to pray together before eating our meals.
● Celebrating birthdays together
- When it is one of our family member's birthday, we have to celebrate it with the
family before they celebrate it with their friends. We do this so that we strengthen
our bond together as we are often busy with work.

Primary Activity:
As a person who lived a privileged life, I was exposed to various Western movies and tv shows
as early as 3 years old, since my parents would always go to the United States to get a bunch of
DVDs for my other 4 siblings and me. I used to really like Western children's movies and would
always act and dress like them, and that is how I also learned and practice speaking English,
through watching Western media. I was also enrolled in an international elementary school
where we are required to strictly speak the English language, and the use of Tagalog was
strictly prohibited and we have to pay a 1 peso fine if we spoke in Tagalog. During my junior
high school years, I was obsessed with Japanese culture as my family would go to Japan yearly.
In that era, I had a mindset that anime and Japanese culture is superior to other cultures, and
would always compare Japan to other countries. During my senior year of high school and my
college life now, I began to appreciate more with Filipino culture more as I always enjoyed
singing OPM together with my friends, and I also really like Filipino humor as I could relate to it a
lot. I would say that my own cultural identity is like a mix of Filipino and Japanese cultures
because when I am with my friends and family, I often use informal Filipino to give myself a
sense of belonging to the culture. On the other hand, I integrate the Japanese culture of taking
pride in work when doing my academics in order to practice discipline for my future career. I also
got inspired by Japan’s cleanliness of the environment, which made me practice cleanliness in
my room, restaurants, and the workplace.

Before when I was still in high school, I used to think that Japanese culture was the supreme
culture of the world, and I would discriminate against my own Filipino culture to the point that I
used to think that Filipinos are stupid because they do not practice discipline. But after talking to
other Filipinos and being friends with them, I began to empathize with them and learned the
importance of why Filipinos are family oriented since Filipinos need support from other people
for their mental health and for their growth and development. Last summer, I went to this
international Discord server where I could meet and talk with people from different countries and
with different cultures, and I began to learn about how people from other countries think
differently, such as apparently in Western countries, it is rude to ask them where they live as
they find it uncomfortable, compared to Asian countries, especially the Philippines, it is normal
and common to ask where a person lives. As I talk to more people around the world, I began to
empathize more with them by asking about their country’s culture. Thus, people should have a
better understanding of other cultural differences to avoid discrimination, such as by simply
learning about their beliefs and cultural practices. In that way, people can appreciate other’s
cultures and maybe people can also try to relate with other cultures as well.