Cultures as life shaping experiences

By: Sofía Riveros

Experiencing different cultures is something that will change the way you see the world.

Throughout our life, we are or will be able to encounter different cultures, traditions and
ways of living. Here in Gimnasio Vermont, students and teachers have the possibility to learn,
experience and even be immersed in multiple cultures. Each and every culture we experience
will shape us and will certainly change the way we see the world. Even though some people
may say that experiencing a different culture is not something necessary in their lives and
watching diverse ways of living won’t change them in any way, I truly believe that
experiencing divergent and new cultures will bring us countless lessons and surely expand
our world view.

When we have the opportunity to be immersed in a culture that is considerably different to

ours, we are able to think more critically as well as become more open minded. I talked to
one of our language teachers, Aaron Cody, who has been able to experience around 6
different cultures. Mr.Cody said that living and experiencing diverse cultures helped him
become someone non-judgmental. When he observed how differently people could live and
how contrasting their traditions were compared to his, he learned not to judge difference, on
the contrary, he said that by accepting these differences and making them part of him, he was
able to be a proud ambassadors of his own culture, who is now someone more respectful and
careful about his believes.

Meng Xiao, a teacher from the mandarin department, also shared some of her experiences.
She mentioned that after coming to live in Colombia, she was able to realize that there was
not just one way of living. In China, her native country, people are very immersed in work
and live their lives in a very rushed way. In Colombia she managed to find a much calmer
and very different way of living. Thanks to Colombia’s contrasting lifestyle and traditions,
her perspective over other cultures became wider and her view towards life changed. Through
a contrasting culture, she was able to enjoy life and different traditions in an innovative way
that allowed her to experience her own life more pleasantly and be more open to changes.
Overall, she was able to learn multiple things by encountering differences.

In this same way, 11th grade students who had the chance to go to China shared their
perspectives as well. As I have stated, traveling and spending time immersed in Chinese
culture changed their perspective towards the country and other eastern cultures. Before
traveling, they saw this culture as something totally foreign and even “weird”, judging
traditions and ways of life just because they were unalike to ours and the environment was
totally different. At the beginning, these students were blinded and scared of difference,
which led them to reject a contrasting culture without even realizing everything that can be
learned from it. If we start to be more open to changes, there will be many lessons that we
will actually learn from unknown experiences. Therefore, are we really going to judge a
culture and miss out on all the new things we can learn just because we don’t like or are
scared of differences?

When they came back, most of them stated that their perspective changed drastically. They
became much more respectful and were able to take the contrast of Chinese culture as life
lessons, which allowed them to become more open-minded and begin to see other cultures as
something fascinating to learn from instead of something strange and unknown. This
demonstrates that experiencing a new culture, even if it is just for a short period of time can
change your worldview and will make you someone accepting towards other cultures and
unknown things.

I personally also have experiences that have changed my own worldview. I have been able to
visit quite a few different countries and learn about multiple cultures, and I can say that I
have learned something from each one of them. The one that has changed me the most was
the fact of being immersed in Japanese culture. For around two years I dedicated most of my
time to learning Japanese, and even though I wasn’t directly in Japan, I could experience the
culture on my own. Japanese teachers always talked about the way they lived and how
different their traditions were compared to Colombia, at first I found it a little peculiar and
didn’t quite understand how people could actually live in such different ways, but the more I
learned about it and the more I researched, I became more fond of it and I started to see those
dissimilar aspects as something captivating. I stopped being judgmental and nowadays I
consider myself someone that respects other cultures and is open to learning about new
things.

We have to start changing the way we see the world, and the best way to do it is by
experiencing another culture. As I said before, the ways in which we can be immersed in a
different culture are very diverse, whether it is traveling, living or even just learning on your
own. The important thing is that we all begin to experience cultures, in this way we will be
able to transform the way we think, we will expand our perspectives, change our worldview
and become more respectful and open-minded towards different ways of living. If we all give
ourselves an opportunity to experience a contrasting culture, we will be able to create a more
enjoyable world, free of discrimination and segregation. So give yourself the opportunity to
learn from differences and give the first step to change the world.