Essay. Quilt Presentation. My experience

The most important aspect of a country is with no doubt the representation of its culture. When talking about any country, the culture is the main thing that people commonly like most. The culture is not only a thing belongs to the country, it strongly represents the way people live, speak, dress, the way how people celebrate specific activities, beliefs, and other things. There are many ways to represent the culture of a country; one of them is the confection of quilts, in which people can appreciate very well the culture. I think the activity we did last Thursday was really interesting and important for us. As students it is important to participate in activities like this, because it helps us to have a general knowledge not only about our culture but the culture of other countries too.

The part I liked most what the role we shared with the students from Europe. I think it was really nice to explain to them how our culture is in general. I really liked how they were really interested in our culture; they really wanted to know many things about it. I consider it is really nice that someone explains to you how the culture is, especially when you are from other country. I strongly believe that this kind of activities is really important for our academic preparation. I did not only explain my culture, I also learned a lot about England culture. Since we had to share information with other people, I had the opportunity to know more about other countries. The girl ,who was with me, tried to compare all the time the aspects I mentioned form Costa Rica with her country, England.

Practicing the language was another thing very important for me. I think activities like this are important because they help us to practice the language, and they can do it too. Most students from Europe know very well Spanish and they wanted to practice it. I think it was funny in the same time, because sometimes we were speaking both languages, but we did not realize it. I think the activity was really important for all of us. We really learned a lot.

"The Values American Live By” by L. Robert Kohls, Ph.D.

First of all I would like to express something about values. I think values are something really important in any culture. Since they made us as we are, values can also judge a country without knowing as it is. I would like to comment this article according to my experience in the United States. I had the opportunity to live and work in the USA, and if I had known about how people are there, I would have taken the things a little bit more relaxing. I shall comment the articles that I like most with examples which I lived there.
Personal Control over the Environment/Responsibility: I do not if I got the main idea of this value but I would like to share this as a part of the culture of USA. I think every person in the United States has an important control over the environment they have, and you can notice that and also you can even change the way you have been used to think. When I arrived in the United States and I see the ideology people have to preserve the environment and with this the responsibly they also get with this. Sometimes I became to think how beautiful can be a country in which people really think about the consequences of throwing away garbage.
Time and its control: it is unbelievable to see how Americans really take care of the time. For Americans it is important to be on time and control it as a part of a good image. When I started to work there was a little bit difficult for me to try to be on time all the time. No because I did not want, but because it is something that you cannot ever control. What I mean is that we are used to do this and most people do not care about it. Of course I had to learn and managers understood me. I would like to say that this is not something just about Costa Rican people, when I was there I met a lot of people from Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina and everybody had problem with the time.
Independence: I do not agree with this value in USA. I did of course lotof friends from USA, and most of them did not even want to leave the house but some people see this as a tradition and they told me their parents obliged them to leave the house just because they finished high school. Of course I got friends who really like leaving from house and becoming independent.
Action/ work orientation: this was something really funny, and also weird. I never could understand how Americans can work too much time without getting tired. I still remember that my manager used to say to me “do something, whatever but do something, you can dance but do something” they do not like seeing people just stand there.
Informality is something I really like in USA. I think people do not worry about what to wear. They can use the same pants even one week and they do not care. When you are working they do not care if you got any tattoo or any piercing they just want you to work.

Comparison between the movies: shall we dance? and shall we dansu?

I think the most evident thing in both movies was the kind of life in each culture. In the American version, as we all know, the kind of living is really busy and most people have a hard life. What I mean with this is that clearly you can notice that in the American version the wife is hard working person; on the other hand in the Japanese version the wife stays at home showing the Japanese culture in which women are not used to working. Another different I found was the way of dancing; you clearly can notice that in both versions the way of dancing is totally if we compare it with the other one. Also the way the men ask women to dance.
I consider both versions follow the same purpose with differences that are always interested. Also, we can add that the language changes more of the context or the meaning of the movies. Remember every single culture has its own kind of language even when there are some countries which speak the same language, so the meaning cannot be ever the same. I mean the story changes, maybe a little bit but it does.