this module made me aware of my individualist beliefs. at the end of the Q&A to test my trend between individualist and collectivist, it said i was equilibrated between trends. that made me feel a little better after the activity where we divvied up the $20,000 amongst the workers based on their percentage. i really do believe that people should be rewarded based on performance and skill. i'm not quite sure if that is a bad thing or not... but that exercise made me feel like the website believes it's a bad thing!
i really enjoyed the first activity where we wrote down our initial reactions to different scenarios. the whole time i was answering the first section of questions, in the back of my mind i was thinking "i know in some cultures this would be completely acceptable/unacceptable! when i got to the second part, i had so much fun looking at the scenarios from a different perspective and creating reactions to them based on the cultural expectations.
this activity was really eye opening to the fact that just because something may cause an initial judgment to take place in our mind, it can be interpreted many different ways depending on the culture! i really like how it said "... while you are a guest in another country you should take special care not to make snap judgments about people and situations before you know the .... reasons why they might be behaving and reacting different than you normally would." that is a golden nugget of knowledge in traveling!!!!
it's important to embrace these ideas because yes, you're in a different country, and yes, the expectations and culture have the potential of being COMPLETELY different than what you are accustomed to. i am positive i will encounter some of these situations while in peru. easier said than done, right? i know i can't help my natural reactions to situations and behavior. Having this knowledge of how to deal with my snap judgments will help me adapt to the culture and being to form relationships with the people i interact with. i really liked how the module said "... once you figure out how people in other cultures see themselves and what motivates them to do things the way they do, you can begin to figure out appropriate ways to interact with them." that is what i hope this module has prepared me for!
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