Culture as a gate to know about society.

Cross Culture Understanding Essay

Muhammad Rizkie Lambang Hermawan / 514.1411.007

Introduction

Speaking of culture, there are so many opinions and definitions related to

it. According to myself, culture is simply a products created by a certain
community, in a certain area. The reason for me to think this way is the fact that
each community from a certain area might have a different culture compared to
another. Looking closer to my opinion, it may have been related to Melville
Herskovits and Bronis law Malinowski’s opinion about Cultural Determinism that
says everything contained in society is determined by the culture which is owned
by the community itself. An Opinion that lead me to an understanding that
culture does affect the society, and we could differ a society from another by
looking at their culture, an example that we can see in the society we are living
now. Generally we are living in Muslim society through the fact that the majority
of people that lives in Indonesia are Muslim. A bit of example is that alcohol is
not allowed to be consumed in Islam, causing the society to believe that one who
consumes alcohol is not a good person since he already broke the rule. But
comparing to the western culture where consuming alcohol is okay, it’s a whole
different case and situation. Another opinion that came up in my mind was that
culture is a community product, but to the fact that each community may has a
different religion or believe, they may have a different products in terms of
culture. And it is not just religion but also refer to ethnicity, language, generation
and many others.

Speaking of Culture and Generation, we can obviously see that each

generation may have their own culture differences from the other, even if they are
coming out of the same community. Herskovits looks at culture as something that
is handed down from generation to another. Well I kind off agreed to his opinion
about culture being handed down by the olds to their youths, but some may stay
the same while other changes as the new generations also have their own new way
of live, to have all the things never even thought of by the previous generations.
An example is by the terms of technology that helps us to do many things easier,
Let’s look at the way people communicate, back then people may found that it
was disrespecting when someone does not look at them when talking, but in the
present time people could talk while they are separated by thousands of miles
away without being afraid of disrespecting the others.

Culture and it’s product, According to Edward Burnett Tylor, culture is a

complex whole, which has in it the knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs,
and other abilities from any personas a member of society. We can say that these
knowledges, believe, art, moral, law, customs, are the products of culture. But let
me add one more product, which is language. Fatiha Guessabi, a professor of
Languages and Translation in the Literature and Humanities faculty at the
Université de Béchar in Algeria argued that the human communication process is
complex, as many of our messages are transmitted through paralanguage. These
auxiliary communication techniques are culture-specific, so communication with
people from other societies or ethnic groups is fraught with the danger of
misunderstanding, if the larger framework of culture is ignored. I totally agree of
her argumentation that language is culture-specific, and if we do not view the
language as well as the culture, we may misunderstand the point of what has been
said. One of the most obvious forms of paralanguage is body language. For
example, some people may get offended if someone they are talking to are using
strong body language or hand gesture. While using gestures by the other person
may be a sign of showing interest towards the conversation. If both speakers do
not look it by the point of culture, they may get offended to one and another,
showing an importance and how strong the relation of language and culture.

Asian Countries Culture.

Asia is the biggest and most populated continent in the world. Asia covers
at least 8.6 percent of Earth’s surface with 4,436 billion people that lives in it.
There are about 50 countries located in Asia, all these countries further divided by
where they are located, which are Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia, South
Asia, Southeast Asia and West Asia. All these countries may have their own
specific culture, and some also may be quite the same to another as they are in the
same part of Asia and probably come from the same root of culture long ago. But
to make it simpler, I will be discussing on the Southeast Asian Culture.

Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are

geographically in the south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea, and north
of Australia. Southeast Asia consist of countries that we have known as Indonesia,
Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and some other
countries. But among all these country, three of them are considerably similar.
They are Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. These three countries are related as
they were coming out of a same culture, which is Malay. Being part of the same
culture causing them to have similarities in many aspects, which of course the first
most noticeable one is Language, Malaysian and Singaporean Malay seems quite
a lot the same as Singapore was part of Malaysia, but comparing to Bahasa
spoken in Indonesia, their Malay has been changing a lot from what it was. Long
time ago, the Malay in Indonesia and Malaysia more likely the same, but the
Malaysian version of Malay has changes, some pronunciation and spelling must
have been changed from the original, just the way the British English changes
while the American English stays the same. A further research may have been
needed to ensure my argument.

Indonesian Local Language

Bahasa Indonesia in the language spoken as a Lingua Franca, a language

used in order to unite all the citizens. In my earlier discussion, I might have
mention about Malay in Indonesia, but another thing to be known is that there like
actually hundreds of ethnicity in Indonesia, which each ethnicity may have their
own local or what people in Indonesia refers as Traditional Language. Some of
the biggest ethnicity in Indonesia are Javanese, Dayak, Banjar, Batak, Sundanese
and many others. Considering by one ethnicity has one traditional language, it will
make Indonesia has a lot of traditional languages, but the truth is that even an
ethnicity may have more than one traditional language, something that differ from
one to another, it could just be a simple accent, or probably something more
complicated as a language structure. For example, the island of Java is divided
into three parts, the west, the central, and the east. Each language spoken in these
sub-java region are also different, a simple point of how language are different
even though they are in a same island or region. Another example is how
language is divided by the ethnicity, which is from the Dayak, there are literally
hundreds of Dayak sub-ethnicity, and each of them has their own different
language, even if they are just separated by a river, they could have different
language, that is why the Banjar exists and is used by Dayak people to understand
each other, as a lingua franca.

Indonesian Local Wisdom

With culture, comes a great wisdom. Indonesia has a lot of cultures to

explore and understand, each ethnicity can have their own local wisdom which
could mean another in other ethnicity or culture. One of the most unique local
wisdom may be the “social law”, the way people in each culture, ethnicity or
region punishes those who “break” what is believed to be something that should
not be done. For example, those who fornicate or steal in Aceh will get whipped
by an executioner for the sin they have done, it could be related to their strong
believe in Islam or it could be something else, but a different thing could occur in
another culture, ethnicity or region, some would mark them just a bad person,
ignore the suspects or others things, there are so many variety of what might
happened. Another thing that need to be noticed is also about myths, a certain
believe that was created long ago by the ancestors, some would actually logic
while the other are just none-sense, but it is what it is. Some people believe while
the other don’t. An example is about eating chicken wings, many people in Java
believe that unmarried people should not eat chicken wings for it will be bad for
them as they may get rejected by their loves one, while some people outside Java
probably never even heard about it. sure is unique and interesting to know what is
the real story behind the myth.

Conclusion

Speaking of culture, it could not be separated from those who create it, the
community. And through all those different communities and cultures that are so
unique and different from one and another, they have a big mystery and story
hidden by time that has passed long ago. It could be created based on region,
religion, ethnicity and many others. Some of the most interesting one could be the
one that was created over religion and ethnicity, because I believe they have a big
mystery and secret to the creation, could be logic or even none-sense to be
considered in the present time.

A region also defines the person living in it, because it covers the same
ancestors, culture and even religion. People from around the world have their own
specific way in behaving over something, it is related to their culture, their social
laws. Beside on social laws, culture also shaped people’s believe, which is
something that will remain in people’s mind even though it is being illogic to a
common sense. But as a culture defines more than just people behaviors, it also
defines about how people communicate. It could be in terms of language,
manners, and many other, some people would believe that language is the
manifestation of a culture itself. That is one of the reason for me write this article,
to show that from a culture we can find out something about a society, even just a
little. So what can you take and learn from what you read in this article?
References

Marie-Joelle Browaeys & Roger Price (2011). Understanding Cross Cultural

Management Pearson Education, England, ISBN : 978-0-273-73295-2

Fatiha Guessabi in https://www.languagemagazine.com/blurring-the-line-

between-language-and-culture/