Culture shock is when a person gets involved with another culture and gets in touch with their way of life and sees that each culture does things differently and maybe can walk away with a different mindset after experience. Ethnocentrism is when someone takes what they are familiar with from their own culture and uses it to some extent to make judgments about another culture, especially negative ones. Cultural relativism is when someone does not judge another culture but rather tries to understand it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayIn this essay I will talk about South Korean culture, a culture that has always intrigued me, personally. In South Korea, people value hard work more than anything and believe that anything can be achieved as long as faith, determination and strength are maintained in the person. The country, like others, has developed its own customs and etiquettes over time. The main way to greet someone is to bow, and this is usually done with the movement of the person's head as they bow, acknowledging those in front of them, especially those of high authority. This bow to the person is also a form of mutual respect. In this case, I experienced a sense of cultural relativism because at first I was confused as to why they should bow to everyone and who in particular they should bow to. Once I understood why they do it or who they bow to, it made sense to me. It showed me that this is their way of being respectful towards everyone. Another particularly interesting custom is how South Koreans are a year ahead of their age. Everyone automatically turns one year old the day they are born. Ethnocentrism was applied to my experience of discovering this because I believed it was something completely out of this world. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay I have never heard of something like this where someone would basically be considered a year older than their Western age and it would be considered a norm in their culture. It's pretty strange how the Korean age system works. Finally, I experienced culture shock when I discovered that there is a lack of diversity, in this case cultural diversity. South Korea is known for being racially pure, and this is because of a political ideology known as Korean ethnic nationalism. Being from California, I grew up seeing so much diversity and people from all over the world love coming to this particular state. So I'm pretty used to the diverse atmosphere and seeing that South Koreans barely have any cultural diversity shocked me. Works CitedChang, T. (2018). Why the Korean work ethic is so strong. The Korean herald. Chung, S. K. (2011). Understanding cultural relativism in a multicultural world. Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective, 5(1), 25-38.Encyclopædia Britannica. (n.d.). Ethnocentrism. https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethnocentrismGoffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. Pantheon Books.Kim, S.Y., & Oh, K. (2018). Cultural differences in bowing frequency and duration between Korean and Japanese. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 42(3), 301-315. Lee, S. (2019). South Korea: The racism you can't talk about. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2019/9/23/south-korea-the-racism-that-cannot-be-spokenLee, Y. (2018). The impact of Confucianism on interpersonal relationships and communication patterns in East Asia. Newspaper.
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