The « CULTURE MEETINGS » (Tuesday 31st August- CAMP)

We worked in group of 2 persons, again!!! It is nice, because the team work allows me to know and to talk to different students. As I’m shy, it’s help me to dare to speak more and to express my ideas.

Before to define « the culture meetings », I think that is necessarily to define in general the culture and the others topics that relate to the concept, like the subculture.

From the text « An introduction to intercultural communication », written by Fred E. JANDT, in a country, the culture is a link between all this country’s inhabitants. She is based upon Rituals, Symbols (money, flag, etc), Values (they allows inhabitants to make the difference between the good and the bad things, to know their rights, they allows the socialization of persons in the society), and Heroes ( War’s heroes, etc.).
The cultural identity describes that if a person chose this culture, so she accepts the system of symbols.Each person creates her own culture, and thanks to her experiences, her culture can evolve.
The subculture are cultures within the culture, like the social class, the ethnicity, etc.
The concept of the co-culture means that several cultures coexist with others cultures. Moreover, if we want that this concept is possible, it needs that the laws of a culture doesn’t contradict the laws of another culture. When a culture is more important than the another cultur, we can’t define like the co-culture, but rather « the culture within the culture ».
The subgroup exist also in the culture. They represent a group of person who have the same vocabulary, who wear the same clothes, to listen the same music, etc.
The deviant label represents the persons who haven’t the same values and the same ideas than persons belonging the majority culture considered. We can talk the marginalization.

So, the subject is « the culture meetings ». I think that we can define the concept as the fact to communicate, to share or to debate our life’s experiences, our values and our opinions with persons who haven’t the same culture. It is a mixture of different traditions and customs.
I think that the « culture meetings » are possible if people haven’t prejudices and judgement on the customs and the traditions of the others cultures. Or it needs to overcome them.
It doesn’t need to confuse the «culture meetings » and the «culture chocks», because when we deal with the « culture chocks» , this one concerning only the personality.

To illustrate this concept, we can give this example : this international course because we are students coming from different countries, not speaking the same languages, and we must try to communicate, to work together, to create relationships. So, we discover others cultures, we are in the concept « culture meetings ».