Where are Your Clothes From?

I have been challenged to learn some 200 countries, including how to spell each one. Have you thought about where your clothes come from? The t-shirt I’m wearing today is from Turkmenistan and my shorts are from Qatar. I haven’t really thought about it before until I started taking my latest class.

I’m taking a Cultural Diversity class and loving it. We are learning about people, places, culture and so much more. So far, we have gone to a foreign movie (I went to a French movie) and write a review. This next week’s assignment is to eat at an ethnic restaurant and write another review. However, you can tell that I’m a teacher when I think in themes and decided to eat at a French restaurant before watching the French movie (plus, it took care of the two assignments in one afternoon). The food was great, but my body just can’t digest the richness of too much cream and butter. I enjoyed the movie and thought it easy to follow without reading the subtitles for the most part. But, I’ve always liked foreign movies and will rent them to watch at home. Mike doesn’t particularly enjoy them, too much work to read the subtitles and follow the movie, but he is slowing learning to enjoy them. Next week we will be going to three museums and then write reviews for them. Teaching outside of the “box” (classroom) is education that is easier to apply as knowledge. I’d love to travel to the different countries, but Mike doesn’t like to travel that much and forget about another country. Maybe, some day…

Sometimes, I feel that I’m being prepared to experience more cultural diversity outside of college. Ever since I have been in college I have been keeping a list of expressions in other languages. Being a tutor puts me in contact with a lot of foreign students who love to be asked questions about their own country. I’m always asking how to say friend in their languages. Anyway, one student from Korea needed my help for his English class and he volunteered an expression not on my original list, “I love you.” I wasn’t really paying attention to his body language when he said this, but the other tutors I work with caught on and told me that he was flirting. So far, I have learned about a dozen different languages and how to say, “I love you” and “friend.” I think I need to start getting a standard greeting and good-bye added to my list. I’m amazed how easy it is to pick up the languages, but most importantly, the correct pronunciations. I have taken sign language classes outside of school, taught it to my Kindergarten students and now to my year old granddaughter. I found out that I will get to take it as my second language when I transfer to the University. Once I get that out of the way, I think it would be fun to learn one or two more languages.

I’m glad Cultural Diversity is a required course. I think everyone should experience this kind of exposure to other cultures as a way to stretch one’s tolerance and appreciation for others and even our own culture and uniqueness.