"Tolerance, inter-cultural dialogue and respect for diversity are more essential than ever in a world where peoples are becoming more and more closely interconnected." —Kofi Annan, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations
About
This is my personal expierence with culture in different countries and the impact it's had on me. My family and I have experienced many different cultures in many different countries and each and every place we go changes the
way I look at things. The people that we meet all have such different stories
and experiences and learning about them has helped me respect them and has made me learn about their culture. Every culture has their own definition of respect and
learning one anothers is important for diversity.
way I look at things. The people that we meet all have such different stories
and experiences and learning about them has helped me respect them and has made me learn about their culture. Every culture has their own definition of respect and
learning one anothers is important for diversity.
Photo of my dad, sister, and me. Taken at La
Sagrada Familia in Spain. Photo taken by Pam Moore.
Sagrada Familia in Spain. Photo taken by Pam Moore.
My Revision Process
During my revision process I first had to look at the edited version of my original paper. I looked at what Ms. Harris, my English teacher, wrote when she edited my paper. I took these comments into account when I choose which one of my two major stories I wanted to use. In my original paper, I told two different stories about my experiences with culture and connected them at the end. One of the stories was about how my family went to a cafe in France and a couple sitting next to us was extremely rude so the waiter was rude to them back. But when my family sat down and was polite and attempted to speak French, the waiter was delighted and happy, therefore, he was polite back. The other story of mine was about my friend Swetha. She is Indian and comes from a very traditional Indian family and in my paper I told about the first time I went to dinner at her house. It was very different and the conversation was restricted. I choose to use the story about my friend Swetha because when I went along of her families traditions and manners, they welcomed me into the family. I decided to address Indian culture as well to give readers a good idea of what I was going through. During my revision process, I had to cut out basically entire paragraphs. "This I Believe" pieces are generally a lot shorter then everyday papers because they are straight to the point so I cut out an entire story to create a main topic. Another aspect of "This I Believe" papers is that they are generally less factual. I had one or two entire paragraphs of straight facts about other cultures and their respect levels. I left some of the facts but in order to reach the tone I was going for, I had to cut out the majority. Last but not least, I had to format my new paper so that when reading it, you could pick out different sections which would then be transformed into this website. This was not too difficult but rather time consuming because I had to cut out a lot but still keep enough information to make the website understandable and relatable.