Every day there is news about cultureculture is not genetically inherited, it is shared, learned, and dynamic- never static. Usually it goes unnoticed because people do not really focus on how they live their culture each day. It just happens. Culture is what we do everyday: wake up at a certain time, work out, eat breakfast, rush to work, punch a time clock, sit down at the computer, and a thousand more things.
For a minute, ponder the few things just mentioned; how do they relate to culture? Take the morning wake-up for instance, does everyone in the world wake up to an alarm clock? No. Do women in India who walk five miles every day to collect water in jugs worry about working out? I don’t think so.
What about breakfast? Does everyone eat breakfast at home? Or do most people stop at Starbuck’s? Rushing to work – does everyone rush to work? Or is this just what Americans do?
Carrying Water
Exercising Before Work
In fact, is what we call work the same thing to everyone? What of the computer, or laptop, iPad or iPhone that may or may not play into the cultural activity we call work. Just as every person on the planet is a unique human being, every person’s culture is unique. We may share a degree of culture with our familya family is group of people consisting of parents and children living together in a household; family members can also live away from parents or in a different household, our friends, and our associates, but we all “live” our culture in our own unique way. We are able to make choices, which affect not only our lives, but also those with whom we share culture.
What would each of these women think of the others’ culture? Two American women are working out to be thin, while the women of India are thin because of their daily work – not work-out. Both images of women’s daily activities show each culture being lived in a very unique way.
