by Rodrigo Gutterres
We are all aware of this thing called internationalization, which was created due to an extremely fast technological advance. Therefore, the human species gained the power of information. In other words, we now have the possibility of knowing what is happening in any part of the world, or how is life in other countries. Well, at least we think we do.
One thing I have noticed while working on the project “Brazil in the eyes of the other” was that, in fact, we know very little of different cultures, of the people who are part of them and the countries where they exist. So, the first aspect I had to “fight” against was the way I looked at different cultures, but also the way I looked at mine, at ours, in order to change it so I could be open to new information I was going to receive. Therefore, I had to “fight” the stereotypes present in my thoughts, I had to try to delete or to ignore them, which is not an easy task to do. Furthermore, I had to ignore all the facts and aspects I knew about Brazil so they couldn’t ruin the work, filling it with my point of view about ourselves.
But, for one moment, let’s stop talking about my experiences to talk about the stereotypes. How are they really created? Well, this leads me back to the “power of information” that we have. All of us, nowadays, are connected with lots of devices, especially the ones in our pockets. We just have to click on a button to turn the cellphone on, put our password, select the Google icon and… TADAH! In a few seconds we are able to search about anything. Isn’t this great? Yeah, it is! But here is where we find the problem: it creates this “feeling” that we own all the information in the world and, due to this, it only takes one fact of any country for us to consider it the only truth. There it is our stereotype! Chimamanda, a Nigerian writer, once said that it’s not that stereotypes aren’t true, but that they’re not the only truth. She said we cannot base our knowledge of other cultures in one story, but in many.
In this sense, when we interviewed the foreign students of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul for our project, we had our single stories of them, and they had ours. In general, they thought we were more open, friendly, cheerful, but we just have to turn the news on to see “we” have lots of problems. They thought we were naughtier because we kiss everyone at parties, we kiss on the streets, in public, but… well, maybe that’s true for a lot of people, but not for everyone (like myself, I’m very shy).
So that’s it, I think culture is a very hard thing to describe because we know it shapes inside a country (especially the big ones, like Brazil), inside a state and even inside a city, a neighborhood or a group of friends. Everybody is different from one another. I would say culture is the stereotype we create about ourselves, so the people in one place can be united, and that is a good thing, but we have to be cautious not to fall into our own trap. Moreover, we have to be aware in order not to fall in the trap we create of other cultures and countries. We must take advantage of technology and use the sources we have in our hands to research more about it. Everyone says we’re in the “Era of Information”, but we’ll only get there when we use it the right way.
We are all aware of this thing called internationalization, which was created due to an extremely fast technological advance. Therefore, the human species gained the power of information. In other words, we now have the possibility of knowing what is happening in any part of the world, or how is life in other countries. Well, at least we think we do.
One thing I have noticed while working on the project “Brazil in the eyes of the other” was that, in fact, we know very little of different cultures, of the people who are part of them and the countries where they exist. So, the first aspect I had to “fight” against was the way I looked at different cultures, but also the way I looked at mine, at ours, in order to change it so I could be open to new information I was going to receive. Therefore, I had to “fight” the stereotypes present in my thoughts, I had to try to delete or to ignore them, which is not an easy task to do. Furthermore, I had to ignore all the facts and aspects I knew about Brazil so they couldn’t ruin the work, filling it with my point of view about ourselves.
But, for one moment, let’s stop talking about my experiences to talk about the stereotypes. How are they really created? Well, this leads me back to the “power of information” that we have. All of us, nowadays, are connected with lots of devices, especially the ones in our pockets. We just have to click on a button to turn the cellphone on, put our password, select the Google icon and… TADAH! In a few seconds we are able to search about anything. Isn’t this great? Yeah, it is! But here is where we find the problem: it creates this “feeling” that we own all the information in the world and, due to this, it only takes one fact of any country for us to consider it the only truth. There it is our stereotype! Chimamanda, a Nigerian writer, once said that it’s not that stereotypes aren’t true, but that they’re not the only truth. She said we cannot base our knowledge of other cultures in one story, but in many.
In this sense, when we interviewed the foreign students of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul for our project, we had our single stories of them, and they had ours. In general, they thought we were more open, friendly, cheerful, but we just have to turn the news on to see “we” have lots of problems. They thought we were naughtier because we kiss everyone at parties, we kiss on the streets, in public, but… well, maybe that’s true for a lot of people, but not for everyone (like myself, I’m very shy).
So that’s it, I think culture is a very hard thing to describe because we know it shapes inside a country (especially the big ones, like Brazil), inside a state and even inside a city, a neighborhood or a group of friends. Everybody is different from one another. I would say culture is the stereotype we create about ourselves, so the people in one place can be united, and that is a good thing, but we have to be cautious not to fall into our own trap. Moreover, we have to be aware in order not to fall in the trap we create of other cultures and countries. We must take advantage of technology and use the sources we have in our hands to research more about it. Everyone says we’re in the “Era of Information”, but we’ll only get there when we use it the right way.