Why is it that sometimes we just cannot believe that others have opinions that differ so much from our own? We take something for granted and are completely surprised when others don’t.
Well, the thing is, we have to understand our own way of thinking in order to understand how other people think. We are the centre of our universe. Literally. What we think and how we grew up is the way we imagine everybody else would think, because it is the only way of thinking we know. What we need to be aware of, though, is that everybody is doing it. We can say this about a certain culture or nation, but it starts even in small groups like families. Just think about the way you celebrate Christmas. Every single family has their own tradition, their traditional food, their time of opening the presents, songs they sing etc. But then there are of course many families all over the world who do not celebrate Christmas at all because they are not Christian. Others celebrate Christmas without being Christian, turning it into an end of the year holiday to be with the family and to exchange gifts, even if the original idea of Christmas is gone.
So even within one village the traditions of celebrating a holiday can vary greatly.
A different example on a much larger scale is geography. We all had some form of geography at school, and usually we would start learning about our city and state and then our country. After that we’d move on to the continent we live on and then eventually study the world’s other continents and countries. It’s basically like looking for your house on Google maps and then zooming out until you have the whole world on your screen.
The thing is, we all start off with OUR country. And of course we do. Why would we learn about a different country first? What we need to know is what rivers run through our country, how the mountains in the north are called, which countries border on ours.
If I’d ask you now to draw a map of the world, you would, most certainly draw your country within your continent into the centre of your sheet of paper. Or, if you don’t put it into the centre, you would draw it where you think it belongs from studying the world map in school.
I might guess that you will know the shape of your country and your continent pretty well, and if you haven’t exactly studied it, you would be a bit less sure about the shapes of the other continents, let alone other countries.
But now think about how someone from the United States or Brazil might draw their map differently from an European country. Have you seen the difference in the two maps? In Europe, the world is displayed in a way that every country can be seen in its entirety. The Americas are on the left, Europe and Africa are central and Asia and Oceania are on the right side.
In America, the Americas are in the centre, and Europe and Asia are neatly split in the middle. Africa and the western part of Europe as well as a good part of Asia are to the right of America and the rest of Asia is on the left.
In Asia, Asia is in the centre. Completely shocking to most Americans, The US and Canada are split in the middle and while South America is to the left of Europe, Asia and Africa, the American West coast is on the right.
Australian maps can be especially tricky to Europeans or Americans. Down under is not always down, but sometimes up. In various Australia centred world maps, the world is flipped upside down, North points down and South up. Australia is also in the centre of the map.
So, I think we can all agree that there is no right or wrong map. Each country would feel weird to see their own country split in half, which it wouldn’t matter at all if a country on the other side of the world is separated on paper or to be squished into the upper right corner.
It just shows that we all see ourselves and our countries and cultures and moral values in the centre. To us it’s normal and it is only natural to be concerned with ourselves first. However, it is important to be aware that every country will do the same. Every culture sees itself as being the norm, while others are different, abnormal. So many misunderstandings and intercultural conflicts could be avoided if we’d remember that there are very different traditions in all countries all over the world and that what seems normal to us, might be completely strange, funny or even offensive. Have you ever tried shaking hands with a Japanese person and wondered why they wouldn’t really warm up to you afterwards or have you been glared at after refusing a free tea at a bazaar in Egypt?
