All cultures have their own coming-of-age ceremony or some event or act that denotes maturity. In many Indian households, discussing or preparing for college is that event. College represents freedom and free will to do as you please, preparing for college symbolizes that you have maturity to being such a process. Bringing the topic of college up, my uncle was expressing to me that he felt I am ready to do so, but being an American Indian, I lacked the cultural background needed to understand his comments. Being eleven in America was different being an Indian eleven year old.
America values itself for letting its youth be “just kids”. American eleven year olds are taught to explore whatever excites them, permitting them to grow a sense of identity. American society is built around this premise. Businesses target this American ideology when selling their goods. For instance, Chuck E. Cheese’s promotes its family arcade-dinner mashup with the cheerful slogan “Where a kid can be a kid”. Chuck E. Cheese’s provides children with a child-proofed adult environment
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Companies target this mindset in Indian culture using a simple formula: buy our product and you will get smarter. Products, such as Complan, that are marketed using this formula sell well in India. In a Complan ad, an Indian child struggles in his classes, coming in dead last. No one socializes or talks to the child; he is the laughing stock of the school. His mother, hoping to have a successful son, is gifted Complan, and feeds it to her son. Miraculously, thanks to Complan, the boy aces on his classes and is loved and adored by everyone. The words “life is a race, you need to be first” can be heard in many traditional Indian households, prompting the Indian youth to cultivate in a very competitive arena, a very different set stage than their American