Comparing The Culture Of American People And South Africa

According Ballentine and Roberts (2015:81) culture consists “of ideas and “things” that are passed on from one generation to the next in a society-the knowledge, beliefs, values, rules or laws, language, customs, symbols, and material products (such as food, houses, and transportation) that help meet human needs. Culture provides guidelines for living” Ferrante (2011:60) defined culture as “way of life of a people, more specifically the human strategies created for adjusting to the environment and to those creatures including humans that are part of that environment”. In other words culture refers to the inclusion of both material and nonmaterial components that provide guidelines for the member’s behaviour. Learning and understanding our culture puts our social world in an understandable framework, providing a tool that we can use to

Ferrante (2011:60) maintains that a culture cannot exist without society, a group of people who constantly interact with one another, share and perpetuate and create culture. Scholars use the word culture to emphasize differences. The word culture brings a clear understanding that the culture of American people and South Africans are totally different. Thus it will be a culture shock for Americans to come live in South Africa. The way in which people use the world culture give a clear suggestion that they often think of culture as having certain boundaries as an explanation of differences and misunderstanding that people may have.
As mentioned above, values, rules, beliefs, and behaviours vary dramatically from one society to the next (Ballentine & Roberts, 2015:81). These differences can be both threatening and offensive because most people judge others based on their own perspective, experiences and values (Ballentine & Roberts,