Generally, our culture appears invisible to us. Our thoughts and behaviors occur natural to us, because we don’t know otherwise. Occasionally, we do not appreciate the impact of our own culture have in our mind, until we see it in contrast to other cultures. Cultural norms seem to be natural and typical, whereas deviations seem to be seen as immoral, or unaccepted. Nevertheless, cultural experiences shape our values, beliefs, perspectives, behaviors, actions, and thoughts.
The purpose of this paper is to help me gain a new perspective on how my worldview, and my interactions with others, have been influenced by my culture. If I take culture into consideration, it will help me to understand why some behaviors that might seem strange to outsiders
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Perhaps, one of the features that I miss more about Spain, is its social life. People are always on the streets, talking, walking, playing, especially during summer, at almost any time of the day, and long into the night. During summer night’s plazas and parks are crowded with hundreds of people, including young children, college students, and elderly couples; some of them sitting in large groups outside bars, tasting wine, eating tapas, or watching a soccer in a bar.
Time perception is different in Spain than in the U.S. We have breakfast between 8 and 9 am, lunch between 2 and 3pm and dinner between 9 and 10pm. Spanish people are used to go out much more often than Americans, no matter their age. In Spain you can see 6 years old children at 12 am in the evening with their parents in a restaurant or a bar or the elderly enjoying each other’s company. Family meals, comida and cena, are sacred for my parents since those are the most important family gathering times. Even in big cities people go home to eat lunch and return to work afterwards. Commercial and office hours are designed around the lunch hours: most businesses are closed by 1:00 or 2:00P.M.and do not reopen for afternoon business until 4:00 or 5:00P.M.at the earliest. Banks and many offices have no afternoon