Firsthand insights into other cultures present insights into the world as a whole.
Second Meeting. 10-18-2024.
Something we focused on during our second meeting was the division of groups within different countries. Before this meeting, it was a given to me that not everyone of the same nationality sees eye to eye or even likes each other. This idea became a much more conscious effort to understand that each nationality has different types of division that are more rampant, and different reasons why these divisions exist when speaking with my partners about Peru, Korea, and Puerto Rico.
- Geographical division – People in a country with different regions and terrains develop and interact under different accents, sets of rules, and lifestyles. To anyone in one’s home country, it’s obvious which region one came from, and in cases instantly creates tension between two groups.
- Gender division – Strong gender roles affect daily interactions between different people. These roles not only include actions, but also expressions of gender that are not only looked down upon just for not conforming to norms. They are also looked down upon because people assume actions and alliances based on something as simple as the length of one’s hair.
- Class division – Wealth gaps, as well as education gaps, lead to higher amounts of criminals and victims, creating a repeating cycle that breeds more class division.
It was very eye-opening to have this conversation and made me further appreciate the entry point of intercultural praxis regarding frames of reference. It’s not necessarily enough knowing what country a person is from. In some cases, it becomes necessary to zoom in further to understand things from which part of the country one is from to how long their hair is to have a more complete picture of someone’s cultural identity.
Third meeting. 11-01-24.
This was a very engaging, fun, and heartfelt meeting! We met up at Forbidden Llama downtown to eat Peruvian food so our Peruvian partner could share a little taste from home with us. Going in, I was very curious to see if the food would be approved by him, as he seemed very skeptical but excited going into the experience.
He chose Inca Kolas for all three of us to drink, a sweet carbonated soda from Peru made from the plant verbena. It reminded me a lot of a Puerto Rican soda named OK Kola Champagne, and I later found out that both Inca Kola and Kola Champagne are both categorized as champagne sodas. For food, he chose ceviche, papas a la huancaina, and aji de gallina. We ate in the Peruvian manner of eating, in which people don’t order individual plates but share the plates ordered by the table. He was pleasantly surprised at the food – ceviche specifically – as it was better than he thought it would be, while being disappointed at some traditional foods that the restaurant didn’t serve.
Over food, we talked about all sorts of things, from the mainly-Puerto Rican urban music playlist the restaurant had playing in the background, to the latest of his Peruvian film recommendations that the other person in our group and I watched together (Las Mejores Familias), to the differences in food traditions and stigmas around eating/not eating in Peru, Korea, and Puerto Rico. We also talked about some harder topics, such as prejudices he’s personally experienced working at Wesleyan University. He asked us not to share this with anyone, so I won’t elaborate, but I think it is important to mention that it was a very grounding conversation in which I realized even in a progressive, liberal institution like Wesleyan, prejudices and biases tragically almost inevitably present themselves.
I really enjoyed this latest meeting, as it reinforced the idea that eating and sharing over food is a common ground for many cultures – something close to universality.
