Cultural Orientation Quiz: Choose one of the following answers which best describes you.
B: 1: I think that being successful means doing your best in life and achieving many things. It would be nice to have wealth or some kind of recognition in my field. Successful people are really good at what they do, often times they are the best at what they do.
2.: Success means having a lot of harmony at your work with people. If I get along with people well, I work hard and do a good job, and am happy in my job, I will be successful. Successful people are people who work well with others.
C: 1: On the weekend, I prefer to get out of the house, meet friends, do something fun. I travel a lot, and am always looking for new and exciting experiences.
2: On the weekend, I prefer to rest and relax at home. I will spend some time with my family, maybe see a movie with friends, or get coffee near my house.
D: 1. I sometimes call my university professors by their first name, and some of them have asked me to do so.
2. I usually call my university professors by their title and maybe their family name.
E: 1. I don't often hang out with my friends from middle school. (junior high) We don't keep in touch.
2. I still meet my friends from middle school (junior high) from time to time. We sometimes meet as a group.
F: 1. I change friends fairly often and meet new people all the time.
2. I keep friends for a long time from my school, my club, my church, etc.
G: 1. I have had had many best friends in my life.
2. I have had just a couple or a few best friends in my life.
H: 1. If I am angry, I think it is best to face the person and tell them my feelings and why I am angry.
2. If I am angry with someone, I usually think it is best to just try and forget about it and move on.
I: 1. I usually make the most important decisions in my life with some or little help from other people.
2. I usually listen to my family and friends when I am making a big decision in my life.
J: 1. I think that youth is the most important thing in our society. New ideas and innovation are more important than tradition.
2. I think that old age is very important in our society. Our elders and seniors know a lot and we can learn a lot from them to help our future.
K: 1. My own creativity is very important. I like being different from others. Being different is what makes the world interesting. I can get along with others even if they are different.
2. Having group harmony is very important. I am happiest when I am in my club or with my school group. We have many things in common, like fashion, music tastes, same hobbies, etc.
Score: ___________________
1. The idea behind this quiz is to get students to think about the values that they carry and how these can be in large part influenced by the cultures in which we live. It is quite easy to assume that our assumptions about things like work and play, social relations, and our concepts of self identity would be universal; but it is quite to the contrary. think about important maxims of our societies. In America, we like to say, "different strokes for different folks" meaning in part that all people are unique and have many differences and that this essentially a good thing. In Korea, there is a saying that the nail that sticks up must be hammered back down. This is referring to someone who gets too far ahead of his contemporaries and colleagues and therefore must be humiliated or brought down a level, but it also hints to the Korean idea of collectivism- that we are stronger in things that make us the same, not the things that make us different. The easy trap to fall into is to think that one way of thinking is by definition is better than the other. I've met many foreigners in Korea who just can't let go of the notion that whatever is different in Korea is backwards or wrong. I get frustrated sometimes and think the same kinds of thoughts. It is too easy to do.
Of course, there are pros and cons to all the value orientations, no matter where they are, and I think that communication could be helped immensely if we enter a culture and truly investigate what good things come from thinking a certain way.
For example, Koreans value being similar and being part of the group. This is really a part of the "let's go together" (같이가자) spirit that pervades here. The pros of this are obvious:
support, a sense of belonging and community, less "who am I" identity anxiety that we seem to have a lot of in the west, fast-made, long lasting friendships.
The cons?: less room for creativity and innovation, being outcasted for being too different, slow to change
Forgive me for just glossing over that quickly, but I just want to illustrate the point that there are both pros and cons to most of the value assumptions we have and it would be foolish to think that "our" way is the best. There is alway rooms for improvement and change in every culture, and the idea that good intercultural communication training can help in just that is exciting.
2. Another idea that I want to point out to students is that you can answer quite differently depending on your own upbringing, your own situation, and your own psychological stirrings and that the answers within a culture should and will differ. There are no "right and wrong" answers, and you may answer "being" for one and "doing" for another, or you may have scored more in the "being" range but are actually from a "doing" culture or vice verse. This exercise isn't precise nor scientifically tested (I made it up!), so the answers might not reflect the dominant assumptions of our societies. But in the least it will get us thinking about our own value assumptions and where they come from.
3. After the students take these quizzes, I want them to get together in multi-cultural groups and discuss their answers. They can talk about where they fall and where they would honestly say that their own cultures fall. Then they should make a visual representation of this and share it with the class.
4. I also want to make group project groups and introduce ideas for a group project: movie, presentation, skit, music song, etc. The presentations will be shown and performed on the last day of class of the last week.
Homework: Finish reading the Kluckholn and Strodbeck, focusing on World Orientation and Time Orientation.
Journal Questions: What is culture? 150 words
Describe my home culture using the iceberg model and orientations. 300 words
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