Understanding Culture

WHAT ARE THE IMPORTANT OF UNDERSTANDING THE CULTURE FOR L2 STUDENTS

            Understanding culture for L2 students is very important to avoid cross culture understanding. The important of understanding culture for L2 students are:

·        Make me feel free to do something when we have scholarship to study abroad

When we got scholarship to study abroad, it is important for us to understand the culture of place that we visit. If we do not understand about it, it means that we have to be careful in doing something. For example if we want to make a greeting with the society, we still afraid to do it because we did not know about how the way people greeting each other that applied to that society. That is way we are not feeling free to do something in that society. On the other hand, if we have already known about the culture of the place that we visit, we can say that we can feel free to do something without cross their culture because we know about their habit, behavior, custom, value, norm, tradition and their beliefs.

·        Help me to adapt with the society

Understanding culture of the place that we visit can

help us to adapt with the society. If we are going to visit another country, the first thing that we should do is how to adapt with society. It is important for us because if we cannot adapt with the society, the people will stay away from me and regard me as a strange people. If we want to adapt well with society, the first thing that we should do understands their culture. By understand their culture, we can distinguish which one is acceptable and unacceptable based on the culture of place that we visit. For example, six month ago there is a foreign people come from Australia want to rent boarding house in my place. His name is Scott Andrew Harris. He got a scholarship to University of Muhammadiyah Malang for a semester. The first time he join with my friends in the boarding house, he feel shock. He always share with me when he got something weird regarded by their self. One case that I still remember is when he wants to go to Matos with their friend from Indonesia; he has a plan to go there at 10.00 AM. An hour before going to Matos, he sends a message to their friend to wait him in front of Matos at 10.00 AM. Then his friend replies “ok, I’m waiting for you in front of Matos’’. Scott became angry when he got that message. He regard that their friend is at Matos just now. But their friends’ means is he wants to wait Scott at 10.00 AM at Matos. Based on the example above we know that understanding the culture of place that we visit can help us to adapt well to the society. It can guide us about how the way to adapt to the society.

·        Defend our self from something negative

When we are in the foreign country, we did not know that may be there are some people who want to make something negative to us. When I was first semester at my university, I have a friend from Madagascar. Her name is Seheno. She got a scholarship at university of Muhammadiyah Malang. Her stay at Rusunawa . It is about 100m from my boarding house. In all day she always goes to Rusunawa almost mid night. Her friends at Rusunawa regard Seheno as a negative side because she always goes to Rusunawa almost mid night. On the other hand, Seheno culture is different with this case. In seheno culture, it is common whether boy or girl go home almost mid night. So by understanding the culture of place that we visit, it can defend our self from something negative based on the example above.

           Considering all the information above, we can conclude that understanding culture of place that we visit is important for us in order to avoid crossing their culture. There are several advantages that we can get such as make us free to do something, help us to adapt with the society, and defend us from something negative.