Your professor enjoying a crunchy lunchtime appetizer in Cambodia
The world looks different depending on where you look at it from.
What each of us grows up with is what we consider ‘normal.’
The two sentences sum up the main reasons this World Regional Geography course exists. If we are to understand what goes on in the world, and if we are to have any hope at all of solving vexing international problems and avoiding conflicts, we need to try as best we can to see the world as others see it. In order to do this, we need to find out as much as we can about the places others live, the cultures, economic circumstances, and physical environments that have helped shape their lives and world-views.
This idea is simple to understand, but extremely difficult to put into practice. How can we possibly know about the challenges people on the other side of the world face in their daily lives? How can we even start to figure out what parts of our ‘normal’ aren’t normal to them? The answer is simple: we can’t. But we can try.
What is going on here? What does it tell us?
Step One: Take a bite of the cake
A good place to start trying is to assemble in our own minds an idea of the geographic ‘layer cake‘ of the places in which the people we want to under live. For students in Geog 101, the textbook and an atlas are good places to start. By reading about some of the physical geography (climate and landforms) of the northern European lowland, for example, we can figure out that this is a place where agriculture is possible, and transportation and movement of people is relatively easy. Natural vegetation , another in conjunction with other layers of the cake, help us understand the lives of the (few) people who live in the Sahara or Amazon basin areas. The economic layer of the cake is covered in an good text’s description of Sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest of the world’s regions. Religion (again, in conjunction with other layers of the cake) help us understand Saudia Arabia (as well as making sense of the recent news story about the cancellation of Lady Gaga’s concert in Jakarta.) The geography of political boundaries (the political geography layer,) the geography of religion, and the geography of natural resources help us make sense of the 2011 division of Sudan into two new countries, South Sudan and (Norther) Sudan (and the current violent conflict between the two.)
Step Two: Imagine
Finding out things we don’t know is easy enough in an age of Google and online libraries. But how can we possibly begin to find out about things that we don’t know we don’t know?
There are a whole lot of differences between foreign places and our own home environments that we would never even think of, but that wouldn’t rate a mention in textbooks or even travel guides. These are often related to everyday life, and range from etiquette and food to dress and transportation; these are often things we would never even think to ask about or investigate.
Midnight; People's Park, Guangzhou, China.
The best way to learn about these is to travel. I have found that when I travel to a new destination just about every waking moment is a learning experience for me. I always learn most about things I didn’t know that I didn’t know about. It had never occurred to me, for example, that people might eat scorpions (China,) tarantulas (Cambodia,) or dogs (Vietnam.) I never thought about the kind of things we do in parks, or that in other places people might use parks and public spaces very differently (see my blog post on privacy and the use of public space.)
But how do you find out about things you don’t know you don’t know if you can’t get there? One way is to look at photographs, particularly photographs of ordinary, everyday scenes from the place you want to learn about. Think carefully about what you are seeing, note anything that seems different from what you are used to, and think about what might explain it (this is the reason I use so many photographs in my classes.) Another is to ask and talk to people who live there, or who have traveled there. I try to help in this regard by bringing my own experiences, observations, and photographs to class, and writing about them on the Regional GeogBlog.
A third way to learn about other places is to think about ordinary things you do, people you interact with, and landscapes (human and physical) you encounter in your everyday life. You can learn a whole lot by thinking about what you see (and don’t see) in a supermarket, what products you see advertised on television, and how you communicate with your friends and relatives.
I found myself thinking about these issues a couple of days ago, when I logged in to my bank account. The bank’s computer was suspicious of the fact that someone was attempting to access my account, so it prompted me to answer some security questions. As I did so, it suddenly dawned on me that in Cambodia, where I am now, these questions would be nonsensical for most people, either because they would have no answer to them or because the answers would be too obvious. I found some examples on the website goodsecurityquestions.com) :
- What city were you born in?
- What is your mother’s maiden name?
- What was the make of your first car?
- What is the name of the place your wedding reception was held?
- What is your mother’s middle name?
- What year did you graduate from High School?
- What are the last 5 digits of your credit card?
Some might make sense in Cambodia, but not in China. For example:
- What is your oldest sibling’s birthday month and year?
Think about these questions. What assumptions do they make? Why might these assumptions be invalid in a place like Cambodia or Congo? What does this tell us about countries like these?
Please post your answers and thoughts below. Can you think of any other examples of ordinary aspects of our daily lives that may be very different in other places?
Update, Sunday June 10, 2012: I had a new gastronomic experience last night when I ate my first fried cricket. It was really good: crunchy on the outside (but not quite as crunchy as tarantula,) and slightly fleshy inside (not squooshy like caterpillar.) Durian for dessert; I discovered that if you eat it very cold it is delicious; at anything approaching room temperature and the stench is overpowering.
These questions above suggest that we are all born into large families of a mother and father and siblings; we have the income to afford an eduction, an automobile, or have the luxury to electronically spend money (we don’t necessarily have) with credit cards. When I have read these types of security questions in the past, I have never thought anything of them. I could easily answer all of these questions. But, It would be interesting to see the answers to the security question, “What is your favorite food?” when given to individuals from the United States, China, Cambodia, and Vietnam…hamburger and french fries to tarantulas. It is our differences that help us learn.
Good answer, Isabelle. But there’s more. What about the question “What city were you born in?” What assumptions underlie this question? Where might they not apply?
On the favorite food (or favorite anything else.) That kind of question could work anywhere, although the answers would certainly differ (actually, it wouldn’t work for me because I don’t have a favorite food, color, football team!)
The native city question is sticky for so many reasons. It assumes that you were born in an actual city first of all, not in a rural environment. It assumes that you know where you were born or that you have a birth certificate to refer to. I know a handful of immigrants that can tell you a general region, but not a specific city. It also is tricky for someone like me, whose home city has a couple of spellings!
You’re spot on with the city question, Stefanie. In many countries most of the population is rural; this is the case in Cambodia, where I am now, as well as in many countries in Sub Saharan Africa. Many (and in some countries most) women give birth at home; clinics and hospitals are too far away and often too expensive.
You raise a very interesting question about spelling; the names we know many places by are not the same names used by the people who live there (the Greeks call their country Hellas, for example) and often (as in the case of Greek) other languages (like Greek) so not use the Roman alphabet that many European languages do.
One more thought occurs to me: the country that I was born in, West Germany, technically no longer exists. Though I’ve always called it just Germany, as many do, I can imagine that for some people, this would be an issue. Borders change all the time, for many reasons.
I agree with all the comments already posted. I believe that these questions are very irrelevant for individuals that do not live in (what one could call) ‘Third World Countries.’ Education, location, and family relations tend to be very different in comparison to westernized and industrialized countries, like the US or France. In terms of education, people might not have the necessary literary skills (in their native language) to answer these questions. Futhermore, dialects within the country can vary according to where you live. A question might ask “what is your favorite food,” but could translate into something completely different in another dialect. Also, a city might be called something different. Take for example Russia, a number of cities prior to Stalin’s reign had a number of names. I would assume this could still be a problem with undeveloped countries. Just imagine answering that particular question of where you were born. One answer might not be enough.
I also think, in regards to the native city question, that for smaller countries, most people are born in the same major city. There might only be one big city with a hospital (…and that only applies if you were even born in a hospital…) so most people would have the same answer, which would totally defeat the purpose of having a security question.
I also know that a friend of mine was born in India, and she doesn’t have a middle name. Neither does her mother, who was also born in India, or her two sisters, who were born here in the US. So the question of your mother’s middle name would be impossible for her to answer. And in the future, her children would also be unable to answer that question!
You have all raised some good and interesting points; so much of what is ‘normal’ for us is completely different from the ‘normal’ in other places.
Some of the biggest differences are economic. Most people in the world don’t own cars, and a large proportion don’t have drivers’ licenses. Most people in the world live in the same place they were born, and probably the same place there parents and grandparents lived; using place of birth as a ‘security question’ wouldn’t provide much security at all.
In many languages, family name is conventionally first, with the given name second. China’s president is Hu Jintao, his family name is Hu. In many cultures, people don’t have middle names; in some, people go by one name only.
The main point I am making here is that we can learn a whole lot by questioning the mundane. Identifying our own assumptions and thinking about things we think of as ‘normal’ can help us to see ourselves in a global context, and to get us thinking about how other places and people might be different.
Can you think of other examples of mundane things, practices, habits, or anything else that might be ‘normal’ to us, but would certainly not be normal to other people in other places?
The main point here is that we live with blinders on, we assume we know it all. I really like how you say “how can we possible find out about things we don’t know”- just the wording of that question really gets me thinking. It so easy to say I want to know more about that, but you can’t know more until you know something exists. I was babysitting a 4 year old the other day and while driving him home, I said “I am going to park over hear in the shade”. The 4 year old responded with “what is shade?” What is shade? How do you begin to explain shade. It funny to think that at one point I didn’t know what shade was, but through experiencing the coolness a tree provides from the hotness of the sun, I learned “shade”. Everything at one point was new to me and I take for granted these things such as sun, home, toilet, car, turning left, driving on the right side of the road, school/ levels of school, etc. I know that it wasn’t until middle school that I realized there was a world outside of Virginia/United States and England (because we learn about England at such a young age). However, that was just becoming aware of their existence. I am still blind to their particularities. As I have mature and become aware of my ethnocentrism, I have become enthralled with the differences in the my constructed vision of the world and the reality of the world. I think back to my answer to ” What is shade? ” I began my definition with pointing out the opposite of shade- the sun. In order to explain the world you need to be able to compare/contrast and answer why? Example : You can not know darkness, unless you know light. You can not know the right side of the road, unless you know the left. Therefore, you can not know the United States, unless you know the rest of the world.