.............Well, how different is black and white? How different is summer and winter? How different are girls and boys? How different is up and down? How different is yes and no?
The answer is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.
First looking at my modern day culture we can see there are differences in technology, job opportunities and money making, climate, location, language, and of course views on relationships, and probably many more that I just can't think of or won't take the time to name. My modern culture is American, and this culture is full of people that have way more than enough money and everything done for them making their life so easy that they couldn't even TRY to imagine the labor and pain that the people of the Sawi tribe must have gone through every day just to survive in Papua New Guinea.
The Sawi Tribe had no electricity, no books, no sports equipment, no queen sized beds, no money and no stores to buy anything from, no hair products and blowdryers and straighteners, no order in pizza, no expensive wedding rings or dresses or cakes or honeymoons, and no truly trusting
relationships outside of their families. This is just a beginning little taste of the depravity of the things that we so easily take for granted in my modern day culture.The more I think about it, the more I realize how much stupid stuff there is in my life that I base my
schedule on. Some of the most important things in my life as a 16 year old teenage girl, are facebook, skype dates, relationships, the latest movies out in the theater, the latest gossip and news about celebrities, newest tv shows, latest music, latest ipod and phone and camera and laptop, how I do my hair and makeup and the clothes that I'm wearing. Now if I were to compare those
priorities to the priorities of a 16 year old teenage girl living in the Sawi tribe it would be: is my husband going to be safe as he travels to another tribe, will we have food to eat tonight, are my 2 children getting enough food, can I trust my friends who have invited my husband over to dinner, and is our tribe going to go to war and should I be ready to fight.
Compare those 2 typical priorities of 16 year old teenage girls living in those 2 places and you will see what I mean when I say my modern culture is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the Sawi culture.
Hey Becca:) Great post! When I answered this question I wrote that the sinful actions we commit in society (such as cheating, lying, murder, etc.) make our culture somewhat similar to the Sawi culture. But from reading your post, I tried to put myself in their shoes and realized that the Sawi and I have so much we cannot really understand about each other. As you said, I have completely different priorities that I can't even try to understand what it must be like to live as a Sawi. The different values in our lives definitely show how our modern society differs from the Sawi culture.
ReplyDeleteSo overall, great post, Becca! :)
Hey Becca!
ReplyDeleteI think every aspect that you mentioned in this post is very true. Our culture does differ from the Sawi culture when we look at things such as technology, relationships, location and culture. We tend to focus on things such as the homework, studying and technology today while the Sawi focus on betrayal, murder and deception constantly everyday. We and the Sawi live in the exactly same world, but amazingly the lifestyles are dramatically different. As Hyonwoo mentioned above, I also wrote about the similarities between the Sawi culture and our culture in aspects such as betraying, insulting and murdering. However, we and the Sawi are different from each other in that we commit these actions quite differently. Instead of murdering people everyday, we either lie or insult others and take those things into action everyday. So overall,I think that while there are differences between the Sawi and us that we cannot quite understand, there are also similarities that connect us to the Sawi culture. Nice post Becca! :)
Grace
Even though you might think that the Sawi culture is different from ours, there are many components that are similar with our culture. Don't you agree?
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