A Changing Perspective

Reading the Family and Kinship article was interesting for me.  It brought back a memory I had of some pacific island people in my high school.  I remember thinking that it was really crazy that their whole family had moved to the same town in rural southern Utah because all of the islanders I knew always called each other "cousin."  I once asked about this and found out that they weren't really cousins and thought that was interesting that they all were cousins, apparently through simple mutual agreement.

Now that I have learned more about how family and kinship structures differ in other cultures it causes me to pause and think about those things that I take for granted.  I never would have assumed that something I took as basic as the perception of my family would differ in other cultures.  I wonder how accepted I will become within my host-family in Irapuato.

The article said that kinship units were sometimes established by geographical boundaries.  In some cases all those people within a certain area would share a name.  In America we seem to use geographical boundaries to differentiate between different school or college preferences, and especially different sports teams, but we don't have a name given to these fans collectively; my name isn't Benjamin Provo-ite Cougar-fan Jones.

I wonder what other established social systems that I take for granted, and in what other ways I may be like the fish who doesn't know that he is swimming in water.  The views of education (especially public education) in Mexico probably differ greatly from that in the U.S.  The views of work and benefits are probably very different as well.  What is the average occupation within the area of Irapuato?  They probably have a lot less "white-collar" office jobs than we do.

I wonder what I can do while I am there to truly see the differences and similarities between our cultures. Wouldn't it be great to receive reverse culture-shock upon my return?