Linguistic Enlightenments

I am currently taking Chinese 101, and it has been quite an experience for me. My family is Cantonese, so I have been exposed to Cantonese my whole life, even though I cannot speak it very well. I have also been around people who speak Mandarin, which is the dialect that is taught in schools. Although the two dialects are very different, they have some similarities, especially in the way Chinese culture and values plays out in language. Much of my extended family now speaks English a lot of the time, but for some of the members of my family who grew up with Chinese as their first language, some of the phrases and references they say are either direct translations of how they would say it in Chinese, or somehow related to the Chinese way of speaking, either grammatically or otherwise. As I take my Chinese class and learn about some of the idiosyncrasies of Chinese, I am able to have a better grasp of some of these references. For example, I learned last class how to say, “not bad” in Chinese, and my teacher explained that in Chinese culture it actually means “good,” but the Chinese just prefer not to say “good” in many contexts. I connected that with my family, where some of the members of the older generation prefer to say “not bad” when they really mean that something is “good.” They had translated the phrase directly from Chinese to English and continued to use it because of the way it had been used in their culture. I learned something else regarding the way my dad talks. My dad enjoys using various words and names and twisting them to make them something to make fun of in the strangest ways. A month or so ago, when we were learning how to say numbers, I realized that one of the things in his cache of words he makes fun of is the number “6” in Mandarin. He says it slightly different and puts it in a different context so that he gives it an entirely new meaning, and yet it is pronounced in such a way that it could still be construed as the word “6.” By taking Chinese in school, I have become better able to understand some of the language that my family uses and how that is a direct result of the cultural ways their first language was used. I also comprehend some of my father’s and other relatives’ more bizarre jokes.

Kinship Charts

Kinship and My Family

When the variety of ways to identify kin in class readings and discussions was first introduced, I was interested, but confused as to how other cultures would classify their kin, since I have only been exposed to the Eskimo way of describing familial relations, or so I thought. As I contemplated this further, I realized that I have also had contact with the Iroquois way of naming family members. Awhile ago, when my mother’s cousin (a very Euro-American way of describing him) came to visit my mother and her sisters, they all referred to him as brother, half-jokingly. He is their father’s brother’s son, and thus a parallel cousin. This makes him their brother, according to the culture they grew up in. However, when they called him “brother” in English, it sounded far stranger than when they called him that in Chinese, because of culture’s interconnectedness to language, which causes certain things to sound acceptable in some languages and yet out of the ordinary in other languages. It was surprising to me to discover my relationship with the Iroquois system, which ended up helping me better understand the different systems used to name kin.

Body Conformations

I believe that at some point or another every person, especially adolescents, wish to change their bodies in some way to conform to a standard that that culture has help up as ideal. While I have at times suffered from this predicament as well, I would say that the time when I felt the most pressure to conform my body to a certain standard was when I was a part of the color guard at my high school. In color guard, our uniforms were not the most flattering, unless a person had the “ideal body,” leading each of the girls on the team to be self-conscious of the fit of their uniform, even though the uniforms were custom-made to fit each of our individual body types. Besides merely fitting into our uniforms, our instructors expected those on the team to be able to contort our bodies in particular ways and do certain motions in order to properly execute our choreographed routine. I wasn’t particularly good at color guard, nor was I very flexible, so I struggled to be able to perform as I was expected to. The insecurities I felt were not so much related to society as a whole, but more so to the band and color guard culture I had become a part of, and the expectations of those in that culture regarding the way I looked and performed. As part of the color guard, the band constantly told us that our job was to make them look good, which led to further expectations of the members of the color guard from the band. Ultimately, I ended up quitting color guard. I quit for a myriad of reasons, however, I think that if I had been better able to meet the expectations of that culture, I might have considered remaining a part of it longer. Nevertheless, I chose to remove myself from the “bando” society rather than push myself to achieve the cultural norm or standard that was expected of me.

Careers in Anthropology

The movie on careers in anthropology was interesting because it showed the variety of jobs that a person with a degree in anthropology could have. I never realized that a degree in anthropology could be used for such a wide range of careers. The section on using anthropology in solving crimes was extremely intriguing, because I never considered the way that anthropology might be used in the criminal justice realm. It was also fascinating to learn how anthropology relates to nature conservatories, because the way humans use nature is a major part of culture, and it can be used to communicate the worldviews of a culture, in particular if that culture views nature in high or low esteem. I was surprised to see how anthropology relates to the business world, but it makes sense that business people would be interested in ensuring that their product fulfills the needs of their consumers, and that their product does not conflict with cultural norms. Businesses need to know that what they are doing works well with the cultural expectations of the society they are catering to. Viewing this movie on careers in anthropology was encouraging because I was able to see the possibilities that are available to anthropology majors, and that anthropology majors really can get a job both directly related to their field and a job that they can truly feel passionate about.

Technology Usage and Presence

Technology is a major part of my everyday life, more so than it was even one year ago. I use my computer to write school papers, check my grades and assignments, learn about news events, and even catch up on TV episodes I missed. Most importantly, I use technology for facebook. A year ago, I did not have a facebook account, even though most of my friends already had one. I have always been the one to be more cautious about conforming to trends, so I tend to be constantly behind when it comes to trends. However, as friends started moving away to college, and people I knew but didn’t see often joined facebook, I found more of a reason to join facebook myself to keep up with their lives. This agrees with the argument that Boyd made that facebook tends to be more for students either in college or headed for college, whereas myspace is more for individuals who are not identifying themselves with those headed for college. When I finally created a facebook account, I definitely noticed the difference in the way facebook changed the way I interacted with other people. Suddenly, I was able to write one little line and have everyone I’ve ever known in any setting know what I was doing. Such contact with the world shocked me. I was not used to having my world and thoughts be so widely publicized. Similarly, I could also see what everyone I had ever been connected to was doing or feeling, even if I rarely talked to them. Despite this ability to communicate with everyone I know, I still really only talk to the same people that I would talk to without facebook. Maintaining relationships via technologies such as facebook and skype require a different type of effort. There is an increased number of ways to maintain contact with people, yet with more ways to communicate with people, I find myself communicating with them less, and when I do, it’s often with a less personal touch than I would if my only means of communicating with someone was through physically meeting or letter-writing. In my daily life, I use a variety of types of technology, but I have found that the Internet, and facebook in particular, is to blame for changing the way I relate to and interact with people.