#2ndreflection

Culture.

I believe culture is the accumulation of small things that are shared among a group that form together to make an umbrella like identity for all the participating groups. 

In our case the Umbrella of a Pakistani Culture is our Islam driven principles, our national language Urdu and our lIve for our Flavorful (often referred to as spicy by our American friends) food.

In my observation the American Cultural identity would be of their love for Freedom of Speech, their Democracy and Pickup Trucks. A lot of pickup trucks. 

A lot of the major differences might already have been discussed by my co-participants so I’ll focus on the little things I noticed. So in order to make this a cultural comparison I’ll write about all the differences whether they be geographical, social, political or just infrastructural that I have observed.

I noticed the pickup trucks because I like cars. Besides the obvious thing of having the steering on the wrong side, people here drive a lot more SUVs and Pickup trucks than in Pakistan. Also the Americans like to drink lemonade, wherever I went to get a drink there’s always a lemonade option available. I have never seen so many flavors of lemonade itself ever since I have been here. In Pakistan its either Pepsi or Water. One more interesting comparison I haven’t had a sip of Pepsi here, its not much on displays either relative to Coca Cola. There’s an obsession of having two doors to enter any building. Two is must. The walls are all cardboard made and very thin, so everything I could hear my neighbors and I’m sure they could hear us as well. While we are used to having concrete walls back home. There’s a norm of early to bed and early to rise which means early dinner. I find it very difficult to adjust to the dining timings. I have never had dinner with the sun out ever before in my life and that too food that tasted so bland.  So going back to Pakistan I’ll first have to adjust to eating dinner when its dark outside and then also prepare for a spice hurricane. The Americans discussed money a lot. The somehow manage to cram in prices or dollars into at least half of the conversations I’ve had with them, which is very unusual in Pakistan and probably a cause why mostly I and most of my friends are penniless by the end of the month. We don’t consider the money so much. Also formal, that’s very rare. I repeat, very rare. It’s mostly shorts everywhere! 

I could go on about the differences for hours and hours but the major shock that I got in terms of Cultural differences was the US as it is painted in the media is very different. It is not the moral leader it is portrated to be. It is still fighting some of its battles over Racism, Freedom of Speech and Gender Discrimination. At the same time being a subcontinental Muslim guy I expected some raised eyebrows if not direct remarks but that didn’t happen. There have been surprises for sure and I expect to keep learning more. This is growing to be an eventful journey. 

Farheen

Some anonymous has said very wisely that “Diversity is strength.” Experiencing the cultural diversity within Pakistan, I have always wanted to live in diversity and USA, which is specifically known for the cultural diversity and pluralism is my dreamland.

In this short note, I want to highlight my observation of the comparative study of USA and Pakistan. I have grown up in a liberal part of Pakistan i.e. Gilgit so certain things were normal to me like shaking hand with the opposite gender etc. However, I have observed multiple differences and a few commonalities so far.

The difference that I observed on the my very first day was of the cuisine that I didn’t find any spicy food at the dining hall. As the days went on, I started to realize many differences like, difference in norms when greeting, difference of thinking and of course there was the language barrier.

As said by 32th president of United States of America :

“We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can built our youth for future “

This quote by Franklin Delano is the perfect example of the reason why we are here on this Academic exchange program in United States . As a student of Computer Science I always enjoy taking the classes of policy making by Tom Fricke and Samantha Camera because it helps me to think about solving the national problems in a better and a different way . Through the  knowledge about the policy making  and by using the skills I am  getting by studying   computer science  I can now think about the implementation of the policies at national level in a better way by making software and programs .

In the 2nd week of my exchange program I learnt a lot about policy  and constitution making and its implementation on state ,federal level by taking the classes of Tom Fricker  . The way Tom taught us about the policy making  made me more interested in learning more about it . We also went to Boston on a study tour . The most important part of the Boston tour was the session with the youngest senator in the State House . In that session he told us about how the Government works and current policies they made about the education , gender and environment. we also visited aquarium and Harvard University in Boston . In the Harvard University I came to know about the history of its Library which was very interesting . Apart from the Study tour in Boston the leadership sessions by Raz Sibbi were very informative and interesting .  It was very interactive and helpful session for me as  I learnt a lot about the strategies a leader adopt for leading his team because I am a leader of 15 senior students for the project of empowerment of transgenders in Pakistan as I am very passionate about it .  We also had a class on LGBTQ  rights in which we had panel discussion on the lives  of LGBTQ and the challenges they are facing  due to their gender discrimination .  I got a first hand chance to meet the LGBTQ personally and talked about their life in depth  which  helped me a lot because now I can fight for their rights in  even  in a more  better way and become their voice as they are unheard in Pakistan  .  The journey of learning  doesn’t ends here ,there is still so much to learn in the coming days .

This week we had two very engaging sessions on leadership patterns and decision making with Raz Sibii and Matt Mc Williams. Both speakers held interactive sessions wherein we were taught how a leader is not only one who leads but also one who listens and has the ability to make everyone grow.  While Raz spoke five different types of leadership styles, Matt primarily spoke about leadership within the context of US Presidential elections. A moment of particular interest for me was when he mentioned the YEEHAAW AND OHHMM moments. He talked how politics and leadership most importantly consists of moments of triumph when you get to kick your heels and howl YEEHAWW however this very YEEHAWW has led to the downfall of many politicians who got overconfident with their brief moment triumph and this got them in trouble. We discussed the example of former Texas governor Rick Perry who was up and ahead in the polls for the 2008 presidential campaign before he had an "oops" moment in a presidential debate. We learned how a leader should sometimes of instead of saying YEEHAWW say OHMM. OHMM is the expression that exemplifies preservation, a settling down of sorts, a calmness.

Thus a leader should know when to treat a moment or an opportunity as an OHHM and when to treat it as a YEEHAAW.