Response 2

Response Paper 2

            During my twenty five years of existing in this world I have been exposed to different cultures. The cultures I am a part of are African culture, Muslim culture, and American culture. Growing up in an African household is way different than growing up in an American household. I arrived in this great country at the tender age of five. Even though I was in American my parents still raised me and my older sister like we were still in Africa. For instance we had to clean the whole house every Saturday morning afterwards my mom will teach my sister how to cook and sew. The cooking really didn’t get to her head but she picked up sewing really well. Meanwhile I would be getting life lessons from my dad in the living room. He told me things about life in general about God and being a good person and things of that nature. When my dad went to work or just went out for a little bit we have to greet him when he came home, and when we came into the house we have to greet everybody in the house to show a sign of respect. Whatever my dad said that was it, it was a dictatorship in my house. I really appreciate the way my parents raised my sister and I it made us who we are today. When I have kids they well be raised the same way but more lax. Another culture of mine is my religion Islam. My religion was installed in me at a young age, like most people, by my dad he thought me how to pray every time it was time to pray he would call me and I use to pray with him side by side. When Ramadan came I would fast only on the weekend because school was too tempting but eventually as I got stronger mentally I started fasting in school. Trying to grow up in an African household and bringing in American culture didn’t work out so well. I never experienced the joy of sleepovers in either at my house or my friend’s house. I couldn’t introduce my girlfriends to my parent till this day I still can’t. I never had the talk about the birds and the bees with my parents. I remember one time I came home extra late from a party my dad was up and when I open the door he went bed and didn’t do anything. You know that feeling you get when you know you’re going to get a beating but you don’t know when it’s coming, that’s the feeling I had that whole week. The time I experienced culture shock was when I accidentally discovered the car culture. I said accidentally because I was never inserted in cars. I had a green 1999 Mitsubishi Galant and this car really didn’t like me every other week it was something else it was like the car knew my pay cycle. One day I said to myself I am going to learn how to fix cars so I don’t have to pay someone hundreds of dollars to do it for me I can do it for myself. I enrolled in automotive classes at Mercer County while I was taking courses I had to get an internship at an automotive shop. I have never worked around cars or been around people that loved cars before all this was new to me I was just doing it so I didn’t have to spend money anymore. This one guy in the shop knew everything about cars he can tell you what’s wrong with a car just my listening to the engine run, so natural I hung around him to pick his brain and learn from him. I found out that there are two types of car people, mechanics, and tuners. Mechanics help people with there every day needs like breaks, tune ups, tires, and oil changes. Tuners spend a lot of money on their cars to make them go faster you probably seen then or heard them on the road they’re the ones with the flashy cars and loud exhaust they mostly drive Hondas. The role ethnocentrism played is that the tuners believe that their cars are the best things on the road and people with normal cars aren’t really respected. The faster you can make your car go the more respect you gain amongst your peers, but people with too much flash, and the people with already fast cars don’t really get any respect it looked at as cheating like Porsches and Lamborghinis. Now some regular car companies are coming out with care to attract tuners like Scion, Kia, and Nissan just to name a few. Tuners have what they call meets where they gather and talk cars once a week. I attended several of them I came across this guy and his car was extra flashy, not a good thing in the tuner world they call it all show and no go, I asked him how much did you spend to fix up your car and he said 23,000 I was blown away he could have just gotten  new car. This experience opened up my eyes I learned that by trying new things I will be exposed to different people in this world with different attitudes about life.