German Culture: The Hows And The Whys

Germany has a rich cultural heritage. Before the late 19th century, Germany was a collection of individual fiefdoms and regions. This history is reflected in the country's cultural diversity.

Why Should I Learn About German Culture?

The reasons for learning about German culture and German life are the same as for learning the culture of any language group. Learning German language and culture is useful to:

* broaden personal knowledge
* make yourself more marketable at work by speaking a foreign language
* increase career prospects
* help you get around when on holiday.

What About Business?

Learning about German culture is also essential for those who travel to Germany on business. There are many courses designed to help business people learn cultural customs and language relating doing business in Germany. These courses cover areas such as:

* meetings
* negotiations and deals
* telephone conversations
* making presentations
* travel vocabulary
* money and banking
* the business environment

How Can I Learn About German Culture?

One of the best ways to learn about German culture is to travel in Germany. Travel is a good way of learning about the cultural traditions of cities as diverse as Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin and many others. These cities showcase aspects of German culture such as museums, beer, wine and food festivals, theatre and music, and so on.

Another useful way of learning about German culture is to study in Germany. Study in Germany allows students to appreciate German culture from the inside. Not only will people learn the German language from native speakers, but they will have the chance to share social and cultural events with native speakers of German. This is an excellent method of learning about German culture and language.

What Do Courses In German Culture Cover?

Courses in German culture will cover areas such as history, geography, music, dance, literature and the arts in general. Other aspects of German culture include food and drink. Studying German culture is a key aspect of learning German, as language and culture go hand in hand.

Other Options For Learning German Culture

Another way of learning about German culture is to take part in an exchange program. This has the benefit of immersing the learner in the German language in a home setting. This makes it easy to learn everyday language for daily communication and provides an inside view of German culture. Exchange programs can range from a few weeks to nearly a year. Some students taking German in other countries find this a useful addition to their language courses. Those students may choose to teach their native language in return for the chance to live in and travel through Germany.

Once you have learned about German language and culture, you'll be ready to travel not just in Germany but in countries such as Austria, Switzerland, and parts of the US and South America where German is still spoken.

English Teachers And Culture Shock

I was talking recently to a young woman who had just returned from a teaching post in Korea. She said her first months in her job were a nightmare because of the unfamiliarity of everything. It made me wonder how teachers can prepare themselves to cope with culture shock.

Anyone who leaves their familiar environment for a prolonged spell is prone to the stress of culture shock. Although we know on a rational level that we are going to meet unfamiliar routines and customs, emotionally it takes time to adjust and this period of adjustment leads to unexpected reactions. These could include mood swings, depression, frustration, loneliness, apathy, even panic or physical symptoms such as headaches, insomnia, colds, stomach upsets. Each of us reacts differently under stress. Firstly, language may be a source of profound difficulty. If you are not proficient in the language of the host country then the problems could accumulate to an intolerable level. Back home you are a sophisticated individual, well able to articulate your needs and ideas. Suddenly you find people looking at you with blank incomprehension, sometimes even wincing as you massacre their native tongue in your attempts to communicate. It's not surprising that you feel frustrated and isolated.

Other changes such as climate, food, and different timetables have a more invidious effect. You may not realize that these are the sources of your emotional, mental or physical pain. Small things start to have a disproportionate importance. People's different behavior patterns have a subtle influence too: are they more time conscious than you or less so? Do they use unfamiliar gestures and facial expressions? How formal are they in social and work situations? Do men and women play different roles from those you are used to?

Typically culture shock moves through different stages, from the initial excitement of the new challenge to a sense of being overwhelmed by all that is unfamiliar, followed by a period when you settle in and gradually take a more balanced view of your new surroundings. The second phase can be very alarming and you may have the sense that you have made a terrible mistake and wish to go home. You will be missing your family and friends, you will long for the foods you can't find in your host country, or your favorite TV program.

So what can you do to minimize the impact of culture shock? Well, you can make full use of all the technological aids that can keep you in touch with your loved ones; nowadays it is possible through email and even video links to make contact as often as you need to. Join societies, sports clubs, work groups that can bring you into contact with your compatriots so that you can swap experiences, borrow and lend books and magazines and talk about your comparisons of the new milieu with the home country. These are the means by which you will feel less isolated and cut off. It can be very reassuring to find a compatriot who understands your reactions.

Proper preparation before you leave for the new country is vital too. Get up to speed on the essential information about the place: its customs, food, religion, all the systems you will need to have contact with such as education, health-care, driving regulations. Do your very best to learn at least a little of the language and try out some of the typical food before you go.

And if things get bad, tell your Director of Studies. It is only reasonable that the school that has brought you away from your home country should provide you with some support in the early stages. Schools should have an induction period for new teachers and could do much to counter the sense of isolation the newcomer often feels. I'd be really interested to know what your school does in this respect.

Penang – Where Culture And History Lives On

What better complement to sun-drenched sandy beaches and swaying palm trees than locally made batik, you might ask. So it's only natural and inevitable that Penang island, being a world-famous tourist destination, has a thriving batik industry in manufacturing, exporting and retailing.

Shops and stalls carrying batik items are too numerous to mention but they can be found along the Batu Ferringhi tourist belt, Penang Road, Campbell Street and KOMTAR to name a few. Most souvenir and clothing shops will stock at least several batik items.One of the most popular batik retailers in George Town is Sam's Batik House, located on Penang Road. Founded in 1982 by Shamdas Bhaktani, the business has since been taken over by his two sons Monohar and Prem. Monohar's wife Rachel manages the store and is a source of information on batik items.

It goes without saying that batik has long been part of the Malaysian national culture. Its versatile nature and esthetically pleasing designs make it the ideal material for a variety of things, men's shirts, sarongs, women's kaftans, aprons, slippers, picture frames, gift boxes, paintings, bed spreads and even wall and furniture coverings. As a fashion item, batik will not look out-of-place in any casual, formal or high fashion wear. In fact, most official functions in Malaysia allow the wearing of batik in place of the more somber coat and tie. The cabin-crew staff of Malaysia's national carrier have always worn batik as their uniforms, even from the days when it was known as MSA (Malaysia-Singapore Airlines). Although batik has never gone out of fashion in Malaysia, it has seen a recent upswing in popularity, due largely to the efforts of the country's First Lady, Datin Seri Endon Mahmood.

Her passion for all things batik took shape in a campaign called "Batik, Crafted for the World" which aims to spotlight Malaysian produced batik products via promotions and activities.

Batik has come to be used as a generic term which refers to the process of dyeing fabric by making use of a resist technique; covering areas of cloth with a dye-resistant substance to prevent them absorbing colors. The technique is thought to be over a thousand years old and historical evidence demonstrates that cloth decorated with this resist technique was in use in the early centuries AD in Africa, the Middle East and in several places in Asia.

Although most batik fabric is now decorated and tailored by machine, there still remains a considerable market for high-quality, hand-made batik.

Seven Reasons Organizational Culture Matters

We spend 40 . . . or 45 . . . or 50 . . . or more hours at work each week. Many of us spend more time with those we work with than we do our families. For us to be content and fulfilled people, that time must be valuable for more than a dollar. . .

We want to be engaged in our work. We yearn for work that is enjoyable, meaningful and engaging. When we are engaged we are safer on the job, more productive and more willing and able to delight Customers.

It is for these basic reasons that organizational culture matters. It is the right thing for an organization to do - to think about the work environment, working relationships and “how we do things here.”

Focusing on building and sustaining an organizational culture is one way of showing that people are the organization’s most valuable asset.

There are of course many other bottom line business reasons to focus on and build organizational culture. Here are seven of those reasons.

A strong culture is a talent-attractor. Your organizational culture is part of the package that prospective employees look at when assessing your organization. Gone are the days of selecting the person you want from a large eager pool. The talent market is tighter and those looking for a new organization are more selective than ever. The best people want more than a salary and good benefits. They want an environment they can enjoy and succeed in.

A strong culture is talent-retainer. How likely are people to stay if they have other options and don’t love where they are? Your organizational culture is a key component of a person’s desire to stay.

A strong culture engages people. People want to be engaged in their work. According to a Gallup survey at least 22 million American workers are extremely negative or “actively disengaged” – this loss of productivity is estimated to be worth between $250-$300 Billion annually. Your culture can engage people. Engagement creates greater productivity, which can impact profitability. Need I say more?

A strong culture creates energy and momentum. Build a culture that is vibrant and allows people to be valued and express themselves and you will create a very real energy. That positive energy will permeate the organization and create a new momentum for success. Energy is contagious and will build on itself, reinforcing the culture and the attractiveness of the organization.

A strong culture changes the view of “work.” Most people have a negative connotation of the word work. Work equals drudgery, 9-5, “the salt mine.” When you create a culture that is attractive, people’s view of “going to work” will change. Would you rather see work as drudgery or a joy? Which do you think your employees would prefer? Which will lead to the best results?

A strong culture creates greater synergy. A strong culture brings people together. When people have the opportunity to (and are expected to) communicate and get to know each other better, they will find new connections. These connections will lead to new ideas and greater productivity - in other words, you will be creating synergy. Literally, 1 + 1 + right culture = more than 10. How is that for leverage?

A strong culture makes everyone more successful. Any one of the other six reasons should be reason enough to focus on organizational culture. But the bottom line is that an investment of time, talent and focus on organizational culture will give you all of the above benefits. Not only is creating a better culture a good thing to do for the human capital in the business, it makes good business sense too.

Hopefully this article has helped you see that time spent enhancing your organizational culture will be time wisely invested. Regardless of your current culture, it is never too late to enhance it and to begin creating the benefits described above.

Cultural change

Cultures are internally affected by both forces encouraging change and forces resisting change. These forces are related to both social structures and natural events, and are involved in the perpetuation of cultural ideas and practices within current structures, which themselves are subject to change.

Social conflict and the development of technologies can produce changes within a society by altering social dynamics and promoting new cultural models, and spurring or enabling generative action. These social shifts may accompany ideological shifts and other types of cultural change. For example, the U.S. feminist movement involved new practices that produced a shift in gender relations, altering both gender and economic structures. Environmental conditions may also enter as factors. Changes include following for the film local hero. For example, after tropical forests returned at the end of the last ice age, plants suitable for domestication were available, leading to the invention of agriculture, which in turn brought about many cultural innovations and shifts in social dynamics^[22].

Cultures are externally affected via contact between societies, which may also produce -- or inhibit -- social shifts and changes in cultural practices. War or competition over resources may impact technological development or social dynamics. Additionally, cultural ideas may transfer from one society to another, through diffusion or acculturation. In diffusion, the form of something (though not necessarily its meaning) moves from one culture to another. For example, hamburgers, mundane in the United States, seemed exotic when introduced into China. "Stimulus diffusion" (the sharing of ideas) refers to an element of one culture leading to an invention or propagation in another. "Direct Borrowing" on the other hand tends to refer to technological or tangible diffusion from one culture to another. Diffusion of innovations theory presents a research-based model of why and when individuals and cultures adopt new ideas, practices, and products.

Acculturation has different meanings, but in this context refers to replacement of the traits of one culture with those of another, such has happened to certain Native American tribes and to many indigenous peoples across the globe during the process of colonization. Related processes on an individual level include assimilation (adoption of a different culture by an individual) and transculturation.

Cultural studies

Cultural studies developed in the late 20th century, in part through the re-introduction of Marxist thought into sociology, and in part through the articulation of sociology and other academic disciplines such as literary criticism. This movement aimed to focus on the analysis of subcultures in capitalist societies. Following the non-anthropological tradition, cultural studies generally focus on the study of consumption goods (such as fashion, art, and literature). Because the 18th- and 19th-century distinction between "high" and "low" culture seems inappropriate to apply to the mass-produced and mass-marketed consumption goods which cultural studies analyses, these scholars refer instead to "popular culture".

Eastern religion and philosophy

Philosophy and religion are often closely interwoven in Eastern thought. Most of the Asian religious and philosophical traditions originated in India and China and spread across Asia through cultural diffusion and the migration of peoples. Hinduism is the wellspring of Buddhism, the Mahāyāna branch of which spread north and eastwards from India into Tibet, China, Mongolia, Japan, and Korea and south from China into Vietnam. Theravāda Buddhism spread throughout Southeast Asia, including Sri Lanka, parts of southwest China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand.

Indian philosophy includes Hindu philosophy. Both contain elements of nonmaterial pursuits, whereas another school of thought from India, Cārvāka, preached the enjoyment of material world. Confucianism and Taoism, both of which originated in China have had pervasive influence on both religious and philosophical traditions, as well as statecraft and the arts throughout Asia. Sikhism, founded in India during the 16th and 17th centuries, is a monotheistic religion with a belief in one, universal, non-anthropomorphic God.

During the 20th century, in the two most populous countries of Asia, two dramatically different political philosophies took shape. Gandhi gave a new meaning to Ahimsa, a core belief of both Hinduism and Jainism, and redefined the concepts of nonviolence and nonresistance far beyond the confines of India. During the same period, Mao Zedong’s communist philosophy became a powerful secular belief system in China. Increasingly Christianity is gaining a foothold in Chinese culture, developing heretofore unforeseen changes in both Christianity and Chinese culture.