Writing Stories of Culture
When my family took an assignment in South Dakota in 1991, we anticipated an adventure. We left Chicagoland in the rear-view mirror and headed for the glorious West. With echoes of the movie, Dances With Wolves, narrating our own experience, we expected to befriend members of the Sioux nation. Narrated in simple prose, I entertain how cross-cultural training takes many forms….
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The moment you receive news that alters the course or direction of your life’s journey, everything is different. What felt secure or at least felt normal is replaced with uncertainty. The moment my husband said, “We are going back to the states and we’re not coming back to Mongolia,” I crumpled to the floor in the rented vacation condo and…
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Coming home? Fondly called the RE-ENTRY PROCESS, reverse culture shock is a formidable minefield. The unsuspecting could definitely be caught off guard. When our family returned from our five years abroad, there was a simple exit-interview with one of the personnel directors at mission headquarters and a few days at a camp called “Re-Entry,” but it did little to help…
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A school teacher has an ethical approach to her teaching. We could call it her PHILOSOPHY of teaching. Written or not, she acts out her philosophy over and over again, the EVIDENCE found in the MOMENTS that make up a school day. As a teacher myself, I respect the individual and his or her right to her own choices. I…
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Were the good old days better? Were ancient cultures pure of malicious motives? Were those cultures never rude or cruel or greedy? One phenomenon in the study of culture is the sense that “culture or society is DETERIORIATING.” You’ve heard this type of comment from older folks, haven’t you? What was once normal and good, is left along the way…
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The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume One, lies open before me. These 467 pages represent just a portion of the extensive memoir of Samuel Clemens who wrote under the pen-name of Mark Twain. I close the volume to study the cover. Twain is presented in his later years in this photograph of black and white. The photographer captured Twain with…
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