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How do you express rain? Japanese has about 400 words to describe rain. The number of words increased because Japan has a rainy season.
Therefore, to understand Japanese culture, you need to learn Japanese. The same can be said for other cultures. Culture is closely related to language, so if you want to understand culture, you need to learn languages.
I want to speak about my thoughts on diversity based on my experience.
Of course you probably know the different common sense, feelings, and the way ethnic groups think according to religions and countries. And sometimes, you realize those differences.
Therefore, I ask everyone, have you ever felt culture shock?
When I was in the early grades of elementary school, my family was running a private lodging. One summer, female students from China stayed in my house for about 5 days. My brother and I couldn’t communicate well with them, but they were very kind to us. One day, I went to their room, which is a Japanese style guest room. They were playing games on their smartphones while seated in the Tokonoma! I had a big shock and discomfort. Because my parents and grandparents had said to me, “The Tokonoma is a sacred space for God. Never sit in Tokonoma.” and that was common sense to me.
In this way, even if an action is normal for someone, it can be uncomfortable, rude or confused by cultural differences to another person. For example, Tokonoma's case. Now I think that if we had informed them in advance, "You must not sit there" or written a guidebook about manners, it would have helped.
After all, consideration for each other is very important in achieving ideal respect for diversity. But it is difficult in reality because there is a language barrier. Language is very important in shaping culture, so if we learn languages, things will move forward.
Wars and conflicts are still happening today. Why? I think it's because people don't understand each other. In my opinion, the reasons include religion, and different languages also contribute to this. As I said earlier, language is closely related to culture. The causes of many conflicts are different cultures, common sense, and feelings. Maybe we can understand each other by learning languages, and it might lead to the realization of a peaceful world. I have seen "September 11 attacks" video in Social Studies Class. I was so shocked and my heart was broken. A world where nobody hates or hurts someone is my heartfelt wish.
Do you know "Nineteen Eighty-Four"? "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is a science fiction novel by George Orwell. His idea of "thinking ability is vocabulary" is clearly expressed in the novel. The novel uses a language called "Newspeak". "Newspeak" is a language that has been stripped of metaphors, political terms, and other words. This makes it impossible for the people to understand past documents or politics, and they are unable to rebel against the government. And most of the people don't even have any questions about this. Isn't a world like this frightening?
Therefore I want to say, we need to learn languages. And in conclusion, learning other languages and cultures leads to respect diversity.
Thank you.
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