"Exchange Student" Chagnon Among the Yąnomamö

It must be scary to be a foreign exchange student in the United States.  I admit that I myself have close to no experience with foreign exchange studentship, but I can only imagine how completely terrified out of my pants I would be if ever put in such a situation.  I mean, think about it.  You've lived your whole life in someplace like Spain, Germany, Russia, or Australia...and all of a sudden you fly over alone to someplace as crazy as America.  As busy as America.  As complicated as America.  As alien as America...and you're expected to conform to society ASAP.  But what if you don't know what fork to use for your salad?  What if you don't know how to eat salad?  What if you don't even know what salad is?  By our standards, you may as well be culturally doomed.

I read an article today about an Anthropologist by the name of Napoleon A. Chagnon, a man who spent nineteen months in a situation not unlike that of a foreign exchange student.  However, his experience was probably a million times more scary and intense, as Yąnomamö culture is so different than that of the rest of the world.

As you can see from the photograph above, the Yąnomamö people look very different from us.  They wear barely any clothes, no shoes, and most have facial piercings that look like this:

Ouch.  How strange this must have seemed to Chagnon!  The culture in which he lived for nineteen months was one with what seems like no similarities to that of the United States.  And what's worse is that he had to adapt and try his hardest to fit in.  As you can very well predict, that was not easy.  Everywhere he went, he received stares from the Yąnomamö people.  They seldom talked to him, and when they did it was solely in the hope that he would share his food with them.  It goes without saying that Mr. Chagnon must have felt like a complete outsider among these people.

In class this week, we finished watching a documentary on the Lost Boys of Sudan.  One of the Lost Boys, Peter, was flown in to Houston from his home village in Africa and was "given" an opportunity to live in the United States and to find work, education, and eventually money.  Shortly after his arrival, Peter decided to move to Kansas City and enroll in High School, where he more or less acted as a foreign exchange student.  From what I saw in the video, Peter's experiences in High School are very similar to those of Mr. Chagnon.  Both Peter and Chagnon felt a strong surge of culture shock when they first arrived to their new homes, and were treated as the outcasts that they felt they were.

The main reason why i took particular interest in the concept of being the "new kid" in a new environment is because I have been exactly that.  Four times.  Moving from school to school can be hard, even if it's just from one part of the country to another.  Everywhere in the world has its own culture, whether it be a town, city or entire nation.  Being in an unfamiliar place always comes with a case of culture shock and creates symptoms like discomfort, homesickness, confusion, and external exclusion.  Peter, Mr. Chagnon, and myself all know what these feel like.  And even though they immediately are very negative feelings, they always end up turning into a very enriching and amazing life experience.

Looking At Things Ethnocentrically - A Reflection on Dr. Richard Nisbett's 2000 Study

This week, I read the article How Culture Molds Habits of Thought.  Basically, this entire article was about social construction of reality and how prevolent it is around the world today.  However, it also focused on the theory of cultural construction of perception and thought patterns.  Or, in other words, how culture helps shape the way we think.  Mind blowing, isn't it?  From such a young age, we were taught that each and every one of our brains is special.  Completely unique and undeniably brilliant.  We are who we are and no one will ever be able to change that.  No one except society, that is.

The article discussed a study conducted by a social psychologist at the University of Michigan.  Dr. Richard Nisbett believes that "people who grow up in different cultures do not just think about different things: they think differently."  He decided to conduct an experiment and test his hypothesis.

Through his trials of showing a series of images to people of different cultures, seeing how they described them.  Let's use the Japanese vs. American trial as an example, shall we?  When shown an image of a large fish swimming in a not-too-simple, yet not-too-complex setting, the Japanese person described the background first, not really concentrating on what would seem to be the focal point of the image (the fish).  The American, on the other hand, described the fish's size, appearance, shape and location first, probably focusing on what they thought to be the center of attention.

I found this to be insanely intriguing, as we did something much like that in class this week.  We did an activity where we were paired off, and one partner sat facing the Smartboard and one sat with their back turned to it.  An image appeard on the board.  Then, my partner (who was facing the board) had to describe the image to me while I tried to draw it.  The way my partner described the image to me was much like how the American in Dr. Nisbett's experiment described the image of the fish.  She focused on the main focal points of the image and quite accurately described their shape and relative size and location, not really focusing on the image as a whole (as the Japanese would seemingly do).

The funny thing is, however, that we won the contest as to who had the most accurate depiction.  We were almost dead-on, which got me thinking: Did Emily use the best way to describe the image to me?  It would seem so, looking at the results we got compared to the rest of the class.  However, if our way truly was what Dr. Nisbett would call "The American Way", then wouldn't that mean our way is superior to the other methods used?

Whether it is or it isn't, one thing is certain: ethnocentrism is all around us.  Whether we look at things the American way or the Japanese way, we will always think our way is better.  I confess to it!  Each and every day, I do the things I do because I think it's the best.  So whenever somebody asks me what I see in this picture (the one up at the top of this post), I will loudly, proudly, and ethnocentrically say "There is a world.  It's blue and green and has lots of glare..." and I will continue to ignore that annoying Japanese person sitting next to me trying to convince me there's an eyebrow somewhere in the corner.  I don't see it, do you??

Eating Your Friends (in Starbucks) Is the Hardest

Over the Andes the plane flew into a thick cloud, and the pilots had to fly by instrument.  Amid the turbulence they hit an "air pocket," and the plane suddenly plunged 3,000 feet.  When the passengers abruptly found themselves below the cloud, one young man turned to another and said, "Is it normal to fly so close?"  He was referring to the mountainside just 10 feet off the right wing.

So yesterday I read this article.  It's called Eating Your Friends Is the Hardest.  Intriguing name, right?  Well it just so happens that this article I had to read for my Sociology class was actually (dare I say it) INTERESTING.  Now, I don't mean that in the cliché student-writing-an-essay-about-a-reading-assignment way: I seriously mean it.  The article was about the survivors of the F-227 plane crash in 1971, and their desperate and controversial resort to cannibalism.  And come on, what could be more interesting than cannibalism?  Especially when you're sitting in Starbucks.  And you just ate a ham-and-egg breakfast sandwich, which you are currently trying to prevent from coming back up.  And the guy sitting behind you is without a doubt taking peeks at your strange choice in reading and is staring you down with an extremely judging and disgusted look.  Oh, what a morning!

I think I'll begin my analysis of the article with a simple yet powerful question: What is cannibalism?  In the literal sense, it is quite obviously the consumption of human flesh.  In today's society, it has been dubbed as disturbing, disrespectful, and inhumane: Generally speaking, cannibalism is frowned upon in almost every culture in today's world.  In other words, the Symbolism (one of three main sociological perspectives we're learning about in class) of cannibalistic behaviors causes the vast majority of people to become naysayers when confronted with the idea.  However deserving of these labels and stigmata may cannibalism be, the survivors of the plane crash of '71 were somehow able to overcome them, and instead activated their logical minds for their desperate desire for survival.

Having to make a decision so terrifying as eating people for survival is just about the epitome of hard decisions.  Of course, some were unable to overcome the initial sense of moral insecurity and gag reflux-inducing repulsion.  These individuals, of course, were the first ones to pass away and become food for those who could more easily stomach the people-meat.  This is a perfect example of a Conflict Perspective, which we have been discussing in class this week.  Those individuals who could eat the human meat of their deceased companions were able to live longer and eventually be rescued.  However, those others who were unable to stomach the meat stood no chance, and soon became a frozen dinner. 

In class, we just finished watching an episode of Freeks and Geeks, and this concept of "Survival of the Fittest", or "Conflict Over Scarce Resources" comes up a lot.  Coincidentally, it can easily be related to this week's reading about the plane crash.  For example, in Freeks and Geeks, the nerdy kids (the non-cannibalistic plane survivors) try to gain the scarce resource of power (food/survival), but are unable because they lack the strength (the ability - whether physical, mental, or spiritual to eat human flesh) to meet the same power level as the bullies (the cannibalistic survivors).  However, the bullies (those who ate the corpses) were the ones who eventually won the fight (survived and were rescued).

Despite the grotesque nature of this article, I cannot express enough just how much I loved reading it.  This whole story kind of revolves around the idea of the ultimate "would you rather" question: Either eating your friend and having your choice nag on your conscience forever, or choosing to die and neglecting your body the nutrition it needs to survive.  This reminds me of some of the compromises I make with myself every day.  Today, in particular, I was feeling sick and was given the suggestion by the nurse to go home and rest.  However, I had to choose between heeding her advice and missing a swim practice (I only get 3 excused before I'm off the team), or accepting my obligation to the team and attending what I knew was going to be a hard practice and probably was going to make me feel even worse than before. I chose to go to practice but, as in the story of the plane crash survivors, mine ended happily.  Because almost half the team was out sick and everyone was tired, my coach decided to be merciful and let us out of practice an hour and a half early!  So I guess for today you could call Coach Bart my "rescue-copter".  For him, I am very thankful.  Maybe almost as thankful as the plane crash survivors were when they were rescued from the Andes!

The Sociological Umbrella

At almost two weeks into the school year, and already I'm feeling the weight of sociology beginning to sink in.  Before school started, I thought I had a pretty good idea as to what sociology is.  Sociology is technically defined as "the study of society", right?  What I learned over my 8 days in class, however, was that sociology isn't just about "society", it's about OUR society.  It's about how it changes.  It's about how it compares to other societies.  However, most of all, it's about society's relationship with US.  After all, we are the ones who shape society.  But then again, society shapes us as well, doesn't it?

Keeping into account the cyclical relationship between society and humankind, the only conclusion I can personally come up with is this:  Our society is a living, breathing thing. Growing and changing constantly, it has quickly become one of the most top-visited topics on my mind.

So I read this article by James M. Henslin, entitled What Is Sociology?:  Comparing Sociology and the Other Social Sciences.  I have to admit, it wasn't as fun as I had imagined a sociological article to be.  However, it did help put things into perspective.  One thing in particular really caught me by surprise:  I hadn't really thought about sociology having relatives.  Anthropology, economics, government, linguistics, the list goes on and on.  However, these relatives aren't brothers and sisters, but more like sons and daughters.  Sociology is kind of like an umbrella which covers all of the social sciences.  After all, society encompasses everything. 

This umbrella analogy really helped me understand sociology's vast role in the universe.  As it is ever-lingering over our world and all its contents, it is also being held up by mankind, as well as keeping him dry.  Hence the cyclical relationship between mankind and society.

When I think of an umbrella, I think of water.  I find this somewhat funny as my entire life revolves around water right now.  I spend at least 4 hours every day swimming in it, I drink about a gallon of it a day because of my constant swimming, and of course water also represents the millions of tears I've shed into my goggles because I can't believe I'm actually doing Varsity Swimming for yet another season.  Why do I do this to myself?  I don't know.  I guess because I want to be in-shape (sociology right there - the standard expectations for body image!), because I like the people on the team (social, without a doubt), and because it gives me peace of body, soul, and mind.  On that note, I will conclude this post with a goodbye.  That's all folks!