How is American culture different from that of Mexican culture?
Hello everybody! I have already talked about one of the differences between U.S. and my country Mexico, but this time I’m going to say more about this topic, because I think it is very fun and interesting for us to learn about other cultures and here in U.S. there are too many we can learn about.
First of all, I had never imagined sitting in the classroom and taking some classes with Armenian, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese, Korean, and even other Latin-American people because in Mexico the majority, of course are Mexican people, and is very strange for me to live in a country in which there are so many people from other countries. We all know that every country has its own customs and they are very different from mine.
When I came here I didn’t know how to talk and how to communicate with people from other cultures because you never know if your actions sometimes can offend other person, for example when you make eye-contact to others maybe it is OK with you, but maybe it is not OK with the other person because in my culture like here, is very common to look at someone directly, that means you are being friendly, but in other cultures it may mean you are being aggressive.
Other different custom is that in Mexico you can say “hi!” to anyone else even though you don’t know him/her, or if one of your friends introduces to you other person, you can kiss him/her, obviously, in the cheek, which is very normal. I didn’t know that in other cultures it is not normal because people from other countries don’t do that, they say that it is not usual in their countries.
In Mexico we are very warm people and we are friendly but when you come here from any other country you have to be very careful because of the differences between cultures. Actually, Mexican culture is not too different than American culture but the only big difference is that here it is not just one culture, here are too many.
Another difference between U.S. and Mexico is that in Mexico we are more conservative people. In Mexico we love people who have values and principles. One example is that in Mexico it is not common to live with your boyfriend, because most of our parents would like that we leave home only when we get married. And also, in Mexico it is more common to get married over 25 years old or something like that, because it is supposed to be when you already got your bachelor’s degree and you can already afford yourself and in the future your family. This customs in Mexico are common, but not all Mexican think like that.
At first, it was a little difficult for me. I suppose for all of us, but now I enjoy very much sitting in my class and listening to other languages and also to talk about another customs. In my opinion this is a great opportunity because I don’t have to travel around the world to know a little bit about other countries.