Some Answers to Your Questions

Hi Saklan Valley Middle School,

 

The keyboard that i'm typing on in this cyber "cafe" is dusty and old, so please forgiv any typos of mine.  You have so many great questions in your comments, and i dont have time to get to all of them.  but i do want to respond to a few right away.

 

some of you asked what i mean by "westerners".  Many people refer to americans and europeans as westerners, and to indians and other people from asia as "easterners."  They are kind of weird terms, because they leave out huge areas of the world (like south america and africa).  So, when I refer to the "western" names that many Christians have, I am talking about names like "Louise" or "Maxim" or "Adrian."  THese names are very different than typical Indian names, like "santosh" or "Pooja" or "Raja".  You can tell the religion and caste of a person in INdia just be hearing their name!

 

I've typed a lot about how indians are being affected by western, or american, culture.  Like the example of the handshake replacing the "Namaste."  Or the presence of malls all over Bombay, malls that sell Levi's jeans and Domino's Pizza.  It's not out of laziness that many Indians adopt some western ways of being; it's much more complex than that.  It has to do with movies, and corporations, and capitalism...and many more interlocking phenomenon.

WHereas in older times, each region of the world had a distinct culture different from any other region, now there is arising a "global culture" that looks a lot like AMerica.  Each region still has its own customs, but they are also adopting this "global culture" as well.  Mind you, not everyone gets to partake of the global culture; usually the poor people are left out of the equation becasue they don't have the money to participate.  ANd in some cases, they are being pushed away from their land (as in the example of the tribal people).  And one of you suggested that we are doing Indians a favor by passing along many of our ways to them.  What do the rest of you think?  Do you agree or disagree?  Can you find some positive things about globalization, as well as some negative things?

 

OK.  THat's all for now.  It's time for me to walk back to the convent where we are staying and have dinner.  I"m curious to hear your responses!