The visual symbols that I have always found fascinating are the universal visual symbols of cultural values or meanings. This is because as much as they are amazing they are highly functional especially in conveying deeper meanings. Moreover, they are expressed in the most sincere and purposeful way yet from individual to individual, group to group, community to community and country to country they may as be varying as day is from night.
Culture is the glue that holds a people together and universal cues that are concerned with us as human due to our culture. We can never touch or feel these cultural visual cue but we always see them and appreciate them. Some of the things that we all identify with are as follows:
- Dressing -Human present themselves in a decent manner by dressing up. The dressing might be different from one community to another within a country, one country to another or from continent to continent. People from African countries might dress up in traditional or national dresses while the westerners will dress up in suits. However the dress type depends on the occasion as well.
- Food- This is the most fascinating thing. When in travel it one of the things that people complain about is the food they are not used to. But if you are traveling that is what is making it different. You have have cross the cultural food boundary to one that is unfamiliar to you. So food types and the way different foods are made, is the culture of a place. Serving the food is also different, while some culture
sit around the table or even floor and eat from one plate some serve individual plate to each person.
- Salutations- In the western world, the thumb up is the magic acknowledgment of another person and it means that everything is fine. However, in some regions, you will be lucky if you get it because it means something else. Also the shaking of hand is a big thing in the African countries and in the business would.
- Language-This is where it all starts. Visual cue are exhibited in the look, handmovements, gait, distance from each other, voice intonations and so forth. We all have different
languages as well which adds to it.
- Conflict-In some culture conflict can be considered a good thing, opportunity for learning and growth and therefore can be tolerated. In other cultures it is the vice vaser and those in conflict have to save face for each other by handling the problem quietly. In these communities collective responsibility is taken for the problem and so the community is involved in solving the problem. This is particularly seen in African cultures while the western culture embrace the individualistic manner of solving problems.
- Business- In the business world it is all the same in terms of meetings, and presentation. Some differences occur in terms of facial contact, handshake and exchanges of pleasantries. In the Chinese business world when given a business
card, you gaze at it for a while and put it on the tables and keep looking at it from time totime to show how responsible you would be taking care of there interests here in theUS. On the other hand, business from the west must just say thank you and put thecard in the pocket.
- Other cultural aspect of life that have been interesting are way of Religion, different Dances in different regions, the Architectural differences and similarities and the differences in the way they view Art.
