<p>thank you so much!</p>
<p>PROMPT: Describe an experience of cultural difference, positive or negative, you have had or observed. What did you learn from it?</p>
<p>The Difference of Dinners</p>
<p>I sat at my friends dinner table with her family, gasping for air. It felt like my insides were burning, tears were slowly leaking from the corners of my eyes, and her family was watching me with smiles on their faces. They laughed as I choked out the word water and as her mom got up to get me some, her little sister reached for the Sriracha sauce and started dumping it on her dinner. I had just had my first taste of Bengali food delicious, yet also rather dangerous to the untrained mouth of an unsuspecting white girl. </p>
<p>I am what you might call the stereotypical white person. I am tall and blonde, with a Midwestern family that values hunting, drinking, and using real butter in everything. However, growing up in Sacramento, California, I made many friends from many different backgrounds and they have adopted me into their cultures, from Chinese to Lebanese to Brazilian. I can make hummus from scratch, dance the traditional Lebanese dabke, cover people with henna, and write my name in Chinese characters. </p>
<p>When I go back to visit my family in Minnesota, I try to relay some of my knowledge. My family has their own culture, complete with Scandinavian Ole and Lena jokes and a devotion to the Catholic Church. They live in primarily white communities, where everyone has similar beliefs, and I wanted to share what my friends have taught me in hopes that it will expand their horizons. Yet when I suggested that we make hummus for the family barbeque, or play some Brazilian music my friend gave me before I left, I was met with polite smiles and gentle words of well, maybe some other time, we already have everything we need. Every year, I did not understand how they would be so indifferent to learning of new cultures, when that was all I ever did at home. As I grew older however, I saw that they were comfortable in their world. They did not feel the need to taste exotic foods or learn a new language, because it was not something that they came across very often. </p>
<p>I embrace my familys culture, and I do love it, but when I am with my family I realize how lucky I am. I come across new foods, new dances, new music, new religions, and new languages every day, and therefore I am given the opportunity to learn from them. All of the opportunity has instilled within me a love for other cultures, for something different from myself that I can go on to share with others. I do not expect to be left gasping for water at dinner with my family, and I do not expect that I will ever get through a Bengali dinner without asking for water, but my life has taught me to appreciate and learn from all cultures that I come across. I get the best of all worlds.</p>