Majeed 1

Abdulrazzaq Majeed
Professor Ditch
English 113B
8 May 2015
Performing to Adapt
Millions of cultures exists across the world. Some have faded away with time, and others
have grown bigger. It is important for a person to understand their culture and never let go of it.
Sometimes a person who is outside of his or her cultural space might feel that he or she does not
fit in with everyone else surrounding him. This happens because different cultures have different
values and other ways of life. In the article Culture and Communication the author, Anastacia
Kurlyo, states that, Way of life refers to the aspects of a culture that make up the life of its
members including language, norms and values, and so forth. Anastascia means that the way of
life a person lives, reflects the culture that he or she belongs to. It is the experience and the way
that he or she has seen people. Some might argue that culture is not important to a person as it is
something that can be changed depending on the environment a person lives in. They can perform
another culture and change their behavior to fit into a different society. One of the hardest
challenges I faced when I moved to England with my parents was adjusting to a different society
that had different values from the one I understand. I started to perform the English culture so that
I could adapt to the environment and be accepted by the people around me. I had to change huge
parts of my identity to succeed in fitting into the English culture, it was challenging initially but I
got accustomed to it eventually.

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At school I was one person and at home a complete different one, which helped me adapt
better to both societies. I had two brothers with me at school, so they saw the way I acted in front
of friends and teachers, and the way I acted at home. That made them question what I was doing
and they did not like it. In my Kuwaiti culture it is best to never forget where you come from
because that is an important part of my identity. One of my brothers used to try and explain me in
front of my friends at the time. Having a brother, who actually experienced these situations made
me know exactly about the issues and the problems that I was facing, because there were a few
thing that one could not actually talk about in front of parents, these things were explained by my
brother. My brothers at that time did not understand that we had to adapt to a society if we lived
in it. I had to conform to the English society to better adapt myself and become like everyone else
around me. By adapting I mean speaking the same way they do with an English accent, eating the
same food and liking the same things they liked. In England the food was very good, one of the
most popular meals there is fish and chips which I enjoyed a lot. Fish and chips, and as the name
states fish which is Cod fish and natural home cut fries with a side of tartar sauce. The accent in
England is different from here at the United States and I do not only mean their accents. For
example they disregard the word fries and only say chips. I learned to fit in by adapting these small
differences into my way of life. Doing that a person can learn from another society and also
make new friends. Even a few words that are spelt in British English are different, like in British
English one writes colour but in American English we write color, even the way one tells
loo instead of rest room, getting accustomed to these things was definitely challenging but we
have to adapt to excel. It was not hard once I got to understand what everyone around me was
doing and what the majority seemed to like. I was not trying to forget my culture as it is an
important part of my life, although I cannot separate myself from the people around me.

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There are various things that one could tell about the differences in culture, one of them
being sports. It played a big part in helping me adapt to a different culture. Rugby in England is
arguably one of the best sports around; it is the equivalent of American Football in American
Culture. The game is also played like American football with whoever could get the ball to the
touchdown area, but the rules are different. Most of the rules are different although it is the same
idea of American football. Some of the rules that differ are that you cannot pass the ball forward
or else you who commit a foul, also there are the downs in the game and there is throw inns. The
part I played in the team was the hooker, I was the backbone of the team when we had to get
possession back. Sports in England is something important to the people as it is a major part of
their culture. As mentioned in the article "Sports' Culture of Intoxication.", it can be seen that there
are different age group people who actually see and go for sports as a gathering or something of
that sort, making it evident that it involves drinking, which again is a cultural barrier for me, as we
Muslim forbid the intake of alcohol and this was challenging to me. Beer probably started as a
way to productively use old bread, and soon gained religious and cultural significance. Chang is a
Tibetan beer and Chicha is a corn beer and kumis is a drink produced from fermented camel milk.
The great Nordic epic, the Edda, reserved wine for the gods; mortals had to make do with beer
shows that it beer is related to sports, and people adore it while watching their favorite games. To
avoid this was a challenge for me.
Being a part of the sports team I made a lot of friends and became popular through sports, and that
helped me adapt and fit into a different culture better. Although something happened that made it
very difficult for me to keep performing and conforming to the English culture. My parents are
both Professors that teach in a university in Kuwait, they both got their PH.D from studying abroad.
My father studied in Denver Colorado, in which we lived there for five years. My mother studied

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in Bristol, England for 4 years as we lived there and attended school. They always told me that
they only wanted two things from me, the first and most important is religion to abide by what my
religion tells me, and the other thing is to always get high grades. My grades at school were very
important to my parents as they wanted me to receive a higher education just like them and one
day be successful, that would make them very proud. Rugby effected my grades badly through
school so they told my teachers to drop me off the team. That affected me badly in terms of
behavior. As mentioned in the article "Cultural Differences between the US and the UK.", there is
a lot of differences that exist in the people that belong to a certain culture, even in US and UK,
Many Americans are very family-oriented (at least those with families). Family life is an endless
parade of school musicals, extracurricular sports, birthday parties and the like. Many new ex-pats
report exhaustion trying to keep up with all the things to do with the kids when they come to the
states. It clearly tells that the trouble that I had getting along there was different when compare
to making friends here, in the US.. When I was dropped out of the team I started to act out at home
and school, I started to ignore my parents and their advice always bullying my brothers and sisters
as I was the oldest one and my grades dropped even more and my behavior was very poor. My
parents promised me if I get better grades they will let me join the team again, that being something
that I wanted to better adapt to the people around me I started to get good grades and I was back
in the team.
I think people at different ages have different approaches as to how they can better adapt
to a different culture, and the fears they have if they do not perform. Whether its racism, fear of
seclusion, loneliness or just wanting to fit in and interact with everyone. I was a teenager at that
time so I had all of these fears. If I was in England now I would try a different approach on how I
can better adapt to this different culture and succeed in doing so. Without any fears and hesitation

Majeed 5
stopping me from interaction with people from the English culture. When I performed that culture
it was mostly to fit in, although a lot of people in England are racists and I feared that someday
they would start targeting their racism towards me. I have seen people in my school being racist
towards others from different cultures, because they simply didnt like his color or the way he
dressed and other things that differ from their own culture. Seeing that scared me as I did not want
to be singled out. There was some part of me at that time in which feared me being a victim of
racism, although that had nothing to do with me performing their culture. Not being a victim of
racism was one of the pros of performing their culture as nobody suspected me. I blended in with
everyone and they appreciated my effort and doing so.
Everything that happens around us and the things we are familiar with are part of the culture
we live in, or our own culture. This experience of performing a culture taught me a lot of things
that helped me with adapting to other cultures and learning from the events that took place at the
time. As the Authors Ronald L. Jackson II, Cerise L. Glenn, Kesha Morant Williams in the book
chapter Self-Identity and Culture state that, Although the concept of identity may seem to be
something that is developed individually, research supports that a persons multiple identities are
shaped and influenced by society in general as well as by those with whom that person interacts.
This is something that I went through and experienced at first hand. I did not change my identity
by myself, but it was influenced by the people around me. As I wanted to adapt and fit into this
particular norm. Performing a culture is not something I do because I am ashamed of my own
culture, but it is something I do because it helps me adapt and understand the people around me
better. That can only happen because I want to adapt to the people around me, meaning that my
friends influenced the change in my identity, making me who I am today. My identity was shaped

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by all the events I experienced and could still change as we as humans always interact with each
other. That will lead to learning about new culture and taking in the good things from them.

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Works Citied
Jackson, Ronald, Cerise Glenn, and Kesha Williams. "Self-identity and Culture." Inter/cultural
Communication: Representation and Construction of Culture. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2013. 135.
Print.
Kurylo, Anastacia. "Culture and Communication." Inter/cultural Communication:
Representation and Construction of Culture. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2013. 3. Print.
"Sports' Culture of Intoxication." SBNation.com. N.p., 22 Jan. 2013. Web. 08 May 2015.
"Cultural Differences between the US and the UK." British Expats RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 May
2015.