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Social Literacy Essay

Culture Changes Who You Are

No shoes in asian homes. This is a stereotypical joke based on cultural traditions

of Asian. Many people of modern days are aware of one culture of another to make
cultural jokes. And those jokes are often able to be found funny because one is used to
another culture. In this busy day of society, people may not realize or admit that culture
would be such in deep relationship to every little decisions made in their lives. However,
in psychological perspective, culture is part of an environment that shapes who one is.
In terms of chain effect, this change in personality also leads to social standing, and
social literacy. Social Literacy? Yes, it is a bizarre term that not many discusses. My
personal definition is ones understanding, acknowledgement and fluency on society.
And this also applied to me. I strongly believe that culture affects social literacy because
I was shaped and changed by culture, and this comes from my experience, my
background knowledge on psychological aspect and realization of my social
surroundings.
Before this moves into my drizzling life experience of cultural transition, there are
two famous speeches that provides perspectives on social literacy. First is that of Foster
Wallace. The speech contains overall philosophy of realizing one's world and spreading
one's recognition from not just himself but for others also. Wallace states that one has to
constantly make conscious decisions on things that have meaning or not, and that if one
cannot, he/she is living in an unconscious default setting life that has no meaning. In
Wallace's perspective, the real world does not encourage you to wake up and make

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your own choices because it revolves around self-centered beings. His speech ends
with noting that the real freedom is knowing how to understand and remind oneself of
what the real world is. Wallace informs us that "The really important kind of freedom
involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about
other people" (Wallace), and I wholeheartedly agree that one needs to completely
realize the situation to make the most beneficial choice. The world truly needs
conscious and constant acknowledgement. I also deeply nod my head along with next
speech by George Saunders. Saunders carefully begins his speech with an old
nostalgic story of his failure of kindness. His speech navigates around his ideal behavior
of people being nice When he wonders why people are not nicer, he attempts to clarify
the answer stating because humans are selfish beings. Saunders state that people
naturally become nicer as they age. That as people grow up and realize how "useless it
is to be selfish-how illogical, really."(Saunders). As people gain more experience, they
learn those logical factors. His grand statement that working for oneself leads to
kindness and cures the selfishness closes his warm speech.
There was a wild time in my life where I genuinely disregarded myself, and it was
pretty recent. I thought my biggest transition in life would be when I came to United
States six years ago. But, my brain whispered me that it was when I confronted the fact
I have had cultural transition a year ago. I was a common child in South Korea. When
my family first immigrated to United States, I was furious with tyrannical power my
parents possessed over my life. Beginning of my American childhood was terrifying and
merciless. I had very little friends, and was not very sociable due to my lack of English
skills and difference in personality ( did not know this was due to culture back then,). As

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I learned English, I also learned another personality. As if there was another me in

America. This epiphany came to me in various instances of my life where I used to
always think I should be guided under wise elderly to where I wanted myself to learn
how to make best choice for myself. My parents and I disagreed here and there;
however, the volcano erupted when I had turned eighteen. Korea was heavily influenced
by few Chinese philosophers such as Confucius. Therefore, my parents believed that
age grants power over young ones. I did understand up to certain point but there were
some things that I failed to do so. It was only after few days of argument and
disagreement that I and my parents realized, that this was cultural difference. I could not
comprehend the logic behind their principles nor could they of mine. It was as if I was
the red trying to understand the blue. And that it was only through respect that we can
harmonize as social beings in such close knitted relationship. As Wallace have once
said "The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and
discipline,"(Wallace), I had to acknowledge who I am and who my parents are, and how
we think individually. Then, I was free to be myself without my parents' discouragement
and restriction. From here and on, the choices I have made in life became reasonable
and meaningful to me because I finally became aware of my inner self. Realization of
cultural influence on myself further helped me face my own social literacy on social
surroundings.

Some may insist that there is no valued information on how culture really
influences ones personality and that it is hard to believe. However, there are many
standings in psychology educating that environment has close relationship with
personality development. Two researchers in UC Riverside states that cultural influence

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is indeed, an important factor among genetics while quoting More recently Chiu and
Hong (in press) have defined culture as a network of knowledge that is both procedural
(learned sequence of responses to particular cues) and declarative (representations of
people, events, and norms) and is produced, distributed, and reproduced among a
collection of interconnected people (Culture and Personality). As those four
psychological researchers gently describe deeper details on how culture influences
personality change, it is not superfluous to propose that realization of this change and
acceptance leads to better social literacy. Furthermore, they specific factors help on
smoother description of how the cultural influence changed my social literacy.
Because of educational research, statements of educated speakers, and my
personal experience, my standing as cultural influence on social literacy stands strong.
In the days where society is full of wonders and stirs identities like a chemical
compound, it is hard to extinguish self awareness. Although it consumes valuable time
and effort, understanding oneself and around oneself can ultimately improve your social
literacy and relations.

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Martinez, Veronica Benet, and Shigehiro Oishi. "Culture and Personality." (n.d.): n. pag.
Print.
Chiu, C-Y., & Hong, Y-Y. (in press). Cultural processes: Basic principles. In A. Kruglanski
& T. Higgins (Eds.), Social psychology: Basic principles. New York: Guilford.