Greek Culture

One afternoon; I was searching information about Greece and I found three Greek cultural aspects that interested me because of their differences with the Costa Rican ones.



The first one; according to the most striking differences, will be their body language. For instance nodding your head to say ¨yes¨ is not polite in Greece. It is better to say ¨yes¨ instead. Otherwise, in Costa Rica it is pretty common to see people nodding their heads at all the times and even in a business meeting!

The second one is about their traditions. Such as The Name day, as it is very common in most Greeks to be named like the name of a saint. That day it is more important than your birthday and it will be better celebrated as well. On the Contrary, in Costa Rica it is more important to celebrate your birthday than your background’s name.

The third one is the way they greed. In Greece you shake hands with every one, men, women and children. Unfortunately in Costa Rica it is not so common to see a man shaking their hands with a woman or a child. However Costa Rican men or women would kiss women and hug or just say hello to children.

In brief, their body language, traditions and way of greeting are very different from mine and that’s the reason why I found them so interesting and that I will like to visit Greece some day!

Arranged Film

The Arranged film produced by Cicala Firm works and written by Stefan Schaefer, is a good example of a friendship between two girls from different cultures, and the way other’s eyes accept their friendship.

Two young women; one an Orthodox Jew, and the other a devout Muslim became friends, while they teach at a school located in Brooklyn, and both were having arranged marriages by their parents.

In spite of their religion, they wanted to keep their friendship because they became very close friends, and shared their traditions. This also happened because both were having troubles in accepting the men chosen by their parents.

Despite all those troubles I saw how they found the way of getting out of those awful situations, keeping their friendship and their traditions as well.

In conclusion, I highly recommend this film, because it is a good example to learn how to keep a friendship between people from different cultures and it is unusual for other’s eyes. An excellent practice of tolerance!

Ae Fond Kiss Film

Ae Fond kiss movie, directed by Ken Loach, is another love story of a couple with different cultures that portrayed a great example of tolerance between religious’ differences.
It takes place at city in Scotland, where a Muslim family settled down. The family was integrated by: Tariq, Sandim, Cadim; who is a Scottish young man and two sisters the oldest Rucksana and the youngest Tahara; a rebel eighteen young woman.


Tahara ,who was a student at Catholic high school, had a music professor call Roisin, who fell in love with Casim; Tahara’s brother. So, they began a relationship without troubles, even when they are from different religious, and they started to live together.
As the film advanced you could notice all their troubles for keeping this type of relationship going on, as Casim had problems with his family because they wanted him to marry his cousin. Meanwhile, Roisin had troubles as well, as she is not supposed to teach in a Catholic school while she lives with a man without getting married first.


All in all, Ae Fond Kiss film is a love story which portrayed a great example of learning to be tolerant within a couple with different religious.

Let's call the whole thing off

¨Let's call the whole thing off¨ is a lovely and funny song written in 1937 by George and Ira Gershwin for the fill call Shall We Dance and it is presented by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in a roller skates dance.

I found this song very related to culture, because it is about a couple from different countries who spoke the same language but with varieties in pronunciation for some words. In a very lovely and funny way they expressed their misunderstandings while they were hanging around. A good example of this misunderstanding is in one of the refrains which says: (So, if you go for oysters and I go for oysters. I'll order oysters and cancel the oysters). In here, they were pronouncing the word ¨oysters¨ in different ways, so as a result they did not know they were referring to the same word.



They also showed how a couple case already closed get some troubles trying to understand each other. If you are able to see the film, or at least listening to the song, you will notice that Ginger was upset for those differences, and Fred was complaining about as well, but always trying to let those differences behind and keep their relationship working.



As soon as I heard this song, a remembered the movie The White Masaiour that our culture professor once brought for us, because I found it very related to culture relationships, as well. And what totally caught my attention from it was how funny it is and the lovely way they did it.

The White Masai Trailer

The White Masai

The White Masia movie, by Hermanine Huntgeburth, is based on Connie Hofmann’s novel which makes a representation of a possible result in a not so common relationship between two people of totally different cultures.




On the last day of a trip to Kenya, Carola, the main character who is a young Swiss woman, decides to stay alone, leaving her boyfriend go back to Switzerland. She falls in love with a Masai warrior called Lemalian, but she does not know where he lives. So, she risks her life in order to find the man of her dreams; who lives in a village in the Samburu District. Once they meet, they start living together. Carola marries Lemalian and stays with him for several years, feeling frustrated more than once because of their differences. One of those differences was the female circumcision that the people in the village practice in teenagers. She is totally against it. Another difference that causes frustration between them is Lemalian’ jealousy. He cannot understand how Carola can see other men in the eyes and be faithful to him. Even so, she has a daughter with Lemalian, but one day she decides to go back to Switzerland and never returns to Kenya.



Hermanine Huntgeburth, based on Connie Hofmann’s novel, lets us understand how life might be between two people from totally different cultures. I highly recommend this movie to culture lovers.

Culture and Communication-The Relationship Between communication and culture, characteristics of Culture.

The author explains how culture works in relationships, groups, organizations and societies; furthermore how communication spreads culture around the world, its characteristics.

Culture in relationships, groups, organizations and societies, according to the author, differ in a common way. For instance, while a couple may share some activities, these will be different in an organization. I had a cousin, and when she met her future boyfriend, she adopted one of his habits. They shared going cycling, so they do it every weekend now. Therefore, they are developing a custom. In addition, when she was working, every 19th day of the month, she and her co-workers went to a restaurant and shared all kinds of anecdotes about the experiences with their customers. This was a nice meeting style, according to her. They were also developing a custom.


Now, referring to communication, or how this is known by others, I would like to say that words are the essence of communication. A good example will be my cousin’s story. She told me this while I was working on this reaction. I wrote it, published it and you will read it. For all these I need the Internet, and the sweetest thing of communication is speech. So, this is a good example of how the relationship between communication and culture improves its spreading. So, culture needs communication to be known and that is what societies now are trying to apply as human interaction to spread all their customs, beliefs, habits, and so on.

Moreover, all this culture has beautiful characteristics. Culture is a difficult and it is changing constantly. Each relationship, group, organization and society works on the development of the invisible culture, which characterizes it. I have an easy example to explain it. To continue with the cousin’s story, I had another cousin who shared a totally different activity with her boyfriend. Instead of going cycling, each weekend they watched a marathon of movies. So, if in relationships there are these differences, imagine between societies, while in Costa Rica men can just have one wife, in the Middle East they have more than one.

In conclusion, that is how culture works in relationships, groups, organizations and societies, and how it has been spreading around the world, with all its characteristics