Crossing Cultures: My GPC Experience
Allison Kittinger
The Cultured Classroom
All of the classes I took for the Global Perspectives Certificate greatly enhanced my coursework, my worldview, and my outlook for the future. When it comes to my Japanese classes, two of them fulfilled Global Perspectives Certificate requirements, and I took one of them abroad. The Japanese classes I took before going to Japan were crucial to my success in my study abroad program. The excellent teachers I had taught a bit beyond the textbook, expressing language concepts with examples of Japanese culture, giving us fun and interesting games such as Japanese tongue-twisters, and supplying conversations with new vocabulary the textbook did not teach us. I participated almost aggressively in these classes, swallowing my fear of making mistakes and trying to coat my understanding in solid mental cement. The conversation sections I took for my minor forced me to practice speaking Japanese aloud, and they were the reason I was able to speak so fluently with Japanese people in Japan. Without them, I would never have been able to make the connections I did in Japan, and speaking remains a strength of mine in foreign language to this day.
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Before I took Classical Mythology, I only equated the word mythology with Greek mythology. In this class, however, we learned about mythology from around the world, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. The professor also pointed out how many allusions come from mythology, such as "caught between scylla and charybdis," "a herculean effort," and "Achilles' heel." I had never before considered how each ancient country has its own creation myth and mythology; this realization led me to the idea that each country would then have its own mythological allusions that influence its culture. I began to study Japanese and Korean mythology with this idea in mind, and I found many examples of mythical illusions in both cultures. In Japan, people say people fated to be together are connected by a "red string of fate," which alludes to a legend of a lunar god who ties people together with invisible red string that symbolizes there intertwined destinies. This is a very popular legend; its sentiment can be found on television and in pop songs in Japan. In Korean culture, Mongolian spots on newborns are explained as a mark the goddess of childbirth leaves when helping to push the baby out of the womb. I now consider mythology when attempting to understand pop culture references and everyday sayings from other countries.
Studying abroad in Japan, my language lessons happened both inside and outside classroom walls. The fast-paced classes were demanding, covering in six weeks what would have been covered in a year at NC State. However, I had all of my newfound Japanese friends to practice new concepts with, and they taught me much of the cultural context surrounding the vocabulary I learned at my desk. I am glad that I went to Japan with intermediate proficiency because I was able to make the most of my experience there without having to worry about a lack of English. Studying abroad also made me less fearful to try new things and much more sure of myself; after conquering solo travel to Japan, and maintaining both good grades and meaningful friendships there, I felt like I could accomplish anything I put my mind to in the future, and I still feel this way. Once I graduate I will continue confidently towards my goal of becoming a translator, maintaining both my linguistic and cultural fluency as I do so.
Similarly, in Language and Culture, I began to comprehend the extent to which language and culture are intertwined. I never knew the depths of the ties between language and identity, but they were made clear in our discussion about language politics, why national and official languages exist, and how gender-specific language forms influence gender norms in different societies. My professor explained a specific example from Japan; namely, that women in Japan, especially salespeople, make their voices higher to sound more attractive. This underlines Japanese femininity, which is often expressed as cuteness and youth. In addition, I realized that accents that are not the official accent and languages that are not the official or national language are stigmatized in other countries just like they are in America. In India, for example, there are so many different languages, but only a few are taught in schools, which hinders understanding. In both Japan and Korea, dialects index as rural and uneducated, as the southern accent does in America. Being aware of how language operates in a country says more about that country's culture than I realized before taking Language and Culture. This is crucial information to have as a translator, as cultural context often dictates how a passage should be best translated to convey its original meaning. Taking Language and Culture and Classical Mythology alongside my Japanese classes gave me a unique perspective on the Japanese words and phrases I was learning, and what I learned in those classes will continue to inform my future language study and career.
