Culture Clash
Culture Clash is a story of two families from different backgrounds, culture trying to live in harmony. They are trying their hardest to understand each other's customs and traditions. One of the family is your typical middle class American family, Ellen and Ben Matthews, owners of a home, a small business, two cars and three kids. The other family are refugees from Vietnam. Kim and Quang, Vietnamese newly weds in their 20's fleeing their own country with Kim's two sisters, Lan and Minh. This book is written through Ellen Matthews's point of view about their struggles, differences and how they coped with them. Ben Matthews was in the military and served some time in Vietnam. In this service time he has gained some experience dealing with Vietnamese people and he has a rough understanding of their culture and customs. He also has some unconscious guilt about America abandoning Vietnam, which is one of the reasons why Ellen believe he has signed up to sponsor a refugee family.The two families first met in August of 1975 at the refugee campsite. In their first couple of months, aside from the obvious language barrier, there were many misinterpretations, misconceptions, miscommunications and misunderstandings. One of the fi
two families. One of the points that Ellen chose to make was that she did not like Kim begging other people for money and other freebies such as food stamps. In Kim's own words, she says, "We no have money to buy food". Ellen looks at this as if Kim is looking for a handout, while Ben believes that there are words and meaning lost in the translation. I agree with Ben, I believe that what Kim is trying to say is that she is looking for a job in order to buy food and support her family. Asian people tend to convey messages and use suggestive language to replace direct request. Americans are usually very direct and will take words literally, which explains some of Ellen's misconceptions to Kim's pleading, which could be interpreted as a request for a job. Many Americans, especially middle class Americans, patronize those on public support a have a low opinion of them. Minh and Lan probably realized this from attending school because they are more involved in American society, unlike Kim and Quang. Since Kim and Quang did come from a country like Vietnam where welfare and food stamps are virtually unheard of, they were eager to get on the system, concerned that they are losing out when their peers are receiving them. Another one of the biggest flaws among Asian people is their inability to say "no" to other people; and their utmost willingness to please. Kim is no exception to that statement. Ben defines that a "typical Vietnamese" is "passive and unassumingly nice". A good example of this happened during the process of locating Kim a job, Ellen had ask Kim to work a volunteer job as a baby-sitter for future references. Kim reluctantly agreed, out of respect for Ellen. Ellen eventually understood this after spending more time learning about their culture. Ellen had some misconception on this subject matter because as an American, she was used to directness and speaking of your emotions. Kim and Quang are good examples of the missing link between the first generation of Asians that settled in American and the second generation of Asians in America. The first generation of Asians are usually are older, they tend to live life as it was in their home country, following the traditions and culture. The second g
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1507
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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