Fact Paper Example: Important Life Event

In life, what may happen tomorrow is unpredictable; life is characterized by lows and highs experiences regarding the event taking place. Still, all the events high or low; we must gain some experience in the process. Also, the events make an individual more informed. All the events in life are essential in having experiences. Some heart touching occasions are entirely changing our thought, personalities, faith, and beliefs. Just like other individuals, some of the events in my life changed me completely. The moments changed the life assumptions I had concerning others; I have a new direction and better choices when making decisions. One of my life events took place when I decided to visit part of my family members residing in the interior areas of Jamaica. This moment gave me an intense experience of how culture may cause how we think about others and also behaviors we portray regardless of similar genes (De Caigny et al., 2020).

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Three months ago, I had a chance to reunite with part of my family members in the remote areas of Jamaica. My dad is from Jamaica, Kingston area though I have on no occasion traveled to upcountry to see my extended family. At first, I was excited to move to Kingston; however, I was unsure how my life would be over there. Having good relations with the other family was not going to be easy, considering that I was used to differing from their culture.

Two weeks before visiting the village, I researched the cultural practices of local people in Kingston. Early preparation on culture was essential because it was to make my coexistence at home easy. Google was mainly my source of research; frequently, I visited the site to get more information. To my surprise, when I finally paid a visit, there were several differences between how people were behaving and the information I found on the internet. The relationship between people and their behaviors was different as per my expectation (Harris & Bettiol 2017).

At some point, I was surprised by the place. Kingston is Jamaica’s capital city but realized that technology there was not advanced. Most of the machines used were analog and of low quality (Rodríguez-Hidalgo et al., 2020). Besides, I expected to find large malls, supermarkets, and shops in this case, and there were not available. The only place to purchase items was small kiosks, where only a few items were available. Later I concluded that my assumption of visiting a better place was just a generalization.

During my visit, I learned several things, but the most incredible thing I experienced was watching how a fresh fish was prepared. I went to my uncle’s house; he was overjoyed to see me. He then ordered one of his housekeepers to prepare a fish for me. I was thrilled to see how the fish was being prepared before it was fried and made with some stew. Watching the scales get removed and the intestines being removed and then washed with warm water. How the fish was prepared was a shock to me because back in Iran, where I have been staying, I did not see such delicacies being prepared in that way.

The experiences I got during my moments with the extended family in Kingston, Jamaica, are viewed from reaction, cultural, and social perspective. Cultural and social perspective describes the influence of social pressures, context, and cues of environment, behaviors, and influences caused by culture. Values and attitudes influence the social culture of people in a place. In a social world, we are in attitudes that represent the psychology of everyone. On the other hand, values are a representation of standards, principles, and quality of how an individual is carrying himself or herself (Sandberg, 2016). Comparing values and attitudes, they both play a significant role in everyone’s life. For instance, while in Jamaica, it was amazing to know that viewing other was based on religion. The interaction was done following religious activities. I found that challenging because, unlike my parent, I am not that much into religion. Almost in all conversations we had with my extended family, and God was included (Scherman et al., 2017). For example, my uncle was thankful how God kept me safe for all those years we did not meet.

After having a careful observation and examination, I realized that while in Jamaica, I had experience in four categories. The first stage is my very first moment to meet my other family. Apart from reading from the internet on how Jamaicans are behaving (Bosze et al., 2020), I visited them physically due to knowing my personality and culture. Considering my cultural perspective, I learned other ideas concerning my community, making the perspective I had before to change.

Another stage was the period I was adjusting. This was the period that was vital in my stay. I was able to get convinced and do away with the generalization I had before. Also, in this stage, all the stereotypes I had were wiped entirely. However, I did not take many days in Jamaica to have full adjustments was still impressed with the interactions I had for the few weeks I was around. There was also a stage I went through; this was time for testing and consolidating. At this level, I gained a new version of the beliefs and values of my community.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the experiences I had in Jamaica enabled me to have more advanced and intense information concerning how culture affects an individual’s attitudes and perceptions in their daily to daily life. In my mind, I knew that just like Italy is fully industrialized, Jamaica was also to be the same. I was surprised because some of the things we consider significant in urban areas were not regarded as useful by Jamaicans. Also, the visit made me learn the significance of having an open mind while having to associate with people practicing different cultures. I visited Jamaica with a fixed mindset about the language and culture I acquired from the website. However, the stay enabled me to have more experience and increase my understanding of culture and interaction. For the weeks I stayed in Jamaica, I had some adjustments and changed the attitude I had in life.

References

Bosze, J. P., Köteles, F., Komlósi, F., Boros, S., & Szabo, A. (2020). Positive Life event Expectations are Associated with Greater Optimism, Well-Being, and Emotional Intelligence. Cognition, Brain, Behavior, 24(2), 139-152. http://www.cbbjournal.ro/index.php/en/2020/130-24-2

De Caigny, A., Coussement, K., & De Bock, K. W. (2020). Leveraging fine-grained transaction data for customer life event predictions. Decision Support Systems, 130, 113232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2019.113232

Harris, K. M., & Bettiol, S. (2017). Exposure to suicidal behaviors: A common suicide risk factor or a personal adverse life event? International journal of social psychiatry, 63(1), 70-77. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0020764016682361

Rodríguez-Hidalgo, C. T., Tan, E. S. H., Verlegh, P. W. J., Beyens, I., & Kühne, R. (2020). Don’t Stress Me Now: Assessing the Regulatory Impact of Face-to-Face and Online Feedback Prosociality on Stress During an Important Life Event. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmaa006

Sandberg, S. (2016). The importance of stories untold: Life-story, event-story, and trope. Crime, Media, Culture, 12(2), 153-171. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1741659016639355

Scherman, A. Z., Salgado, S., Shao, Z., & Berntsen, D. (2017). Life script events and autobiographical memories of important life story events in Mexico, Greenland, China, and Denmark. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(1), 60-73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2016.11.007