Always Learning

I woke up the other day with a thought that was troubling me. Throughout the course of this blog I have tried to be informative while still being entertaining and funny. Those of you that know me realize that is my way and part of the way I cope with stress. However, during the course of our trip, and as I have learned more about the people, I began to question whether all my posts were entertaining and funny to all who view them. I speak specifically about the "Thriller Indian Video" blog and the "Favorite India Video" blog. These blogs were posted early on in our travels before I knew anything about the culture and people of India. I since have grown to understand more of the people, their entertainment styles and culture. For example, I never knew that dance was such a big part of the culture. When I saw the film Drona there was an opening musical number. There were also musical numbers throughout the film. This would be very rare in American film unless the film was classified as a musical.
As we all laugh at ourselves from time to time, I initially found it quite funny to watch the subtitles put on by who ever originally posted these video's. However, as I became more knowlegeable about the people here I realize that these video's while not harmful do nothing to help people in our country to get any kind of an accurate picture of the people here. In fact, it is misleading and could stereotype the culture in our eyes. As I have talked to people here during our stay, they have asked me questions about our country. Many of their ideas about us were not entirely accurate. My point is (and I do have one) as much as we try, it is easy to stereotype and have inaccurate ideas about other people and their cultures if we rely only what we see and hear in the media. This is unfortunate. As I said in a previous post, it would benefit all of us if we actually were able to get to know our neighbors from other countries rather then getting our information from the media and word of mouth. I believe that if everyone was able to travel to these foreign countries and see the people in their everyday lives, and if these people could do the same with us, there would be would be significantly less wars and more peace and harmony. I am keeping the earlier posts as I think it demonstrates how are thinking can change as we get to know people better.