May 21st is World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. The UN established this day in order to promote cultural diversity and dialogues among nations. They even offered this list of 10 things you can do to celebrate cultural diversity (we added some notes to each to give you more information on how to carry out each task):
“Visit an art exhibit or a museum dedicated to other cultures.”
Most large cities will have large exhibits focused on a variety of cultures at any given team, but even if you don’t live in a large city, there are other ways you can do this. There are many touring exhibits across the country that afford windows into other cultures. You can talk to your local museum about what exhibits are upcoming, or even look for a virtual tour of a museum online to take in art from other cultures.
“Invite a family or people in the neighborhood from another culture or religion to share a meal with you and exchange views on life.”
You might be connected to families from countries all around the world already through your school or church. If not, you can see if there is a Meetup group geared towards cultural exchange in your community, or start one of your own. There are also often open house events held at churches, synagogues, and mosques where those communities invite people from the neighborhood to come and experience a different religious service.
“Rent a movie or read a book from another country or religion than your own.”
This might be one of the easiest tasks to complete. Visit your local library and ask your librarian to recommend a book or movie from a specific culture other than yours, or look online for recommendations or reviews of books or movies that pique your interest.
“Invite people from a different culture to share your customs.”
See above regarding seeking out groups in your communities. If you’re not comfortable having strangers over for dinner, it’s easy enough to suggest a gathering somewhere public, such as a coffee shop, where everyone can feel comfortable.
“Read about the great thinkers of other cultures than yours (e.g. Confucius, Socrates, Avicenna, Ibn Khaldun, Aristotle, Ganesh, Rumi).”
Again, your local librarian should be able to help you seek out the most important texts from thinkers of other cultures.
“Go next week-end to visit a place of worship different than yours and participate in the celebration.”
Again, see above. If there are no events at places of worship other than yours, ask at the mosque, synagogue, or church if there will be an open house soon, or another time when it will be appropriate to visit.
“Play the “stereotypes game.” Stick a post-it on your forehead with the name of a country. Ask people to tell you stereotypes associated with people from that country. You win if you find out where you are from.”
Stereotypes are a fact of life. We carry presumptions about other cultures, but often don’t look any deeper to find the underlying cultural trait or reason behind the stereotype. This game teaches us about our presumptions, and also allows to investigate the history behind certain stereotypes that exist about other cultures. Remember that relying too heavily on stereotypes when dealing with people of other cultures can create a barrier, but not understanding how traits and behaviors differ across cultures can also cause unfortunate misunderstandings.
“Learn about traditional celebrations from other cultures; learn more about Hanukkah or Ramadan or about amazing celebrations of New Year’s Eve in Spain or Qingming festival in China.”
Again, your local librarian can help with this, or you can seek out information on the internet. We also have a variety of posts on our blog about various holidays in other cultures.
“Spread your own culture around the world through our Facebook page and learn about other cultures.”
You can find the United Nations on Facebook here.
“Explore music of a different culture.”
Music is a great way to enjoy both culture and languages. We’ve offered some musical recommendations from our e-Tutors on our blog over the years; you can view some of the posts here.
Here at Living Language, we believe that learning culture is an important part of learning a language. All of our courses feature culture notes on the cultures of the languages we teach. Get started with one of these courses here.