Cultural Comparisons and Our Subconscious Reactions

About a week ago, I went out for drinks and tapas with some of my friends from Dickinson and three students that go to the University of Malaga whom we met earlier that day. We started talking about Malaga, what we like about it, how long we’ve been and will be here, the University, and what each person is studying, but, like they always tend to do, the conversation began to be a comparison of different cultures and perspectives. I think that it’s a natural evolution because everyone is interested to know how a person sees their own culture; we also all tend to be curious about how others, outsiders, understand our culture. (When I say culture, I mean all of the things that make up a society: the language(s), form of government, schedule, diet as well as the education and health care systems just to name a few of the thousands of components that can be included in a definition of culture.) So, as I said before, our conversation began to be a series of comparisons. We talked about the University (both University of Malaga and Dickinson College) and the culture that comes with American college life. The Spanish students were curious about whether or not it really is like the portrayal of the generic American university that they’ve seen in Hollywood films. We discussed the pros and cons of having 18 as the legal drinking age as it is in Spain compared with 21, the legal age in the States. We also compared the different health care systems that Spain and the United States have. This was particularly interesting for me because I’ve taken a class at the University of Malaga and had other classes with Spanish professors so I feel like I’ve gotten a good taste of what the education system is like, but I haven’t had any direct encounters with the Spanish health care system (and hopefully I won’t have any reason to.) However, even more interesting than the new information and the opinions that we exchanged on the various topics was witnessing the reactions and emotions that people have when discussing their country and their culture. In that specific conversation, and in any like it, there was pride, embarrassment, hope, disappointment, and various other similar emotions. To me, these are very personal emotions that the average person wouldn’t knowingly share with a mere acquaintance but it seems to be a subconscious reaction that shows the deeply rooted attachment that each person has for his or her own culture, sometimes without even knowing it.