The Fluent Mind ESL Podcast Culture Corner | What do you hate about your culture?
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In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack talk about aspects of their cultures that they strongly dislike.
Transcript:
00:00:00
Jack
Hey A-Z listeners, this is Jack here.
00:00:03
Jack
And if you would like to become a an exclusive subscriber to the show, you can hit the link in the description and that will take you to our Red Circle page, where for $1.99 a month you will get access to an extra two or three episodes each week.
00:00:23
Jack
And be careful, don't hit that donation button if you want to become an exclusive subscriber because the donation button is just a one time donation. However, the exclusive subscriber button will give you access to the extra two or three episodes.
00:00:42
Jack
Each week.
00:00:44
Jack
So make sure you hit that exclusive subscriber button if you want access to the extra episodes.
00:00:52
Jack
Now let's get on with the show.
00:00:56
Jack
Welcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I'm here with my co-host, Social and social. I thought today we could read the names of a couple of our our patrons.
00:01:09
발표자
Hmm.
00:01:09
Jack
And so.
00:01:12
Jack
The first one that I want to read is Isabel Isabel from.
00:01:17
Jack
Ireland. She's actually.
00:01:19
Xochitl
Thank you, Isabel.
00:01:20
Jack
Yeah. Thank you, Isabel. She's not from Ireland, but she lives in Ireland and uh, it's very exciting to have her as a patron for the show. Another one of our patrons is Johnny from China.
00:01:37
Xochitl
Thank you, Johnny.
00:01:38
Jack
Yeah. Thank you, Johnny. Johnny's been on the show. Actually. I interviewed him. And so he's. Yeah, he was on the podcast, and he's amazing. His If you talk to him, he sounds like he's got an American accent. Yeah, it's amazing. Just perfect.
00:01:41
Xochitl
Oh, it's great.
00:01:50
Xochitl
Oh wow.
00:01:55
Jack
Next up, we've got may from Malaysia.
00:01:58
Jack
Yeah.
00:01:59
Xochitl
Thank you. Day.
00:02:00
Jack
Yeah. And Salima from Iran.
00:02:04
Xochitl
Thank you, Selina.
00:02:05
Jack
Yeah. And Leila from Saudi Arabia.
00:02:09
Xochitl
Ohh, thank you, Layla. I love Layla.
00:02:11
Jack
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:02:12
Xochitl
Well, that has a very nice voice if anyone's ever heard her voice to the chat.
00:02:17
Jack
Yes.
00:02:17
Xochitl
I I test with labels boys.
00:02:20
Jack
Yeah, she's a very, very sweet voice. Very soft spoken, but yeah, very soothing. Yeah.
00:02:23
Xochitl
You have a soothing kind of.
00:02:24
Xochitl
A.
00:02:26
Xochitl
Calming voice I really enjoy.
00:02:27
Jack
Good, good, good podcasting voice, I think.
00:02:29
Xochitl
Yeah, I think she would, too, for sure. Anyway, thank you so much to our patrons who are supporting our exclusive content. It really, really allows Jack and I to make more content and higher quality content. So we really, really appreciate it. And thank you so much. Hopefully we will get some more supporters here. And thanks to those who have already begun to support us.
00:02:31
Jack
You know.
00:02:51
Jack
Yeah. So today's topic is things that you hate about your culture and uh, I'm not going to.
00:02:58
Jack
Talk about Korean culture. I'm going to stay away from that because it is not my place or my position to critique Korean culture. I've lived here for 30 or 20 years. But you know, when it comes to critiquing culture, I think you have to do it from your own culture. You know you have to because you're critiquing yourself too.
00:03:20
Jack
And.
00:03:21
Jack
The things about American culture, probably the number one problem that I have with American culture, is that we're very individualistic.
00:03:31
Jack
My problems are my problems. Your problems are your problems. Don't put your problems on me, you know, and I understand that attitude because in some ways I do hate when someone is.
00:03:46
Jack
In a in a interpersonal relationship where one person is always leaning on another person for help all the time and never able to like you know, support themselves. Yeah, yeah, I think that is negative, but I think I I think looking at the the.
00:03:57
Xochitl
Reciprocate.
00:04:05
Jack
Country as a whole and saying and seeing it all is just individuals, not as a as a group. You know, working together to try to make the society better and more equitable and fair for all of the people that live there. I think that's a bad thing. So.
00:04:24
Jack
So I think it it kind of shows up in like certain aspects of the culture. For example, our obsession with guns, you know?
00:04:37
Jack
Stay off my property. Get off my, get off my yard. Get out of my yard. Yeah, or or I'll shoot you. You know, this, this idea that we need to, you know, I need to have a gun and multiple guns in my house to protect all my stuff from, you know.
00:04:57
Jack
My neighbor who's going to try to steal my stuff and.
00:05:00
Jack
And I I don't know. I just feel like that we're, we're hyper obsessed. We're very obsessed with ourselves and.
00:05:11
Jack
I I think we're also obsessed with consuming things. You know, consumerism. That's another one that I think we should, I should mention, is that we're always.
00:05:22
Jack
We can't wait to buy the next thing that's going to make our lives perfect, you know, finally, if I just buy this one more thing, I'm going to be.
00:05:31
Jack
Happy.
00:05:32
Jack
Nope. I just got buy this one more thing. One more thing. One more thing, you know, and it really has nothing to do with making ourselves happy. A lot of times, buying things is about showing other people.
00:05:42
Jack
Ohh.
00:05:43
Jack
Successful we are, you know, look what I got. You know, I have this, but you don't have this. And so I think consumerism and individualism and obsession with guns is are are issues that I really have a problem with. But that just scratches the surface. You know, there's a lot more.
00:05:45
Xochitl
Right, yeah.
00:06:03
Jack
I could go into, but I'm not going to. I'll I'll jump to you and I'll kick it to you and let you share yours.
00:06:12
Xochitl
Jack, I think.
00:06:12
Xochitl
You pretty much covered things I really dislike about the US, especially our gun culture is another aspect that I really dislike about the US we have a problem with gun culture. We endanger the lives of children every single day. It's uncontrolled and it really just.
00:06:32
Xochitl
Exists for no other purpose than for gun nuts to boost their egos.
00:06:39
Xochitl
I'm thinking they could start a militia that could rival the US military, which would never happen.
00:06:45
Xochitl
And.
00:06:46
Xochitl
It it it's just.
00:06:49
Xochitl
It's ridiculous, honestly, and it's unfortunate because our inability as a culture to condemn these rampant unsafe gun culture leads to so many tragedies, both on a personal and a cultural.
00:07:08
Xochitl
Well, and so it's something that I really, really dislike about US culture, another another culture that I'm a part of is Mexican culture. And I have a couple of critiques for Mexican culture as well.
00:07:22
Xochitl
One is that older generations will push around and demand things from the younger generation and the amount of control that they're comfortable having over.
00:07:31
Xochitl
Younger generations just feel so inappropriate from a western lens, and because I was raised in both cultures, it it can be hard for me to swallow at times. And it's interesting to me because, for example, my mom or other older people will often boss me around or expect a lot to for me to do a lot for them.
00:07:41
Jack
Yeah.
00:07:52
Xochitl
Like a servant almost.
00:07:54
Xochitl
And.
00:07:56
Xochitl
I just saw, you know, people.
00:07:58
Xochitl
Older than my mom and my aunt who were also family, treat my mom and my aunt the same way and they really didn't like it. They had kind of forgotten that staple of Mexican culture in a way, and they had remembered to do it to me, but they had kind of forgotten what it was like for it to be done to them. And so it I think it's an aspect of culture that you see.
00:08:18
Xochitl
In a lot of cultures I know that this is a staple in some East Asian cultures. I know that this can happen. African cultures as well.
00:08:23
Jack
Yeah, there is like that.
00:08:26
Xochitl
UM, but it's definitely a difficult.
00:08:31
Xochitl
Uh, aspect of the culture to grapple with, and it's something that makes me uncomfortable. I really hope when I'm older that I don't push you around or boss around the younger generation or feel that I'm superior just because I have more experience. There is benefits to having more experience. I think that there's since we can respect from someone who is older than us and has more experience.
00:08:51
Xochitl
But I do believe in mutual respect and mutual appreciation, appreciating things those people do for you, appreciating things that them and them appreciating things you do for them as well.
00:09:03
Jack
It's like you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. It's like if you treat treat them and lovingly and and they they'll want to take care of you. It's not instead of just saying like you will take care of me. I'm, you know, bossing you around, telling you what to do. You could do it in a much nicer way. It's it's like it's.
00:09:07
Xochitl
Yes, yes.
00:09:13
Xochitl
Right.
00:09:17
발표자
Right.
00:09:23
Jack
It's it's it's kind of an interesting thing because I think in Korea, maybe they they have the same situation.
00:09:28
Jack
Where when you're younger, you get abused, you know, by the older people. But then once you're the older people, then you get to abuse younger people. It's like somebody needs to stop this cycle of abuse, you know, like, let's just cut the, you know, cut it off and just be nice to each other, you know? But it's just it's not.
00:09:37
Xochitl
Few.
00:09:38
Xochitl
Yeah.
00:09:41
Xochitl
Right.
00:09:49
Jack
It's very hard to change culture. Culture is.
00:09:53
Jack
It's it's it's it's like a bullet train, you know, like it's got so much, uh, weight and and power behind it. It's very hard to stop it and.
00:09:54
Xochitl
Very instilled.
00:10:02
Jack
Slow it down, you know.
00:10:05
Xochitl
Another thing that I dislike about Mexican culture is that I feel that we can be really xenophobic. And it's strange because we have. We're a multicultural country, we have Jewish people, we have people of African descent that came across on the slave ships. We have people of East Asian descent. We have people of Southeast Asian.
00:10:26
Xochitl
Designed of of South Asian to.
00:10:28
Xochitl
And of course, we are a nation of Native Americans, and we have.
00:10:35
Xochitl
European ancestry as well due to colonization, but.
00:10:42
Xochitl
We sometimes in Mexican culture take a hostile attitude towards.
00:10:47
Xochitl
People who are from different cultures, that there's there's a lot of hostility sometimes towards.
00:10:55
Xochitl
Immigrants in a way. Uh and.
00:10:59
Xochitl
It's weird. It's kind of weird behavior. It reminds me a little bit of of how uh, Korea isn't my culture, so I'm not trying to get docs here, but I do remember when I went there there was a completely different treatment, how I was treated versus how my black coworker was treated.
00:11:18
Jack
Hmm.
00:11:19
Xochitl
And.
00:11:20
Xochitl
It was painful to watch her, like, go to the bank and then get rejected versus I basically got VIP treatment. When I walked into the bank and it's just I feel that sometimes we're somewhere in Mexico. There's a huge aspect of colorism that comes from the colonial hierarchy, because, of course, the Spanish were white, were at the.
00:11:40
Xochitl
Top.
00:11:40
Xochitl
Indigenous people were kind of in the mid range and then black people were at the bottom of the cultural hierarchy and then there was a.
00:11:48
Xochitl
Hierarchy for every single different mix and a name for every single different mix that you could get from any of those.
00:11:55
Xochitl
So I think unfortunately.
00:11:59
Xochitl
That caste system does bleed through in colorism that we see in modern day Mexico and in how we think and perceive learners. And I also think another part that's similar with Korean culture as well is that we were colonized nation. So sometimes we.
00:12:18
Xochitl
We value the preservation of our culture very strongly, but that can come out in the wrong way too. And it's a beautiful thing. But it's something that.
00:12:32
Xochitl
We need to recognize our influences from other cultures in every aspect of any culture in the world.
00:12:37
Jack
Yeah, too much patriotism can be a little bit. Yeah. I don't know what you would call it. Ethnocentrism or something like that.
00:12:43
Xochitl
Yeah.
00:12:46
Xochitl
Yeah, like ethnocentrism. And it's kind of invented because.
00:12:51
Xochitl
Uh, you can hear African beats in traditional Mexican music. You can hear hear the tacos that we eat. Some of them are fashioned after Middle Eastern immigrants do.
00:12:56
Jack
Sure.
00:13:07
Xochitl
Chinese immigrants made a lot of cultural impact. They were the second biggest immigrant immigrant group after the Spanish to Mexico, and so.
00:13:15
Jack
Hmm.
00:13:18
Xochitl
Yeah, I think we need to appreciate all of that diversity in a respectful way.
00:13:25
Jack
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting to hear you talk like that because you know, as an American, we we, you know, have have obviously recently in the news heard about.
00:13:37
Jack
The immigrants coming across the Mexican border into America being treated really, really poorly.
00:13:45
Xochitl
Yeah.
00:13:46
Jack
And and and and judged and and considered lower class citizens. And all this sort of stuff. Right and.
00:13:55
Xochitl
Thanks.
00:13:57
Jack
And to hear that that same thing occurs in Mexico as well, it's kind of it's kind of surprising, you know, because you think like ohh, if you're the victim of it, then you'll never be the perpetrator of the same behavior. But it's that's not true you.
00:14:03
Xochitl
Yeah.
00:14:13
Jack
No. Yeah, I think. And also I mean, for being honest, like a lot of gun violence in Mexico is a symptom of all the guns that we make in America and and, you know, and the.
00:14:25
발표자
OK.
00:14:30
Xochitl
Yep, Yep.
00:14:34
Jack
And the if you're talking about cartel money or things like that, a lot of that money comes from drugs they sell in America because Americans have an insatiable.
00:14:45
Jack
Need and and lust for drugs. So it's like, you know, it's a very toxic relationship, you know, between the two countries. And so those are the aspects of the the culture that I really I I I agree with you 100% I I wish that we could somehow solve these problems you know.
00:14:48
Xochitl
Yes.
00:15:04
Xochitl
Yeah. All right, listen as well, if you have something that you would like to share that you hate about your own culture or strongly dislike.
00:15:11
Xochitl
Make sure to leave a comment down below at A-Z englishpodcast.com shoot us an e-mail at at ozenglishpodcast@gmail.com. We love to read, listen our emails. We can read them on the podcast without mentioning your name. Is that something that you would like or you would be interested in? So don't be shy about sending emails. We really do enjoy.
00:15:31
Xochitl
Reading them here on the pod and reading listener.
00:15:34
Xochitl
Join the WeChat and WhatsApp groups to join the conversation and we will see you guys next.
00:15:38
Xochitl
Time. Bye bye.
00:15:39
Jack
Bye.
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