trip to mexico

Last night while i was looking at pictures from when i went to Mexico for the summer i was thinking about how different it is from the United States. To begin with when i first got there my cousins invited me to go to a type of flee market with them while i was at the flee market i got a ton of stares from people. At one point my cousins had to use the restroom and asked me if i needed to use it i said yes so i went along with them. When i went into the bathroom there was a women standing near the door like some kind of a guard. I kept walking until she stopped me and told me i had to pay to go to the bathroom. I looked at my cousin and asked her "is she serious?" My cousin said yes so i payed and she gave me toilet paper. This is an example of culture shock because i was shocked that i had to pay to use the restroom and in exchange they would give me toilet paper. When we went to go eat at a restaurant i ordered tacos for myself and the waitress said, "oh no salsa for you right?" I answered yes i want salsa on my tacos. This is an example of Ethnocentrism because the waitress that took my order looked surprised when i said i wanted salsa because she thought since i was not from Mexico i didn't like salsa on my tacos.

  i chose the american flag because it is our country flag and people show pride that they are americans by wearing the colors on fourth of july and are proud to be americans.

 I chose the statue of liberty because it is a symbol of freedom and diversity because we are a country of different races and cultures and we all come together to form one country.

I chose the money sign because americans are very materialistic.

i chose traffic lights because americans are always in a hurry to get somewhere

shopping

Today after school i went to the mall to try to look for a homecoming dress at the fox valley mall. I was walking into different stores to try to look for a nice dress but i couldn't really find a dress in one store i went. While i was on my way to look into a different store a guy who works at one of the stands outside of the stores came up to me and asked me questions on straightening my hair. He was trying to sell me a "special" straightener that would curl and straighten my hair. He said it cost two-twenty but that he would sell it to me for one hundred and twenty. As he was trying to convince me to buy the straightener he used very weird ways to persuade me to buy the straightener. He kept telling me to hold the straightener so that i would have the temptation to buy it. His technique of trying to persuade me where not good at all. I kept asking him how much the straightener was and he just kept saying the price doesn't matter look how nice it leaves your hair.
    It made me realize that as we are learning in class right now American culture is. Americans when they try to sell you something anything they try their hardest to make you buy it.. They use language that will persuade you to fall into temptation and buy it. Even thought they know the product is not so good they have to make people make buys so that their business goes good. This shows how our culture is a pop culture because we  are propagated by media. we look at the t.v., malls, and decide the things we purchase.

Article of german journalist

1. What Stefan finds strange about American culture is that the average American jogs a lot. H e finds it strange that Americans jog anywhere at any time of day and in very hot weather too. He finds it strange that americans wake up as early as 5 a.m. just to jog. He doesnt understand why americans don't mind running in dense car traffic where they cant help but take deep breaths of exhaust fumes.

2. Stefan finds jogging strange because where he comes from they don't jog as much let alone jog by themselves.Germans would rather play sports. they think if you are going to sweat whats the point of doing it alone. They have always thought  america as a land of cars and riders, the modern , steering wheel kind of cowboys.

3. one american value that i could relate is sports in mexico. many people in mexico are big in sports especially soccer. Soccer is very important to people in mexico many become professional soccer players.

On Saturday morning i had to go to work i work at a grocery store. Being a cashier u see a lot of things that customers do that they don't realize themselves that they are in a public place where anyone can see what they are doing. While i was helping one of the cashiers bag the customer that she was charging had two more gallons of milk at the bottom of the cart. I was not sure if i should say something to the cashier because i was not sure if she had already ringed up the milk or not. In my head i thought if i say something and if the cashier already ringed up the milk than i would end up looking like i was accusing her of stealing the milk. I was in a situation that i didn't know what to do. So i finally thought about it and i decided to tell the cashier that she had two more gallons of milk at the bottom of the cart.
The experience that i had on Saturday reminded me of the video clip that we were watching in Sociology class about how people at the beach were confused on what to do when you are put in a situation where you don't know what to do if someone's things are being stolen. Each person thinks differently and reacts differently when put into a certain situation.One of the sociologist i think this situation relates to is to what Max Weber believes. What Max Weber believes is that to understand someone you have to walk in their shoes. I think i got a pretty good idea to what many people in the video clip of "What would you do"were thinking in their head when i was at work.