You only truly observe your culture once you have been exposed to another.

This is an idea
that I came upon and that never really made sense to me until just recently. This is saying that
when you have lived with a certain set of norms and values your entire life, you dont really
notice most of them - you take them for granted. For example, as a young man in the Colorado
in 2016, you link being good looking with being athletic, with a strong upper body and well
developed abs. Have you ever stopped and thought about why that connection is made?
The concept of unconscious socialization is the bread and butter of sociologists. Another thing
that sociologists agree on is that culture is dynamic and being slightly altered from generation to
generation. Since the most recent common ancestor is thought to have lived in the second
millennium BCE, humans have had about four thousand years of spreading out around the
globe; and given that our culture varies from generation to generation, that has been more than
160 cultural changes in different directions for different groups of people.
To see just how different we are, look at it this way. Language is a direct effect of socialization
and just look how different the languages from across the globe are. The Mexicans for instance
have only been separate from Spain for about 100 years and already their language has varied
from that of Spain considerably. Then look at the differences between the English and the
Chinese languages. American English and chinese share less than 20 words that you would
ever hear in normal conversation and more than half of those are pertaining to martial arts and
food. True, they are on opposite sides of the globe, but the longest ago they could have split off
from each other is four thousand years ago. The astounding difference in language over that
amount of time just shows how quickly the culture of a group of people can evolve drastically.
Because of the difference between the culture from country to country, it would make sense that
if you are submerged into another culture you would immediately pick out what was different
than in the country where you learned how to behave. You might find certain things unusual or
odd. These realizations could lead you to reflect on why this countrys norms are different from
your country of origin. This would be observing your own culture.
I recently got to observe my own culture when I traveled to Holland and back with my dad this
spring. In looking at the differences between America and Holland, I noticed a few key
differences. Among these were language, proximity and housing arrangements, exercise and
relationship to the outdoors and natural resources. The differences I noticed in these areas and
others were drastic, even though I was only comparing two first-world countries that are very
similar.
The most obvious change that I noticed was the language, but not maybe for the reasons you
think. Sure there were a lot of people speaking Dutch, an entirely different language from
English and an obvious difference in their socialization from mine, them growing up with
different words and grammatical system, but there was something even stranger to me. Almost
everyone was at least bi lingual; speaking both Dutch and English. I was shocked, because in
America it is rare for your average person to be even close to bi lingual, but in Holland, I met an
eight-year-old boy that was a capable-enough English speaker to carry out a slow conversation.

This far passes what someone in 9th grade in a very good schooling system that had mandated
spanish lessons from grade 6 could probably do for more than a minute without getting lost. In
observing this, I realized that Americans always assume that they are going to be the center of
attention, and thus feel no need to learn other languages if others will simply learn theirs. Most
Americans, however, dont even realize that they are not learning other languages such as
spanish or mandarin because they are always guaranteed to be having interactions with people
that either speak English or live where you wouldnt have to go looking for very long to find a
translator that would be more than happy to translate into English.
One of the other things that stuck out to me almost as much as the altering languages, was the
Dutch relationship to the conservation of space. Looking out the window as you fly into the
amsterdam airport, you notice that the Dutch have their outdoor space compartmentalized down
to the inch. Notice: Holland is about 236 times smaller than the US, sitting at about sixteen
thousand square miles (41440 km2). This means that they have to use space to its full
advantage. When you see Holland from above, you immediately are able to pick out a few
distinct sections to the land. One of those sections is city. The cities are comprised of many
neighborhoods with usually a part of the city designated for shops and restaurants. Another
section is the fields. We arrived a little late into the growing season, but you could distinctly see
where a diverse number of crops accentuated with tulips were grown. These fields are located
directly outside of the cities, with boundary being abrupt. The last big section is the wilderness.
We recently ran into a couple of young travelers from spain that said that it was incredible how
much open space there is in America. There couldnt possibly be that much open space in
Holland because of their size constraint, but they come close. With the land being very
sectioned off, it leaves as much room as possible for wilderness.
The polar opposite to this neatly sectioned land management, was when I flew over houston on
the way to the houston international airport. First, we were flying over rural texas, with farmland
and the occasional small cluster of homes. Slowly, this became a massive sprawl of suburbs
where each person was constantly trying to have more land than his neighbor or a bigger house
or more cars etc. This was extremely revealing about how I have been socialized as an
American. There has constantly been more than enough space in America, so we have
adapted to it like a gas or an invasive weed. If there is space, we fill it. Because of that, we
now have a social system that associates status with how much material wealth you have. This
is often in the form of lots of land and cars and expensive houses. We hoard stuff for the sake
of stuff. This is the opposite of Holland. There, they have little enough space, so each person,
no matter of their economic status or their importance in society, only slightly bigger than its
neighbors and is packed in along side dozens of others.
Another big difference that I noticed between America and Holland, was linking maintaining a
good body image and excessive amounts of exercise. Ever hear the words stay fit? Living in
durango colorado, that is a mantra that is ingrained into your soul. To be up to the social par,
you need to have a physique that is perfect and be exercising normally. Having grown up with
this, I accepted it as just another fact, but in Holland, I got to see a different side of it. As you
live in durango colorado, you need to build you life around staying fit, or at least make space for

it in your daily routine. In Holland, this is entirely not the case. I saw no evidence of people
taking time out of their day to exercise. On top of that, I also didnt see a single obese person
during my entire stay. This struck me as odd, until I realized that even though their day wasnt
built around exercise, exercise is built into their days.
A good example of this is their use of biking as a core mode of transportation. Because of their
very compartmentalized land management, nobody ever has very far to go to get to either the
center of town where most of the shops and grocery stores are, or a train station. This made it
so that biking is simply the easiest way to get where you want to go. On top of that, there are
some cities that are the same as they were when they were first built, so you literally couldnt fit
a car in the streets. Because of people adapting to biking nearly everywhere, Holland also
adapted to make that possible for everyone. The bike paths go alongside the roads, but they
are separated and the bike paths are like their own mini road. Also, at nearly every train station
or popular public place, there are places to rent bikes. The bikes that are available are also
made for maximum user ease and comfort. They are cruiser bikes that make it so you can sit
up straight and often have baskets attached to the handle bars. Since these stations are all the
same company, it makes it so that you could pick up a bike near your house and ride down to
the train station to drop it off, then pick one up at the trainstation on your way back home. This
easy access to bikes and other forms of public transportation is reflected in how the Dutch
expect there to be such stations as to pick up or drop off a bike and rely on that as a core mode
of transportation.
The relative flip-side of this is Durango. Many people see Durango as a biking central of
southwest Colorado, so it is fitting that I would compare biking in Durango to biking in Holland.
When you think about biking in Durango, you dont ever immediately jump to transportation.
Even though Durango is a relatively small city, everybody owns and regularly uses a car. That
said, nearly everybody owns at least one bike. Why then is it that people in Durango dont use
biking as a mode of transportation more? It is probably because people in Durango link biking
with exercise. This means that people are constantly using their car for transportation and then
having to make time in their days for biking, instead of using their bike for transportation and
staying in shape at the same time.
Seeing as sociology is the study of what people take for granted and what they expect to occur
in their day-to-day lives, it is fitting that there should be concrete differences in the norms from
culture to culture based on what is available. As I mentioned above when I said that due to
geographic constraints and availability of natural resources, the people of America see the
amount of land and stuff that you possess as a sign of your status and wealth, while a 2800
square foot house in Holland on a quarter acre of land - the norm for most suburban
developments of average households - is virtually unheard of. The Dutch express their wealth
in different ways, such as their clothes and the food they eat. Also because of the fact that most
of Holland is flat and hovering at around sea level, it makes it so that transportation by bike and
train is not only possible, but in fact easier than driving your own car. With one thing leading to
another, it leads people in Holland to see it as normal for one to not own a car and still be able

to live quite comfortably, as well as become inclined to see an overabundance of land and
wealth as unnecessary.
Just by traveling to another country, then coming back and consciously reflecting, I was able to
see the differences of culture and thus how I have been socialized. What better way to
experience the true meaning of socialization, than by simply observing yourself through the
eyes of another?
dia, devices, internet, etc.