Culture in Everyday Life Essay

I experienced culture thump about 7 years ago, when I became friends with a Philippine woman. Her name is Christeen Humangnan she was born and raised in the Philippines. It wasnt until Christeen was 14 years old, that she moved to the United States. She would tell me how spoiled we are as Americans. She received in the Philippines without electricity, a television, and rarely had money for new shoes.Although those wonts are different from ours in the United States, there is one culture she pr consummationices that stood out. It is called pagmamano. Pagmamano is a Filipino culture that has survived the quantifys and foreign influences. This is the practice of respect by asking for an elders hand and touches ones forehead while bowing. One unremarkably asks by saying Mano po. Mano po translates to may I have your hand please. In return, the elder blesses the person. In the Filipino culture the elderly, refer to parents and grandparents, cousins, or close family friends. It is usu ally done when one visits a family, when come across these people outside of the homes or after a religious activity. It is also common to bring children to their godparents during Christmas time to pay respect with this custom.I found this custom in the Filipino culture to be disgraceful to me because, I have never seen it done before. I also see so many children act disrespectfully to their elders in this country, so it was a blessing in my eyes to see the elderly macrocosm respected. Now that I have nameed of pagmamano, I participate, and have taught my own children the meaning of this culture. We do non use it in our own culture, but whenever we visit my friend Christeen and her family, we show enough respect to her and her family by participating in pagmamano.I would say that the value assumption was slightly an issue when I set-backlearned of this practice. I thought to myself, this is not the Philippines, we dont do that here. After seeing the custom in person and how r espectful the adolescents are to their elders, I realized I was wrong. I was happy to learn of it and see the children learning respect. You dont see many American children show this type of respect. Since cultural relativism supports the theory that there is no absolute right and wrong.Instead, the morals, standards and behaviors that vary among cultures must be taken into consideration. I was wrong to assume that pagmamano should be practiced in the Philippines. I think it is a great itinerary to show respect. At first I thought to myself, thats weird Then, I realized that we do weird things too. She considers some of the things we do as weird, when we considered it normal. We just have to accept the fact that we all live together in this country that participates and allows different cultures. I am thankful that I learned of the pagmamano culture, and I respect it.