How culture influences who you are

How does culture influence who you are? Does it influence who you are at all? What exactly is culture? Loosely, culture refers to the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time. But how much of an influence on how you and I live, learn, and behave does culture have? Is someone from the U.S. completely different from someone who was born in Italy just because they grew up in different cultures?

It is impossible to say how many cultures exist in the world. Using languages as an indicator, you could assume that there exist around 5,000-6,000 distinct cultures worldwide. In Europe alone, you can find more than 160 different cultures, and that doesn’t even account for regional cultural differences. But are we all that different just because we were born in different places?

My life has taught me about the impact that birthplace or place of residence has on our lives: I am a German living in the United States. I have traveled to more than 30 countries. I lived in Germany, Brazil and Spain. I have family and friends all over the world. I thought about some experiences I had and was astonished about how different we actually are.

Born and raised in West Germany in the mid-eighties, I was a kid when the wall was torn down and democratic West Germany and communist East Germany reunified to form the Federal Republic of Germany. Years later, I talked to my friend who had moved from former East Germany to my city and came to talk to me about some issues she was having at the job she recently started. She mentioned that she could feel her boss becoming frustrated with all the questions she was asking before finishing a project because she feared to take the initiative. “I need to reassure that what I am doing is right, it confuses me not being explicitly told what to do” she said to me. We were discussing where this insecurity might come from, so she told me her story: In East Germany it was completely normal that babies would go to daycare at three months old. As she saw it, this was the government’s way of injecting communist ideas into generations of kids very early on. She explained, after seeing a confused look on my face, “I was told what to do from the age of 3 months until I was 7 and then everything rapidly changed. They opened the wall, there was a new government and it seemed like my parents were completely lost not knowing how to work and do anything without asking for permission. Their previous everyday-life had been organized in detail before the reunification,” she said. “They were never free and were always told what and how to do it”. But this is also how they felt comfortable and safe. Even today her parents would never travel to different places. They go to the same hotel every year where a daily senior program is offered. They know what to expect there, and that is exactly what they want. She mentioned that even though she has been living in Germany for more than 15 years now and was only 7 years old when the wall came down, she inherited her parents’ fear; the fear of making independent decisions. She is insecure about how she does things. She is cautious. She would never travel to a foreign country. That would scare her. We lived together in the same country but the way we were brought up—in and around different lifestyles, a different education system, and different institutions—made us into completely different people. 

But is it the culture which makes us different? Scientists agree that “natural” factors such as landscapes, climate, flora, and fauna as well as the available natural resources also influence our ways of living. 

Well, that makes sense. I lived in Brazil. Yes, a German in Brazil. It couldn’t be more opposing. While living in Rio de Janeiro, I was asking myself, “why are people so relaxed and laid back? Do they not make plans for the evening, the next day, and, even more importantly, for the weekend?” As a German, I want to know exactly what is going on in the upcoming hours of my day and, ideally, how the whole week and the month will look like. I was wondering, “Why do all my Brazilian friends live life one day at a time?” Even if we would agree on meeting at 7pm at Ipanema beach, I would be the strange “gringa” (slang for a foreign female in Latin America) sipping on coconut water all by herself (to be fair, most of the time it was a delicious caipirinha) until my friends would show up around 9 pm. I was there at 6:55pm! They wouldn’t have any excuses, because that is just their way of life.

 My Dad came up with an interesting conclusion: they have everything they need falling from a tree and they can just eat it straight away and it has always been like that. Their terrain and climate have always been sustainable for agriculture. Next to common fruits such as mango, papaya, and pineapple, there are approximately 3,000 fruits in Brazil. Let’s say that, in most but not all places, people didn’t have to worry about the day’s food. In Germany, due to a much colder climate, people had to harvest in fall and stock up their pantry for the upcoming winter. They had to store not only potatoes, grains and wheat, but also firewood to keep their home warm. We needed to survive a cold winter. That is why we plan things. And I guess that seems accurate. The environment has a big influence on culture and yes, culture does have an impact on the way we are! My making plans for the future, being overly organized and foreseeing things, seems to be an inherited trait that I gained through during my childhood in Germany.

Now I live in the United States and if you think that two Western countries would have the same culture and the same habits, I am going to disappoint you. I am so different from some of my dear friends. For example, I used to hate small talk when I got here. I spent days staring at the ground while passing people at the mall who were trying to ask me how I am or why I have chosen this kind of coffee only to have a conversation. WHY??? Why do you guys need to have conversations with strangers all the time? I was so annoyed at first and was often thinking: “Do you really care how I am doing today? If not, please don’t ask!” But over the years I started liking it. 

Eventually I caught myself finding it kind of rude if someone wouldn’t ask me how I was or why I had chosen a bagel instead of a muffin at Starbucks. The other day I went to Target and yelled at the guys working in the front “Howdy! How are y’all doing?” I caught myself thinking, “Oh my gosh, I am becoming an American… I guess it’s pretty easy to adapt to a foreign culture…”

Due to my personal experience, I absolutely believe that culture influences who you are, what you do and how you do it. Isn’t that amazing? We can actually learn from each other. Trying to understand why someone is doing something very differently inspires me to be more empathetic. It is especially necessary to understand each other in today’s climate because this process highlights the roots of and reactions to our fears, gradually leading us to overcome them.

Globalization has brought cultural diversity into everyone’s lives. It is important that we not only embrace it, but also learn from it and use it as a platform to unite and grow, despite all of our differences.