Something like culture and monkeys...

"Culture is about everything what we do and the monkeys do not"

At my university in The Netherlands we talk a lot about culture. Every time I ask myself: What is culture? When I talked about culture in my home country, I only recognized my own culture. In the first weeks here in Copenhagen I realized that i only have (real) knowledge and experience about my own culture. But I also realized that I can't give a definition of culture that fits me! I started searching for stories on the Internet about culture and founded a 'monkey story.' It was a weird comparison between humans and monkeys. It told about the habits and strongholds of humans, because a lot of people have a routine. For me there was a connection with our discussion about the habits and when something is culture. And I thought about that our culture is in a lot of small things. It depends of many factors and it is something dynamic. To go back to monkey story, they claimed that there is one 'monkey-culture'. But now I developed my own theory about culture, I can say: That's not true! Because the 'yoran-theory' says that culture is in a lot of small things. There are 242 different kinds of monkeys and I can promise you, they don't have the same culture!

Cultural meeting
When we did the practical visits, we visited a after school care facility. I was surprised by the long day of the children. They had to do school, after school facility and most of the times sports or hobbies. So the children are busy! I had to thought about the children I worked with at my internship. It was quit the same. Only we don't have something like an after school facility, we have longer school days. At my internship we sometimes complained that the children are bored and had to do some sports. But now I am thinking: why do they have to be so busy? Ofcourse if they get bored, they could do something. But a child is still a child and sometimes they just hang around! Nowadays we always want them to be busy, it's like a habit. You can think of a lot of reasons why it is good to do sports or hobbies, but don't ask to much of the children.
My internship is for me my 'future work.' I like the work and i am thinking about to apply their for a job. If I would work their, then I will think more about habits. Why do I ask this from a child or what are his habits? What are my habits and how does it influence my expectations? I realized that culture and habits are connected and these habits influence our expectations or thoughts.

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