My Cultural Identity in New Zealand

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INTRODUCTION

Culture is the main source of influence when it comes to perspectives, values, decisions and choices. Every country has its own distinctive beliefs, ways of thinking and manner of doing things, all of these peculiar factors put together is what makes up a country’s culture identity. Living in a multicultural country, we meet different people everyday with different cultures from us and it is highly important to be able to discover or meet at a certain point when differences, misunderstandings or disagreements happen. There is no better way of settling differences by learning to respect and see things from the other person’s point of view and the only way for us to achieve this is by learning and understanding about the other cultures that exists in New Zealand. By doing this, cultural barriers could be easily settled and better relationships with other cultures and people could be built. In this report I will talk about my culture which is the Filipino culture and my diverse population which is the South African Culture by trying to find the similarities, differences and meeting point in both cultures.

The Philippines was originally colonised by the Spaniards during 1521 which went on for 333 years, followed by the Japanese and the Americans. With this being said, the true culture in the Philippines was gradually taken over by our colonisers predominantly by the Spaniards. Despite being influenced by other cultures, Filipinos believe that we were still able to manage to preserve some of our important traditional culture, values and attitudes.

VALUES

Values are one of the essentials that completes the idea of ‘culture.’ Combining values and actions results to becoming a norm. Filipinos are widely known for a lot of positive and negative values some of which were adapted from our colonisers. However the two well-known value of Filipinos are; hospitality and being family-oriented people.

Hospitable

If guests were to arrive in their house, a huge feist would be held in order to make their guests feel at home, entertained and special. They would offer their bedrooms to make them feel comfortable and even make them meals throughout their stay. In instances where their guests are from other countries, Filipinos would take a “leave” from work in order to accommodate them and tour them around their area to show different sceneries and tourist spots.

Family-Centred

Filipinos would always celebrate special and big events with both their nuclear and extended families. Filipinos are very Patriarchal and most final decisions are made by the father. In every decision that is made the family must be involved as well as we believe that they would be able to help and guide us. We value our family and we believe that our way of thanking our parents for all their sacrifices for us is by taking care of them until their old age.

ATTITUDES

Some of the well known-attitudes that Filipinos possess are; helpfulness, showing respect at all times and exercising faith in God through different circumstances.

Helpful

Since the beginning Filipinos have always valued the attitude of “bayanihan” which means “helping hand,” and you’d see this in Filipinos all the time. No matter what time of the day it is or no matter how busy one Filipino is when you need a helping hand one would always be willing to spare time to help.

Respectful

Another attitude that Filipinos possess is the attitude of being respectful. Filipinos believe that we are to show respect to everyone around us especially the el

ders no matter what the situation is. In our eyes we are to value what the elders have to say and since they are “older” and “wiser” and that they know what’s best for us which gives us no room to answer them back.

Faith

Another attitude that Filipinos latch on to is their Christian faith. After being colonised by the Spaniards and the introduction of Catholicism to us it has been carried out throughout the years making the Philippines the 5th largest Catholic/Christian country. With this being said most decisions of Filipinos and the country itself are based on the Catholic belief and decisions that are outside or against the belief usually end up being controversial and rejected.

Experience Filipino Culture in New Zealand

There are lots of ways to experience the Filipino Culture in New Zealand given that the Filipino population is consistently growing in the country. One way to experience the Filipino Culture is by going to the restaurant named Boracay, they serve authentic Filipino dishes there and the set up of the restaurant is exactly gives you a “welcome to the Philippines” vibe as if it designed just like every restaurant in the Philippines. Another way to experience the culture here is by going to different Filipino Churches. Day by Day Christian Ministry is one of the well-known Filipino churches here. One of their church ministry is called “Kaloob,” which is a dance ministry and in this ministry they are taught different Filipino Cultural Dances and are dressed in Filipino costumes. They have also been representing the Filipino Community in different events are expected to perform in this year’s Auckland International Cultural Event.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Prezi.(2015).Retrieved from: https://prezi.com/slh_l0abnkbb/values-and-attitudes-of-filipinos/
Me and us.(nd).Retrieved from: https://www.me-and-us.co.uk/psheskills/bva.html
Filipiknow.(nd).Retrieved from: https://filipiknow.net/negative-traits-of-filipinos/
Philstar.(2018).Retrieved from: https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2018/12/05/1874239/philippines-a-great-catholic-nation-pope-says

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