This week I’d like to dive deeper into island culture and how it has directly impacted my life. Above is a picture of some standard fishing boats off the shore of Malta. Malta is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and is the 10th smallest country in the world. They have a whopping 122 square miles of land consisting of three separate islands, the first is known as Malta which in my experience is the younger more updated side of the three. Next is Gozo which is full of old churches, and other historical buildings. Last, is the island of Comino that contains a place called the Blue Lagoon which is a massive tourist attraction as it contains some of the most clear waters you can see on Earth.

What brings me to Malta is that my Father was born here in 1943. He lived here for about 8 years before taking a three week trip on a boat to come to the U.S. through Ellis Island. He traveled with just his Mother and 9 siblings. His Father came through a year earlier to get settled in as he had a friend who was already doing well here in the states and offered him a job. Eventually upon arriving things went well for them and they built a home in Michigan that my Father purchased after my Grandmothers passing. Luckily my Father is still in good health and in 2018 my wife and I, along with 3 out of 6 of my brothers planned and went on a trip back to Malta and it was my Fathers first time back since he was a child. His memory as an eight year old was amazingly intact as he led us through the streets to his old home and to the nearby bay where his Dad would fish for a living. We even got in touch with some of his cousins who still live there and they treated to a couple fantastic meals.

As we learned in our recent lesson, on islands, fishing tends to be something the culture revolves around (“Island Culture”, 2020). For my Grandfather fishing was his ticket into the U.S. and he used a boat like the ones pictured above to do it. According to my Dad he would take a couple of his boys out with him to help with the fish and keep him company. However, one key thing that you had to know before you could go fishing with him, was how to swim. Remembering that this was probably around 1949-50 my Dad recalls being tossed into the bay off the dock and had to learn to swim quick. To note, it probably has nothing to do with trauma as a child but my Father hates the water and boats to this day along with all of his brothers who are all well into their 70’s now.

My experience in Malta was definitely different than my Father’s original and I think he has better memories of the place now even though he does think fondly back at his childhood, and I’m sure he’d tell you himself that nearly drowning has nothing to do with his irrational fear of the water. The food there was great but if you don’t like seafood then your options are slightly limited. Next if you say you don’t like rabbit then I’ll tell you they have McDonalds and KFC and many more so you’ll be A-okay. In my opinion, and I cringe a little bit saying it, but it tastes like chicken. Definitely a noticeable difference in the gamey flavor of the meat but overall I recommend trying it if you ever visit. Another interesting thing about the culture in Malta that I found out while visiting is that they use to be a British Colony so just like most countries in Europe, English is their second language. However, their English is extremely fluent and a lot of times as I would talk to someone I noticed  a British accent.

References:

Island Culture. Psu.instructure.com. (2020). Retrieved 20 April 2020, from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2041071/modules/items/27977878.

 

As we seem to be in the limelight of this pandemic currently, it’s kind of mind boggling to think of how and why we got to this point. We had all the warning signs. Most importantly, we had the opportunity to watch other countries go through it before us. We watched as their infectious rates went up, followed by their death counts. We also got to see how they fought against it and although it seems a bit too early, we got to see China begin to win.

Our own first world country is now struggling to fight off this corona virus and it’s apparent that our own leaderships blatant disregard for our safety is to blame. I could write papers and papers about how our president is the number one suspect of showcasing ethnocentric behavior front and center. However, instead of putting my personal bias in the way, I would rather talk about Mexico and how they somehow are following in out footsteps.

Mexico for some odd reason has also decided that this virus is not a real threat. Their own president is quoted saying, “Live life as usual” in a video uploaded to Facebook on March 22, as well as, ““If you’re able and have the means to do so, continue taking your family out to eat … because that strengthens the economy” (Ward). Not only has our president said things scarily similar but it seems the trend is that our economy comes first, and the people second.

I am merely 28 years old and in good health, so if I contract the virus, I have a great chance at fighting it off. My concern is for my parents, specifically my father who is turning 79 this year. I live across the country from him as he is in Michigan and I’m in Idaho. My brother on the other hand is currently living with him and thankfully his work is allowing him to stay at home. My biggest fear is that he contracts it and I won’t be able to even visit. It’s a real shame that so many of our leaders worldwide such as our own in the United States, Mexico, and even Brazil are not taking preventative measures and would rather a fire start to put it out, so to speak. I’m grateful that my family has not been directly impacted and I hope that any of you who are will be able to pull through.

Reference:

Ward, Alex. “Mexico Could Become The New Italy Of Coronavirus — Or Worse”. Vox, 2020, https://www.vox.com/2020/3/26/21193823/coronavirus-mexico-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-health-care.

Synergy is a term I learned early on in life as it was a buzz word in my family for a short while. As a ten-year-old I thought it was one the coolest words I had heard in my entire “lengthy” life as a child. I remember going to school and telling my friends about it, and they asked me what it meant. Being the center of attention and realizing the opportunity in front of me, I told them it was a way to say cool, just as any kid who was looking to be the new trendsetter in elementary school. I don’t recall how many days went on where I heard kids in the halls saying that they have synergy, but it was at least a week before a teacher corrected someone. At least you could say that my friends and I had some decent synergy on the subject of spreading false information, as harmless as it was. However, synergy as we know, “is a cooperative or combined action, and occurs when diverse or disparate individuals or groups collaborate for a common cause” (Abramson, Moran & Moran, 2014, p. 266). It’s been quite a long time since I was ten, (approximately 19 years) but now I hear the word more than ever before with video games and the evolution of the esports industry.

First, lets dive into video games. They’ve been around quite a long time now and are evolving every day at an extraordinary rate. One game in particular was huge in my teenage years and early twenties, this game was World of Warcraft. I was encapsulated by how you could control a character that you named with its own special abilities. Its genre is known as a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Another way to describe how this game works is that if you’ve ever played dungeons and dragons or even know about it then just picture actually being able to control every movement in that character within a video game. As the genre states, this game was massive. Millions of players and a hyper competitive player vs player environment. As I progressed being a competitive player myself, I wanted every advantage I could get. The first thing I did was start to search online, “who best works with a warrior?”. Then that fateful word showed up again, synergy. I immediately began playing with other class types like druids, or mages, who best synergized with my own class, the warrior. This went on for years and I was able to climb higher in the ranks simply due to my team having more synergistic qualities than another, it was my first real experience feeling what synergy really meant. What I didn’t realize at the time was that there was more to it than just picking an artificial character that worked well with you.

After a while I was tired of playing the same old game as it deteriorated in popularity and picked up a new one called League of Legends. This game caught my eye by how enormous its professional scene was. It can also be credited for the massive growth in esports that we’ve seen in recent years (Cook, 2009). It’s considered a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) and matches take place on what’s called the Rift in five versus five scenarios. The game is not simply about killing one another more than its about precise movements and team synergy. With my previous knowledge I was able to pick up this game and choose what are called champions that benefitted my team the most. As I mentioned earlier though, there is more to it than just picking the artificial character that worked best with your team. I was encapsulated by the professional players and began noticing what made the top teams the best. It wasn’t necessarily who picked the best team composition, but mostly who in real life could communicate with each other best and know each of their teammates strengths and weaknesses to pick up each other slack and carry them to victory.

In conclusion, synergy is more than what it looks like at face value. It has engrained itself in so many different aspects of our lives, from choosing a spouse to finding the right employees and all the way to choosing a character in a video game. As prevalent of a word this is in todays age maybe there’s a ten-year-old out there right now telling his friends what the word actually means.

 

References:

Abramson, N., Moran, R., & Moran, S. (2014). Managing cultural differences (8th ed., p. 266). Routledge.

Cook, C. (2009). Legislating from the Bench | Harvard Political Review. Retrieved 26 February 2020, from https://harvardpolitics.com/online/legislating-from-the-bench/

The coronavirus as you may well know is a deadly virus that has killed hundreds, infected thousands, and has quarantined millions (Lin & Niu, 2020). It’s quite scary how fast this disease is spreading and how close it is to us in the United States. My wife just visited California on work orders and instead of her staying on Travis Air Force Base like she normally would, she was designated to stay at the nearby Super 8 Motel. Why was she designated to a motel instead of being on base you ask? This is because Travis Air Force Base was using their hotel as a quarantine zone as well as the nearby hospital. A plane of 178 passengers landed on Travis Air Force Base and they were the quarantined subjects (Rambaran, 2020). This virus is unfortunately spreading rapidly and China’s lack of communication skills is to blame.

The epicenter of the virus is from a place called Wuhan, China. All of Wuhan has been recently quarantined which is at least 11 million people (Lin & Niu, 2020). However, this outbreak could have been prevented from spreading so rapidly. If China owned up to there being a new SARS-like virus outbreak then the problem could have been detained much sooner before it spread to the rest of the world. China has a policy that whenever there is an emerging problem they shut down all forms of media by gagging reporters and scrubbing the internet, this is done because “they mandate social stability above everything else” (Lin & Niu, 2020). It was 3 months into the SARS outbreak before China decided to make it public and begin to treat is as a major issue. This current coronavirus went for a month before they accepted that the public should know. If there is one thing China should be commended on is how they deal with problems once they’ve decided it’s a major issue.

It seems once China realizes that issue is above their heads they jump into action unlike any other country. They built an enormous hospital in just ten days, and was live streamed for the world to see. This sort of action is very commendable but it’s unfortunate that it takes so long before it occurs. Just last year in 2019 China suffered from the African swine fever, which became a national crisis and a global threat (Lin & Niu, 2020). It took the lives of an estimated 50% of China’s pig population, that’s roughly 300 million dead pigs with over 50 countries being impacted by the infection as well (Reiley, 2019). China has either yet to learn their lesson or simply doesn’t want to make the change to communicating faster and being more transparent.

With that said we must keep in mind that, “Two people can thus receive the same message and understand it as having two entirely different meanings” (Abramson, Moran & Moran, 2014, pp. 39). In this case there is a large difference in cultural norms, what we as Americans may view as something that is an immediate imminent threat, China may see it as another day with nearly 1.4 billion people and virus outbreaks will of course occur. It makes you wonder how many near outbreaks may have occurred that we never knew about because it was handled internally before it became an epidemic.

In conclusion, we must always keep in mind that other people may view things differently from our own point of view. If you think that others think the way you do or should think the way you do, you are being egocentric. This is an issue that we all have faced at some point in our lives and owning up to it is the a step in the right direction. What a lot of people don’t understand is China’s policy on social stability first but it’s apparent that it’s not changing in the near future. The best we can do is attempt to understand it, in my opinion with such a large population it would probably be a nightmare and cause unneeded stress on the Chinese population if every possible threat was met with a government outcry. I imagine trying to keep a population that large calm is an enormous task.

 

References

Abramson, N., Moran, R., & Moran, S. (2014). Managing cultural differences (8th ed., p. 39). Routledge.

Lin, T., & Niu, I. (2020). The coronavirus reveals China’s weakness in handling public health crises. Retrieved 8 February 2020, from https://qz.com/1796376/the-coronavirus-shows-how-badly-china-handles-public-health-crises/

Rambaran, V. (2020). Flight arrives in California from epicenter of coronavirus outbreak, 178 passengers will be quarantined. Retrieved 8 February 2020, from https://www.foxnews.com/us/flight-california-china-coronavirus-passengers-quarantined

Reiley, L. (2019). A terrible pandemic is killing pigs around the world, and U.S. pork producers fear they could be hit next. Retrieved 8 February 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/16/terrible-pandemic-is-killing-pigs-around-world-us-pork-producers-fear-they-could-be-next/