According to Samovar et al, perception is defined as the following: "The process of selecting, organizing and evaluating stimuli. We select (for evaluating purposes) only what is considered relevant or interesting. Information must be given structure before it can be interpreted. Information is processed and assigned meaning. Perception is strongly influenced by culture; the world is seen, heard, felt, tasted and smelt through the criteria that culture has placed on one’s perceptions. Perception is an important aspect of intercultural communication because people from dissimilar cultures frequently perceive the world differently. It is important to be aware of relevant socio-cultural elements that have a significant and direct influence on the meanings assigned to stimuli. These elements represent the beliefs, values, attitude systems and worldviews of a culture." (Samovar 13).
Values: Definition and Examples
"Values represent those things held important in life, such as morality, ethics and aesthetics; values are used to distinguish between the desirable and undesirable. Each person has a set of unique, personal values and a set of cultural values. Cultural values are a motivating force behind behavior." (Samovar 13).
Example 1:
Stem cell research
Stem cells are cells that can renew themselves over long periods by division and have the capacity to develop into individual or different cell types with specific characteristics (differentiation). Under suitable conditions all kinds of tissue can potentially be developed from stem cells. For this reason it is hoped that research on stem cells, coupled with a better understanding of the processes of development and how they may be controlled, may make it possible, by means of cell replacement, to cure diseases due to tissue defects. Examples of such diseases are neurodegenerative conditions, injuries to the spinal cord, diabetes mellitus, the sequelae of cardiac infarction and various forms of pathology affecting the haematopoietic (blood-producing) system.
Stem cells may be derived either from embryos in the first few days of their development (embryonic stem cells) or from certain tissues taken even from adult subjects (adult stem cells). It is not yet clear whether embryonic and adult stem cells are equally suitable, in terms of their potential capacity for development and multiplication, for cell and tissue replacement.
Particular ethical problems arise in connection with the derivation of embryonic stem cells because the technique results in the destruction of the embryos. The production of human embryonic stem cells is prohibited in the Federal Republic of Germany by the Embryo Protection Law.
The permissibility of using embryos for research purposes is a matter of political and social controversy. Although everyone agrees that the protection of human life is a primordial moral and constitutional concern, opinions differ on the protection to which human life is entitled during its early embryonic development.
The stem cells themselves are not embryos within the meaning of the Embryo Protection Law, as the general scientific presupposition today is that these cells are not totipotent but pluripotent - that is, they do not possess the capacity to develop into a human being. The import and use of embryonic stem cells for research purposes are to be regulated by a Stem Cell Law.
The National Ethics Council issued its first Opinion, on the import of embryonic stem cells, in December 2001.
http://www.ethikrat.org/_english/main_topics/stem_cell_research.html
Example 2:
The progress of modern medicine has substantially increased life expectancy and improved the quality of life. However, the possibility of the medical treatment of disease, the reduction of suffering and the prolongation of life may become a burden if the full panoply of high-technology intensive care is deployed in such a way that measures to prolong life are taken even at the cost of pointless drawing out of the process of dying and the imposition of suffering. Many people manifestly fear that such a fate might await them at the end of their lives and would prefer a non-lingering death without dependence on technical apparatus. It is precisely this ambivalence that makes the subject-matter of this Opinion so important. After all, now that conscious intervention in the process of dying is possible and indeed unavoidable, matters such as the taking of difficult and conflictual decisions in borderline situations at the end of life cannot be eschewed.
Dying is an individual process which, as such, cannot be removed from the sphere of the individual’s self-determination. At the same time, however, it involves a range of different ethical obligations, legal demands and religious expectations, which call for thorough discussion and evaluation in all their aspects.
The National Ethics Council has intensively discussed the issues involved in dealing responsibly with dying. It has perused a large volume of material, obtained expert opinions, consulted with doctors and other medical specialists, and held meetings in Augsburg and Münster at which it exposed itself to public debate. The outcome is enshrined in the Opinion now presented.
The Opinion "Self-determination and care at the end of life" continues the examination of the themes addressed in the Opinion "The advance directive" published in June 2005. The present analysis, in conjunction with the clarification of terminology here proposed, may facilitate interpretation of the recommendations set out in that Opinion.
http://www.ethikrat.org/_english/main_topics/end_of_life_care.html
Beliefs: Definition and Examples
"Beliefs can be defined as individually held subjective ideas about the nature of an object or event. These subjective ideas are a product of culture and directly influence the behavior of individuals." (Samovar 13).
The Evangelical Church is a unified Protestant church, which combines Lutherans, Reformed Protestants, and United Protestants. Reformed Protestants adhere to a form of Calvinism, while United Protestants combine aspects of Lutheranism and Calvinism. Other Protestant denominations make up only a small fraction of the population. Most German Catholics live in the Rhineland or in southern Germany, whereas Protestants dominate in northern and central parts of the country.
In 1933, there were over 500,000 people of Jewish faith or Jewish heritage living within the boundaries of the German Reich. Between 1933 and 1945, German Jews, together with members of the far more numerous Jewish populations of eastern Europe, fell victim to the anti-Semitic and genocidal policies of the National Socialists. In 1997, there are an estimated sixty-seven thousand people of Jewish faith or heritage living in Germany. The largest Jewish congregations are in Frankfurt am Main and Berlin.
In the postwar era, migratory workers or immigrants from North Africa and western Asia established Islamic communities upon arriving in Germany. In 1987, there were an estimated 1.7 million Muslims living in West Germany.
Religious Practitioners. Religious practitioners in Germany include especially the Protestant or Catholic pfarrer (minister or priest). In local communities, the minister or priest belongs to the publicly acknowledged group of local notables, which also includes local governmental officials, school officials, and business leaders. Roman Catholic priests are, of course, local representatives of the international church hierarchy, which is centered in Rome. Protestant ministers represent Lutheran, Reformed, or United churches, which are organized at the level of the regional states. These state-level organizations belong, in turn, to the Evangelical Church of Germany.
Rituals and Holy Places. From the smallest village to the largest city, the local church dominates the central area of nearly every German settlement. German churches are often impressive architectural structures, which bear witness to centuries of growth and renovation. In predominantly Catholic areas, such as the Rhineland, Bavaria, and parts of Baden-Württemberg, the areas surrounding the towns and villages are typically strewn with shrines and chapels. The processions to these shrines, which were common until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have now been largely discontinued.
Despite processes of secularization, which had became intensive by the early nineteenth century, churches retained their importance in public life. Beginning in the 1840s, there was a popular movement to complete the Cologne cathedral, which was begun in the Middle Ages but which remained a construction site for 400 years. With the support of the residents of Cologne, the Catholic Church, and the King of Prussia (who was a Protestant), work on the cathedral was begun in 1842 and completed in 1880. The character of the ceremonies and festivals that accompanied this process indicate that the Cologne Cathedral served not only as a church but also as a national monument. Similarly, the national assembly of 1848, in which elected representatives met to draft a constitution for a united Germany, took place in St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt. (The national and constitutional movement failed when the Prussian king refused the imperial crown, which was offered to him by the representatives of the national assembly.) One of the centers of the popular movement that led to the fall of the GDR in 1989–1990 was the Nikolaikirche (St. Nicolas Church) in Leipzig.
Since the late nineteenth century, churches and other historical buildings in Germany have become the objects of Denkmalpflege (cultural preservation), which may be understood as one aspect of a broader culture of historical commemoration. Together with museums, historical monuments constitute a new set of special sites, which may be approached only with a correspondingly respectful attitude.
Graveyards and war memorials occupy a kind of middle ground between holy sites and historical monuments. All settlements in Germany have graveyards, which surviving family members visit on special holidays or on private anniversaries. War memorials from World War I are also ubiquitous. Monuments to World War II often have a very different character. For example, the concentration camp Buchenwald, near Weimar, has, since the early 1950s, served as a commemorative site, which is dedicated to the victims of the National Socialist regime.
Death and the Afterlife. Nearly 70 percent of Germans are members of a Christian church, and many of these share common Christian beliefs in himmel (heaven) and hölle (hell) as destinations of the soul after death. Many other Germans describe themselves as agnostics or atheists, in which case they view beliefs in an afterlife as either potentially misleading or false. Funerary rites involve either a church service or a civil ceremony, depending on the beliefs of the deceased and his or her survivors.
http://www.everyculture.com/Ge-It/Germany.html
Example 2:
National Identity. Following World War II, German national identity became problematic, since the national movement seemed to have culminated in the Third Reich and found its most extreme expression in the murder of millions of people, including six million Jews. All further reflection on the German nation had to come to grips with this issue in one way or another. There have been many different attempts to explain Nazism and its crimes. Some see Adolf Hitler and his cronies as villains who misled the German people. Others blame Nazism on a flaw in the German national character. Still others see the beginning of Germany's problems in the rejection of the rational and universal principles of the Enlightenment and the adoption of romantic irrationalism. Marxist scholars see Nazism as a form of fascism, which they describe as the form that capitalism takes under certain historical conditions. Finally, some cite the failure of the bourgeois revolution in the nineteenth century and the lingering power of feudal elites as the main cause. Interpretations of this sort fall under the general heading of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or coming to terms with the past. Since the fall of the GDR, West German traditions of coming to terms with the past have been extended to the period of socialist rule in East Germany. Some Germans emphasize the similarities between the two forms of dictatorship, National Socialist and communist, while others, especially many East Germans, view the Third Reich and the GDR as being essentially dissimilar. Lingering differences between the attitudes and practices of West and East Germans are often attributed to the so-called Mauer in den Köpfen, or wall in the mind— an allusion to the physical wall that used to divide East and West Germany.
In recent years, German nationalism has been reexamined in accordance with views of the nation as an "imagined community" which is based on "invented traditions." Most scholars have concentrated on the organization, the symbolism, and the discourse of the national movement as it developed in the nineteenth century. The most significant contributions to the imagination and the invention of the German nation in this era took place in the context of (1) a set of typical voluntary associations, which supposedly harkened back to old local, regional, or national traditions; (2) the series of monuments erected by state governments, by towns and cities, and by citizens' groups throughout Germany; and (3) the various representations of history, some of which have been alluded to above. In addition, there is a growing body of literature that examines understandings of the nation and the politics of nationhood in the eighteenth century. There is much disagreement on the political implications of the critical history of nationalism in Germany. Some scholars seem to want to exorcize the deviant aspects of modern German nationalism, while retaining those aspects, with which, in their view, German citizens should identify. Others see nationalism as an especially dangerous stage in a developmental process, which Germans, in their journey toward a postnational society, should leave behind.
http://www.everyculture.com/Ge-It/Germany.html
Attitudes: Definition and Examples
"Attitudes are learned tendencies to act or respond in a specific way to events, objects, people or orientations. Culturally instilled beliefs and values exert a strong influence on attitudes. People tend to embrace what is liked and avoid what is disliked." (Samovar 13).
Example 1: Fashion Models
Top German Fashion Models are always in the news for a number of reasons. From different people you get to hear different things. While from some you can get updated on the criticism on the fashion models from Germany, double the amount of reviews and referrals swear otherwise.
Rave reviews and praise are baggage deals for the fashion models from Germany. Many of the supermodels of the world have standards that are practically impossible to meet. The fact remains that many of the top German fashion models have set these impossible standards, not only in the past, but in the present as well and will continue to do so in the future.German models are well known for their envious looks, physique and flawless skin. Not only do the men, but even women are known to drool in response when they get to view many of the best looking supermodels from this part of the world. Both the female German models as well as the male German models have superb height, beautiful soft and silky skin and the best international looks required in the fashion industry.
These days, German models are sidelined despite models in many areas all over the world becoming a butt of insults and jokes.
The image of the female models is generally tarnished by public for the sheer idiocy of clothing that is haute couture, anorexia health issues, pencil thin figures, flaunting clothes that are not at all wearable in real life, prostitution and sexual promiscuity, etc. All this keeps going on in the fashion industry but not commonly among fashion models from Germany.
These issues appear to be very prominent in the fashion industry all over the world. The German fashion industry has supermodels that are revolutionizing the ramp and receiving a lot of attention in Paris and Milan too.
They are not among sexual scandals and are talked about on a large scale. Female German supermodels have made a mark in the industry that is hard to brush aside. In the early 1940s the German supermodel went on to become household names by the 1980s. The trend to use mostly fashion models from Germany in the promotion of products and services started during this time and continues to do so in the present as well. They lend their looks and fame for many social causes as well. Generally most German supermodels and various other fashion models from Germany have a good reputation within the industry of fashion.
German supermodels are the most recognized models in the fashion world and you get a chance to see them in many of the prestigious fashion shows held all over the world. It has become very necessary for the German supermodel to feature on all the covers of world famous magazines. Top German Fashion Models are currently into multimillion contracts, working for ad campaigns and fashion designers and carving a niche for themselves in the world of fashion. The media has paid ample tribute to the glorious bodies and shapely chiseled features of the German model.
http://www.kickupthefire.net/top-german-fashion-models/#more-38
Example 2: Food
Example 2: Food
Food has always been a major part of German culture. Even the well-known German fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel, makes reference to food. Hansel and Gretel, brother and sister, discover a house in the forest made of gingerbread and candies. King Frederick II (King Frederick the Great, 1712–1786) introduced the potato, a staple in the German diet. He gave away seed potatoes and taught the people how to grow them. But wars caused food shortages and hardship twice during the twentieth century. After the Germans lost World War I (1914–18), food was scarce and soldiers trying to get home were starving. After World War II (1939–1945), the country had even less food available, but this time nations that had defeated Germany, including the United States, helped to feed the Germans and rebuild the country. In 1949 after World War II, Germany was divided into East Germany and West Germany. This division caused the country's two halves to develop different styles of cooking. East Germany, closely associated with its neighbor, Russia, took on a more Russian style of cooking. West Germans continued the traditional German cuisine.
There are also differences in cooking style between the northern and southern Germany, similar to the northern and southern styles of cooking in the United States. In the north, restaurants in Hamburg and Berlin might feature aalsuppe (eel soup) or eintopf (seafood stew). Soups of dried beans, such as weisse bohnensuppe (white bean soup) are also popular. In the center of the country, menus include breads and cereals made with buckwheat and rye flour. A favorite dish is birnen, bohnen und speck (pears, green beans, and bacon). In the middle of the country, a region near the Netherlands known as Wesphalia is famous for spargel (asparagus), especially white asparagus, and rich, heavy pumpernickel bread. Westphalian ham, served with pungent mustard, is popular with Germans worldwide.
Frankfurt, located in the south, is the home of a sausage known as Wüstchen . This sausage is similar to the U.S. hot dog, sometimes called a "frankfurter" after the German city. In the south, a dish mysteriously called Himmel und erde (Heaven and Earth) combines potatoes and apples with onions and bacon. The southern region of Bavaria features rugged mountains and the famous Black Forest. Black Forest cherry cake and tortes, as well as Kirschwasser, a clear cherry brandy, are two contributions from this area. Spätzle (tiny dumplings) are the southern version of knödel (potato dumplings) of the north. Lebkuchen is a spicy cookie prepared especially during the Christmas season. East and West Germany were reunited in the early 1990s, but Germans continue to cook according to their region.
Germans tend to eat heavy and hearty meals that include ample portions of meat and bread. Potatoes are the staple food, and each region has its own favorite ways of preparing them. Some Germans eat potatoes with pears, bacon, and beans. Others prepare a special stew called the Pichelsteiner, made with three kinds of meat and potatoes. Germans from the capital city of Berlin eat potatoes with bacon and spicy sausage. Sauerbraten is a large roast made of pork, beef, or veal that is popular throughout Germany, and is flavored in different ways depending on the region. In the Rhine River area, it is flavored with raisins, but is usually cooked with a variety of savory spices and vinegar. Fruit (instead of vegetables) is often combined with meat dishes to add a sweet and sour taste to the meal. Throughout Germany desserts made with apples are very popular.
Knödel, or dumplings, accompany many meals, especially in the north. In the south, a tiny version called spätzle is more common. Knödel may be made either of mashed potatoes or bread (or a mixture of both), and are either boiled or fried. Germans enjoy bread with every meal, with rye, pumpernickel, and sourdough breads more common than white bread. Soft pretzels can be found almost anywhere. Spargel (asparagus) served with a sauce or in soup is popular in the spring.
Many Germans have begun to modify their eating habits to lower their calorie and cholesterol intake. Since the unification of East and West Germany in the 1990s, the government has faced the challenge of bringing the living conditions in the former East Germany up to the standard found in the former West Germany. Upgrading housing, schools, and utilities will continue after 2001. Despite unequal living conditions, Germans in all parts of the country are well nourished. In fact, most German children have enough to eat.
http://www.foodbycountry.com/Germany-to-Japan/Germany.html
