According to my understanding, by saying “a person’s culture is the life generating energy behind his or her human experience”, Jay Ford was referring to culture as human activity in general. The word culture comes from a Latin root “colere” which means to inhibit, to cultivate, or to honor. Culture is the mean by which people express their thoughts and feelings and guide their attitudes. Culture teaches a person how to talk, behave, or communicate in the society. Jay Ford has drawn this picture through the history and characteristics of the Hip-Hop music. He has shown us how amazing influence a person can experience from his or her culture, or how a series of behaviors can be expressed through just a single component of culture.
Considering similar characteristics that of my own culture, I find that it plays the main role in the way I view my everyday world. It's my culture that describes every aspect of my personality and lifestyle. It’s a map that restrain me from going in the wrong direction. It tells me how to build relations, how to share people’s happiness and sorrow, how to make love and friendship, how to judge life in a positive way, and above all, it tells me how to be a better human being. Culture is the ultimate power that I possess inside my heart and the hidden message that I carry with every single heartbeat. This is something that is inseparable from my existence.
My culture has a wide range of impact on me. Beyond my everyday life in the US, there exist some traditions and values that I can’t ignore. For example, when I’m at home with my family members, I eat different types of food that are usually spicy and rich in salt and piper. Me and my brother often wear certain dresses like Punjabi or Lungi, and my mother and sister usually wear a dress called ‘Sari’ at home. These dresses are among some of the characteristics that are unique to the Bengali culture. Although joint families are rare in today’s world, we care so much about our parents and elderly people and they are expected to live with us as family members. We are also very conservative about sex before marriage specially for an woman. In fact, it is totally unacceptable in our culture. Women usually get very little freedom when it comes to an affair with a boyfriend, and parents often become the superior in choosing the right match for their children in the form of arranged marriage.
Though there are so many great personalities who’s contribution is indispensable to the Bengali culture, I chose to begin with one of the greatest poets and philosophers of all times, Mr.Rabindranath Tagore. He is the first Non-Western poet to achieve the Noble Prize for the English translation of his great work “Gitanjali” which consists all of his songs. In his lifetime, he has also composed thousands of other novels, short stories, and poems. His songs are known as “Rabindra Sangeet” which is an integral part of the Bengali culture. His deep motivation and extremely powerful influence over Bengali and Indian culture can be easily understood as the national anthem of India, “ Jana Gana Mana”, and the National anthem of Bangladesh, “Amar Sonar bangla” are compositions of Rabindranath Tagore. (source:http://www.bengalweb.com/culture/calmus.html)
Tagore’s songs and poems directly focus on Bengali customs, values, and traditions. Bengali culture and Tagore are so interrelated with each other that it’s almost impossible to differentiate them in any aspect. All of his works are centered on various issues concerning social, political, spiritual, and emotional basis. From “Morning Songs” to “Evening songs” , from great political leader Gandhi to the most notable poet of the West, WBYeats, Tagore is in the rhythm of every Bengali heart and had the great ability to influence people from different parts of the world. Being a part of this wonderful era, I consider myself very proud and lucky to be a follower of Rabindra Song. Because of the Rabindra song, I’m still able to relate myself to the origin of my own culture after leaving my country long time ago. It talks about the emotion that I feel inside, and it gives direction to the attitude that I need to adopt in any society.
After coming to the United States, I had to accustom with a new culture and tradition that I wasn’t so familiar with. The situation could be compared with a cultural shock that many others also face at my position. As of today, after staying in this country for three years, I have been introduced with many new faces of a new culture, and as a grown up adult, I can always distinguish the good part of it even though it is foreign to me. The point I’m trying to make is that this is the place where I’m planning to live for the rest of my life, and I need, or I feel like I need to adopt some of the basic parts of the American culture in order to enrich my emotional as well as my social ability to achieve a greater satisfaction in life. But at the same time, I need to hold back much of the component of my own culture that was inherited by me from my parents, family, and the society where I used to live. Otherwise, I would risk of loosing the true identity as a human being that I’ve gained through my past life experiences under the shadow of my own culture.