re through imitation and experience. They also acquire culture throughobservation, paying attention to what goes on around them and seeing examples of what their societyconsiders right and wrong. This is what makes each society different in our every day lives. Forexample, Arabs tend to stand closer together when speaking to one another than most Europeans do.No one instructs them to do so, but they learn the behavior as part of their culture. Another example ofhow socialization affects individual cultures can be found in the roles we as individuals play in society. Race, Gender, Religious affiliation, and ethnicity are some of the factors which attribute to collectiverealities in a society. This can be found in the various taboos that different cultures have. For example invarious parts of the world, the clothes you wear are seen as a mark of the respect in which you hold thepeople of the countries you are visiting. In Many parts of Asia it is viewed as an insult to wear Shortsand T-shirts. Asians tend not to wear shorts regardless of how hot it is. A westerner who is not awareof this taboo can be in danger of ridicule or punishment because they do not carry the same moral codeof that society. In 1988, in Los Angeles, an entertainer from Thailand was convicted of the murder of ayoung Laotian. The entertainer was singing in an after-hours club when the audience member put hisfoot on a chair with the sole directed at the entertainer. When the club closed, the entertainer followedthe man and shot him. The reason was that among Southeast Asians, showing or directing the sole of theshoe to another person is considered a grievous insult. An incident also took place in Hong Kong a fewyears ago because of a hand signal miscommunication. A television station there took an annual pictureof all their entertainers before the Chinese New Year. As a joke, famous Kung-fu actor Jackie Chan,who recently played the main actor in the movie “Rush...
