Describe the culture of interest and explain why this culture interests you, homework help

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Humanities

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The Assignment (15-page minimum)
Your Assignment is to choose a culture outside of your own and develop a minimum 15-page cross-cultural research paper.

  • Describe the culture of interest and explain why this culture interests you, include whether it is a collectivistic or individualistic culture.
  • Describe the culture you most identify with and its characteristics, include whether it is a collectivistic or individualistic culture.
  • Compare the similarities and differences between the culture you selected and your own related to time orientation, communication, physical and mental health, group relationships, and perceptions and measures of intelligence.
  • Describe a theory that will guide your analysis of both cultures.
  • Based on the theory, explain how each culture influences human development, identity development, and personality development within it.
  • Based on the theory, explain how each culture influences the expression of emotion, the development of morality, gender, aggression, and one other psychological process within it.
  • Explain any biases that may influence your analysis of these cultures and explain why.
  • You must use at least 10 references in APA style.

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Explanation & Answer

Attached.

CROSS-CULTURAL ANALYSIS

Japanese and American Cultures
Student’s Name
University Affiliations

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CROSS-CULTURAL ANALYSIS

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Background
The world apparently has many countries and states. Each country or state has many
tribes who have their own specific and unique cultures, beliefs, and traditions. The cultures have
their procedures which are followed and are performed at a specific time in the people’s lives.
These cultures also carry meaning and are significant at one point or another and each country or
tribes perform them differently. For this discussion, Japanese culture will be discussed because
of its unique nature and how they have over the years been strict on the way they observe their
traditional practices and ceremonies. The Japanese culture is a highly a homogeneous culture and
hence can be referred to as a collective culture. Compared to the American culture, Japanese
culture is highly inclusive with almost 99 percent of its population speaking one language and
practicing one culture. In America for instance, there is the native America and the other cultures
that form America. This makes the American culture a bit diverse compared to the Japanese
culture.
Introduction
Culture can be defined simply as a way of life of a group of people. While in deeper
understanding, culture is an accumulation of knowledge, beliefs, religion, values and customs
acquired by a group of people and which they pass from one generation to another. Compared to
other cultures, Japan has a great history that is characterized with wars, tsunami, fires
earthquakes, crop failures, storms and other epidemics. Alongside this rich history, there is a
unique culture which in most cases was shaped by the calamities that Japan underwent. For
example, the japan work culture and the hard working nature was intense after the world war two
when they were determined to rebuild their major cities, that is Hiroshima and Nagasaki that
were bombed. Importantly, Japanese culture stands out because of their many traditions and

CROSS-CULTURAL ANALYSIS

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ceremonies. Japanese strictly observe their traditions and practiced a lot of ceremonies. These
ceremonies and traditions are what majorly form the Japanese culture. Additionally, Japanese
culture also focuses on etiquette and behavior such as there is a way individuals should behave in
certain scenarios. It is important to note that the Japanese culture comprise of ideas drawn from
all over the world in its course history. Some of cultural aspects that the Japanese have been able
to borrow from other countries include technology, means of cultural expression and customs
just to mention a few. Therefore the Japanese culture is a blend of Asian traditional culture and
Western modern culture. It is as well important to recognize that even though the Japanese
culture looks uniform or universal, there are other various that exist especially from one island to
the other. Japan has four major islands, that is, the Hokkaidō, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu.
These islands slightly differ in cultural practices just as they greatly experience difference
climatic conditions. Other cultural variations can be experienced with the Japanese culture for
example due to existence of many local dialects. However, Japanese culture still enjoys
uniformity in most of their cultural aspects and this is why it is considered a collective culture.
The paper therefore is going to discuss their Japanese culture. Additionally, the paper will
compare some of the cultural aspects that exist between Japanese culture and American culture.
For better understanding of the Japanese culture, it is important to divide the culture into
traditional Japanese culture and the modern Japanese culture. Interestingly, with the Japanese
culture, most of their traditional practices are still being practiced to date for example the musical
aspects of culture.
Musical aspect of Japanese culture
Some of the traditional Japanese arts that still thrive to date include; Kyogen, Noh,
Bunkaru, and kabuki among others. Kabuki Noh and Bunkaku are acknowledged by UNESCO

CROSS-CULTURAL ANALYSIS

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as intangible cultural practices. Kabuki is a type of classical theatre that was developed in
seventeenth century. It is marked with a rhythm of lines sang by the actors, flamboyant make up
called Kumadori, extravagant costumes, and the application of mechanical devices. The
flamboyant make ups were meant to accentuate the moods and the personalities of the characters.
The players mostly draw from the Edo or the medieval period themes. Interestingly, in the play
all the characters are men even those who play female characters. The other traditional art was
the Noh which is the oldest musical theatre in japan. It involves story telling through dialogue
and singing with musical accompaniment. The leading actor in this art would wear a colorful
costume made of silk with a wooden mask. The masks in this case depicted the characters of old
men, young men, divide figures, ghosts, or young boys. While in the modern world, Japanese are
known to have borrowed their classical music from the west and currently, concerts are held all
over japan. Japan has as well produced several conductors for example Ozawa Seiji, and pianists
who perform around the world. Other musical and entertainment aspects of Japanese culture
in...


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