Clash of Cultures

Roganovic Radivoje

2012
Through the years, different groups of people have come up with cultures which help them to develop spiritually, morally and mentally.

25/06/2012 UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE AND PHARMACY VICTOR BABES

Timioara, Romania - 25.06.2012. Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy

- CLASH OF CULTURES - BALKAN VS SCANDINAVIA

Student:

Roganovic Radivoje

Mentor:

Prof. Dr. Luca Garbiela

Subject: Theme: Year:

Anthropology Clash of Cultures Second year of General Medicine

Keywords: culture, difference, scandinavia, balkan, personality, system, social, comparison.

Introduction
One of the things that make human life intriguing and to some extent captivating is the diversity and variation exhibited by various people as a result of their differing cultures, personalities and physical appearance. Through the years, different groups of people have come up with cultures which help them to develop spiritually, morally and mentally. As such these cultures have become building blocks in their lives and work places.

Comparison
As I have lived in different countries, mostly on a Balkan and in a Scandinavia, to be precise in Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia, Sweden and Romania. I can easy see the difference between these countries. Basically the ex-Yugoslavia countries have almost the same character, somehow Romanian character is similar to Yugoslavian, maybe because all these countries have some Balkan Influence and same Roots, but compare it to Swedish culture, it is a big difference. Swedish people are mostly acting to others with suspicious, have a skeptical view and a dosage of untrustiness and will fake a friendship if they dont know you well and will not interact so easy with foreigners, very cold and not emotional. They are very rule followers and maybe that is
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the reason why in their country everything is in order and society system is almost perfect and they trying on improving it from day to day. That cold attitude is a very big problem for people that come from abroad and unfitting in the system also, because many of this foreign people will try to find out a way how to not play by the rules, not following the system and trying to smarter, what is starting to slowly change the Swedish country, because every day more and more immigrants coming to Sweden. Especially culture differences are starting to change the schools and teacher interactions. Like young girls from Muslim countries are not allowed to go on a School Trips, some of them are covered, some of them have religious needs during the school time, ex. praying. Police also have a problem when they need to stop a car and in a car is a covered person wheres hard to uncover the identity of a suspect. In school that I was in Sweden we had more than 20 nationalities. And it was very interesting to collaborate and found a way to work with each other and also to not offend someone, because of different acting what is maybe for one culture normal for other is an insulting. I also assumed that people like to be in groups and find looking to hang out with their own nation or nation from their country. Even if there was a war in Middle East, the people who are in their countries enemies in Sweden were friends more between each other than with other people from other continents. If you could not find your Country group, you will try to get in Continent group, Africans with Africans, Asians with Asians etc.

South versus North

I noticed that people from northern countries are calmer and slow, not stressful and phlegmatic, while if you go more on the south people become more explosive and dynamic and sanguine. Also the social system is different, and people in southern countries of Europe are more easy friend finding then the people from northern countries. As in many countries now alcohol is very popular, but for me as nonalcoholic I never saw such alcohol consumption as they do in northern countries. Even if they put laws that alcohol can be bought only in special stores and not like in other Europe countries where you can buy alcohol in market, gas station, small shops there is only one registered shop which is under the property of government Systembolaget. In market you can buy low percentage alcohol drinks as Cider or Beer of 2,8 3,5%. Sweden has free insurance for health, free education, a lot helping programs for antialcoholism, for rehabilitation of drugs, free institutes for elderly people etc. What makes me to get a feeling that it is a capitalistic country with communism infrastructure. Sweden really cares about their citizens, even if they are not born in Sweden or have double nationalities. Country supports if you are interested in education and if you dont like your job, you can anytime go to schools not depending on your age and change your profession, so that you can do your job more effective and with love and passion.

Gesticulation is more intensive from people from Balkan, they wave with hands and have louder expressions with voice. Face expression are also more shown as also they smile more. In traffic in Sweden they do not have habit to use Horns, only in cases to warn someone where in ex-Yugoslavia people use it to greet each other, to warn and to express their road rage when occur. In Sweden if its a one way street and car is stopped, but in that way close that other cars cant pass, no one will horn or yell, everyone will stay in a queue and wait until the first car does his thing. What shows how calm they are and understandable. One interesting thing that I noticed in Sweden was that even Dogs are rarely barking, almost to say that they dont bark at all. Sweden is a very modern country that tries to have a great evolution. Once I was watching and interview with one Swedish scientist and she was asked about Vikings and wars. I will try to quote her as much as I can remember As every other nation, Sweden went through barbarian stage, we are not ashamed of Vikings, we are proud of them, but that is history. Sweden is trying to avoid wars and to improve in knowledge and science, we like to think and mention our people that positively contributed to the world like: - Alfred Nobel(inventor of dynamite, used his fortune to posthumously institute the Nobel Prizes), - Carolus a Linn(modern scheme of binomial nomenclature), - Selma Lagerlf(first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature), - Niklas Zennstrm(founder of the Kazaa and Skype) etc. Serbia is a very inspirational country, like other ex-Yugoslavian countries, with great potential but because of economical state in country which is low and cant offer a success and support great ideas, intelligent people are leaving and going to other more advanced countries and helping them in their evolution. Politics takes a great part in culture evolving, will it stagnate or the country will run into future. Depends if politicians can think about their country more then they think about themselves.

Religion between Cultures

Most culture differences are on religious side. And religion is basically the primary one who makes the main differences between people, somehow the negative interaction in my opinion. What was before on a color side differentiation, today from my point of view is the religion that takes part in almost everything, even in politics same as in business.
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People with no reason hate each other and dont respect and always want to point that their religion is the right one. I witness a lot of cases where people started to argue about it, what man should believe. Even if their religions teach them to not hate and express anger and insult, they do all of that and they do that in the name of their religion. Even wars today are about religion or about controlling economically promising resorts, where again the headquarters of most three religion have part, Catolic, Ortodox and Muslim. People should know their culture, practice it but always respect others culture. And if you are a foreign you should not poke others with some rituals, if that is not accepted well in area where you came. But try to assimilate, try to take good and try to teach others if you know it better.

Awerness
Globalization has led to a status quo where organizations are constantly being forced to interact and in some instances merger with each other so as to fully utilize scarce resources so as to ensure their profitability and hence future continuity. To best achieve their goals, organizations at times find themselves forging alliances with individuals from different nations around the globe in order to tap into the best talents for the various jobs. If employees do not oversee such differences and work as a unit, then the working environment and the output would end up in turmoil. Thats why the advanced countries are more successful, because their people understand that if they work it will benefit the country, which will lead to better status, where their politicians will try to improve society so that everyone earns. In less advanced countries like in Balkan, where greater number of people is poor, no one cares about advancement and progression of country, people tries to get as much as they can for themselves because tomorrow is not safe and they dont know what to expect. This is also what influences the attitude of certain people. When they living from today for tomorrow.

Advice Personal opinion

As every country have positive and negative sides. Depend on personality that you are, some will be more adequate for you. Like for instance, if you are child, have a family or want a calm place with order, Sweden is perfect place. If you are young, dynamic, that you dont think that you will settle soon, want to meet new people easy, that you need a social communicative place, where if you have a problem there is always alternative but not solution, where people boring each other with problems but they are still happy, then the Balkan is place for you.

References:
Internet sites: Wikipedia and Google for corrections and verifying information.

Printed references: Not used.

Pictures:

Cover: Hands of the World http://communicatinacrosscultures.webs.com/MPj04306430000[1]1.gif SubCover : Greetings http://morethanshipping.com/wpcontent/uploads/2012/01/6a0128763842f6970c014e8ba4d3c9970d-800wi.jpg Picture 01. Model: http://www.best-career-match.com/images/White-Triangle.gif Picture 02 Feet vs Meters: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_dD4k8QsRg/TsIOSg027BI/AAAAAAAAABA/DwGps1o3BgA/s1600/CultureClash-X.gif Picture 03. Gesticulation: http://www.carinsurance.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/road_rage.jpg Picture 04. Religion Clash: Google engine search for images with words: clash culture Picture 05. Culture chart: http://www.hrsolutionsbydesign.com/images/chart-culture.jpg

Keywords:
Culture, difference, scandinavia, balkan, personality, system, social, comparison, religion.

Timioara, Romania - 25.06.2012. Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy

- CLASH OF CULTURES - BALKAN VS SCANDINAVIA

Student: Email:

Roganovic Radivoje roganovic@live.com

Mentor:

Prof. Dr. Luca Garbiela

The content of this essay is free to use, rewrite or print. This was written for educational purpose only by Roganovic Radivoje. For any questions please write to roganovic@live.com .

Subject: Theme:
Year:

Anthropology Clash of Cultures

Second year of General Medicine

Keywords: culture, difference, scandinavia, balkan, personality,

system, social, comparison.