Cultural “Other” Awareness (Concept)

Cultural Awareness

A simple example can be that when talking to people from different culture, they have very different ways to convey something like if they were to disagree on something, some cultures will be very direct with it while others will have show through their body language rather than saying it outright. The concept of cultural awareness is the ability to recognize, understand, and respect the similarities and differences between cultures, including one's own. Having cultural awareness is extremely important to communicate with people, it can reduce prejudice between different cultures and societies.


Cultural Perspective

Cultural perspective is basically how we see the world, it is shaped by the unique environment, history, and upbringing we experience. For both Brunei and Japan, both cultures values the group harmony over personal desires and/or decisions. Both cultures much rather agree to something they don't actually agree with than to disagree and "disrupt the peace". Both cultures also communicate indirectly, this is avoid "losing face" and to keep the peace. As for the differences between Brunei and Japan, due to the amount of earthquakes and natural disasters in Japan, Japanese people already have a meticulous safety plan and procedure in situation whereas, in Brunei, natural disasters are rare and so they do not normal occur, therefore emergency procedures are not so deeply ingrained in the public's psyche. The most likely natural disaster that Brunei would face are flash floods, landslides and forest fires. In a report, the Bruneian authorities have revealed a total of 135 forest and bush fires recorded in the country just in the month of April (Xinhua, 2026).

Another difference between Brunei and Japan is the religious foundation, Brunei follows Islam which dictates the moral, social and legal codes of the country, while in Japan, Shintoism and Buddhism influences the culture and spiritual life is often separate from political and legal frameworks in Japan. In Brunei, the way we dress is also dictated by religion, although this does not apply to all Bruneian citizens, it would be a rare sight to see people (especially girls) in Brunei wear really short shorts in public, while in Japan the religion does not really determine what a person can or cannot wear.


Video Insight

In the Conan O'Brian video, he mention "crashing at their (Kayo and Michael) place for the night", although this is a clear exaggeration, in Brunei people don't really stay at other people's houses considering how small the country is, so they tend to go back home after the visit unless those visitors came from abroad but even then hotels would have probably been booked ahead of time. I believe is also the same as Japan. In the Michael Moore video, they talked about how Canadians do not lock their doors, Bruneians would not leave their doors unlock for the whole day especially through the night and I believe Japan is the same.


References

Xinhua. (2026, April 29). Brunei Records Surge In Forest, Bush Fires Amid Extreme Heat. https://bernama.com/en/news.php//world/bfokus/news.php?id=2550658


Comments

  1. Marco11 May 2026 at 23:20

    Like your reference about Brunei! We have similar cultures but I got new insights from your blog!

    ReplyDelete
  2. 2026 Elvina's Blog11 May 2026 at 23:21

    Very interesting blogpost comparing different cultural perspectives.

    ReplyDelete

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