What Is Intercultural Experience

Submitted By Jaymelen
Words: 598
Pages: 3

Cultural : “Is a complex system of symbolic resources world views values and norms of appropriate enactment”

My first intercultural experience was around last June during my summer break when my boyfriend Vicente invited me his sister’s boyfriend family reunion. His ethnicity is Chinese. When my boyfriend first invited me to the family reunion I really didn’t want to attend because I thought it would be awkward especially since I didn’t know anyone. His sister and he finally convinced me to go with them and I’m really glad I did. When we first arrived to the family reunion there were about eleven people and they were all very welcoming and made me feel like part of the family from the start. I had a lot of trouble understanding some of the words that they were saying though even though they were talking in English they would still mix Chinese words into our conversations. The very first thing though that catch my eye was the way that most of them were dressed. They had about the same outfit on; it was a red gown with designs flowing around in which they referred to as hanfu. It is completely different from the type if clothing I wear. What also caught my attention were the decorations they had. They had a lot of handmade colorful lanterns hanging all around the house patio, they hand fans inside a basket, and had confetti all on the table and glass silverware on the table; very elegant. Everything that I am accustomed to was quite the very opposite. Finally, we sat down to eat and they had a sitting arrangement with name tags. After getting all adjusted we served ourselves from a round table they had a table full of food, like a buffet. One thing that I noticed off the back was that they had egg rolls, and the traditional Chow mein; Chinese noodles and white rice and orange chicken what I am accustomed to when I usually eat Chinese. I also noticed though that they had a very weird dish that I had never even seen or never less heard of was called Moo Goo Gai Pan means "fresh mushrooms with sliced chicken." When I first looked at the dish I thought to myself that it looked