Week Eight

I'm making this entry up from last week when I forgot about it entirely. This week we read a couple articles and watched a couple videos regarding health according to different cultures.

Reading the two articles (Health in Kenya, Patel; Big Mack Attack, Watson), actually lead me to consider something else entirely. I will get to that in a bit. First, taking a closer look at the health statistics in Kenya nearly made me sick. Reading about why those statistics are so staggering made me even more uneasy. Kenya is a patriarchal country, which means that men are given higher value than women (and I believe this is incredibly wrong.) Women are basically treated as currency because (from what I can see) the ideas of western culture about prosperity have twisted their heritage and traditions. The men want to keep the status quo as it has traditionally been, yet also wish to embrace the select western traditions that will give them the most pleasure. They circumcise the women which leads them open to infection, especially by HIV, spread predominantly through heterosexual relationships in Kenya. They marry off women at young ages to older men in order to receive large dowries. And because traditionally the use of condoms is seen as a sign of distrust and infidelity, men won't use them. Yet the countries board of health makes them easily available to its citizens. So all these women have HIV/AIDS and no health care they cannot be regularly tested. Then during the 5 years before symptoms become apparent they transmit the disease to whichever man they are sold to. This is a disgusting perversion of western culture and another culture's traditions, in my opinion. It seriously angers me.

Next, reading about the impact of McDonald's in China got some other thoughts stirring in my mind about the mixing of western and eastern cultures. McDonald's is a symbol of western culture, of success and prosperity of an individual. This article correlated McDonald's with the decline of traditional eastern thinking: of families staying close together, the young caring for the old then being cared for later by their young. To me the two cultures seem to be a reversal of each other. Living in western culture, we consider our futures in terms of how well we will care for ourselves and for our children. What I understand of eastern culture is the opposite, how well can they be taken care of by their children? It was interesting for McDonald's to be considered a "status symbol" instead of an unhealthy icon.

The video about the Ache Indian tribes in Paraguay was interesting. They more or less choose to lead that lifestyle. I noticed that their clothing was in a modern western style; t-shirts and shorts. Sure, they were very lived-in clothes, but it made me wonder why people would choose to live in the wilderness and encourage their children to continue this tradition? What makes someone choose such a seemingly poor quality of life, health-wise? What are the "pros" of living such an uncivilized lifestyle?

The last video about the traditional Kosher lifestyle was also interesting to me. Taking this in my perspective as a Lutheran, it just seemed kind of ridiculous. I realize that it is an important cultural tradition, but my faith is so totally different from theirs. For example, they interviewed a cook who said that if something non-Kosher was ever cooked in his oven, he would never cook in it again until it had been "cleansed" somehow and returned to a Kosher state. He was very insistent and it gave me the impression of a Kosher lifestyle being very, well, superstitious. Just to give you an idea of where I'm coming from, I am currently enduring the time of Lent. It is a time for me to ponder my "nail and cross", so to speak, my sin, and my Savior. It is traditional during this time "sacrifice" or give up a luxury. The reason for this is to be reminded in your time of desire and denial what Jesus sacrificed for us. Maybe this seems silly to you, that's OK. But maybe you can understand why the tradition of Kosher meals seems a little silly to me. Why would you choose to live a life of such strict standards and rules? Why constantly live in fear of the consequences due to circumstances you cannot control? Just something to consider.