My Family Culture

Imagine the following:

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

Blog about all of the following:

• A description of the three items you would choose
• How you would explain to others what each of these items means to you
• Your feelings if, upon arrival, you were told that you could only keep one personal item and have to give up the other two items you brought with you
• Any insights you gained about yourself, your family culture, diversity, and/or cultural differences in general, as a result of this exercise.

The first item I would bring with me would be my digital camera that I use to document everything that happens in my life.

The next item I would bring would be my 3TB portable hard drive that has everything important in my life on it. From all of my photos, family trees, digital scrapbooks, family recipes and stories, diaries, medical information, contact information, identification forms, translation books, etc. I can also tether it to my camera with an adapter.

Finally, I would bring my small bag of batteries, extra storage cards, and chargers.

I chose the above because to me, my culture is universal and I am a chameleon. I can adapt to my surroundings, learn quickly, and clothing, food, shelter, will come once I get to my destination. I do not hold any one thing as most important to remind me of who I am and where I came from other than photos. I tell stories with those. They show my life as it was, is and will be. As long as my immediate family is with me, my life is complete. I can make new friends, learn a new way of life and incorporate my way of being in the world into another way and create a while new way of being in the world.

If I had to give up two of the items I would give up the camera and small bag. I would keep the important information and photos and would be able to buy a camera and other accessories as time went on. I would not be able to replace the memories and important information on the portable hard drive.