During my life, thanks my travels, I had the opportunity to met a lot of people. If I thinking even my experience in Australia I realize that I met people not so similar to me by different ways.
For example:
At work: most of the people that work with me are Indonesian, French, Algerians and people with Italian’s background. In this case the first difference between me and them is the nationality.
At home: my private life is sharing everyday with my boyfriend who is Polish and my flatmates which are a whole Chinese family (mother, father and daughter), a German and a English guys.
During my free time I love to meet my new friends as well, in particular an English girl and two Italians girls.
At school: honestly I don’t know even half of the people that are in my class but what I can see, and that’s amazing, is that we are a group of people of different nationality and ages that work to achieve the same result.
In my home country: during my life in Italy I had the opportunity to meet my neighbors (a Moroccan family), my classmates (some of them are Russians and some of them are Cubans). Let say that even my family is not a “typical” Italian’s family. My grandparents and parents are both italians but my father’s siblings are married with Slovaks and Croatians people. So for me is common to hear and live with people with different languages and traditions.
In all these cases I can say that all these differences fascinate me, because different nationality meaning different culture, mentality, religion and languages as well which are meaning in a nutshell to have a different approach in the life. I cannot forget for example the amazing experience that I have when I start cooking with my Moroccan neighbor, when she taught me how to prepare the typical Moroccan dishes. Even if we didn’t speak the same language we understood each others, thanks the common love for the cook and thanks to our need to communicate, even with the help of the non-verbal communication and sometime with the mimic as well.
Or for example how to see that even if we are from different nationality, me and my flatmates have in common the love for the travel and the hope to growing up our life here in Australia. In these case with them and with my partner as well the difference that I perceive are plenty, because we are not focus only to deal with different nationality or languages, but we are focus to deal with different lifestyles due to the fact of being of different sexes, different schedules, jobs and needs. But I think that we are successful because even if we are different we want share a good life together. I think that everything is in having the intelligence to understand that, if there is respect for people and for the common rules, differences will never be an obstacle. So, if I should describe the cultural differences that I perceive, I would like to say that the mains difference to me are not the skin colors or the nationality but the mentality, the needs and the behaviors of the people.
It is true that a difference can be a kind of obstacle inside a relationship or a communication between people. But thanks of our society, the anti-discriminations laws and the civil rights that we find in most of the countries, we can see how more and more people start to be sensible about that and start to see the different not as an obstacle but as an opportunity to learn and discover new points of view.
So , in my opinion the difference are really important to open our mind and thanks of them we have the opportunity to be good and solid people, with values and principles, with the respect for ourselves and the others. So, if we use in our life, in every situation, the respect, the tolerance and the communication we can manage the differences in the best way and make them, not a weakness, but a strength.