2. Read the following passage from "Encountering the Other: The Challenge xeT
for the 21st Century." In a brief paragraph, state the central idea of this
passage, and explain how specific details are used to refine that central idea.
It laid bare a weakness or perhaps simply a characteristic that appears to a
differing degree in all cultures: the fact that cultures have difficulty understanding
other cultures and that people belonging to a given culture the participants in and
carriers of that culture-have this difficulty. Namely. Malinowski stated after arriving
at his research site in the Trobriand Islands that the white people who had lived
there for years not only knew nothing about the local people and their culture, but
also, in fact, held an entirely erroneous image characterized by contempt and
arrogance.
He himself, as if to spite all colonial customs, pitched his tent in the middle of a
local village and lived among the local people. What he experienced turned out to
be no easy experience. In his A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term, he
continually mentions problems. bad moods. despair and depression. You pay a
high price for breaking free of your culture. That is why it is so important to have
your own distinct identity, and a sense of your own strength worth. and maturity
Only then can you confidently face a different culture. Otherwise. you will withdraw
into your own hiding place and timorously cut yourself off from others.
