Week 5: Culture

          There were many parts about the lecture and tutorial discussion this week that stood out to me.  First, it caught my attention when we were talking in lecture about arranged marriages and mail order brides.  I took a marriage class at my university back home last year, and I found this to be the most interesting and different topic that I learned about.  There is also a practice in Vietnam know as matchmaking, where someone from Vietnam has moved overseas, and finds someone else overseas that they set up with a family friend back home.  It is known as a social remittance, which means giving social aspects back to your homeland while you are abroad.  I was so intrigued by this topic because it is so unlike anything that I have ever heard.  This matchmaker has to work out all of the meet ups and visa problems that occur, and she almost never gets repaid.  It is a new form of arranged marriage that people are looking to in Vietnam.

            In the tutorial, there were also a lot of points in our discussion that stood out to me.  I truly believe that education and awareness is the key to shining a light on a lot of the problems that are happening in third world countries.  It is hard to judge people on what they do in their villages because of their cultural values, but it is equally as hard to not see that female mutilation is painful and wrong.  I was really taken back by all of the videos we watched in class, and I couldn’t help but think about how much I wanted these young girls to be educated and know that they have other options.  Being brutally mutilated is not the only way to be marriageable, but how do you tell that to a young girl when she doesn’t know any better?  It is a difficult and sensitive topic and I truly wish that they will find peace and education in their villages, because the complications with cultural acts, such as female mutilation, could really put many girls lives at risk.