Society

Manners around the world

It's important to treat people nicely. But how you do that can change from culture to culture. What's polite in one place might be rude in another. For instance, giving hugs is okay in America but not in China.

This infographic will help you learn about manners around the world so you can do that. Remember, even in the same country, manners can vary between places and people. So, it's a good idea to do some research before you travel or work with people from other countries. Otherwise, you might unintentionally be rude.

The English Farm - Global manners article

Male artists: Gustave Caillebotte

Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894) was part of the French Impressionist art movement, the first school of art to break away from classical painting. Impressionism focuses on the light and colors of a particular moment in time. Because artists wanted to capture a brief moment and didn't have cameras yet, they needed to paint quickly. So they used quick, flat strokes without precise detail.

They also used colors in new ways. The best example is that shadows aren't just the object's color with gray or brown mixed in. Instead, the painters added strokes of the complementary color of the object (e.g., strokes of red in the shadow of something green). This makes the shadows come alive.

Race, ethnicity, and nationality

The words race, ethnicity and nationality are often misunderstood or even used interchangeably. They mean very different things, however.

Race refers to physical features, ethnicity points to cultural background, and nationality is all about the country you are from. In countries like Japan, the three things are closely linked. But in a place like the U.S., where people come from many different places and backgrounds, they are completely separate.

Let's look at how I fit into them.

Race

I have light-colored skin, which puts me in the Caucasian category, or White. The concept of race, however, based on the belief that physical appearance is related to a person's skills and character, has no scientific evidence. Studies show that there's no significant genetic difference between anyone in the world.

The importance of smartphones

Smartphones are everywhere. People use them in rich countries and poor countries. Sometimes very poor people have smartphones, even when they live in slums. I think that most people understand how important smartphones can be. For example, some taxi drivers would have less business without a smartphone. This is because they can find riders through an app and make more money than just looking for customers on the street.

Phones have changed a lot in the last 20 years. I remember when you could only make calls on cellphones. Now, you can take free classes from top universities. You can record a video, edit it and upload it to social media.  

There are many apps available—over 2.8 million are available for download on the Google Play Store. Apple's App store has more than 1.8 million. Some people use these apps a lot. Research shows that 20% of millennials open an app more than 50 times per day. In general, most people use 10 apps each day.

The do-nothing man

Shoji Morimoto is 38 years old and lives in Tokyo. He has a unique job: people pay for his companionship.

Morimoto charges 10,000 yen per booking. People have hired him over 4,000 times in the last four years. He has nearly 250,000 followers on Twitter, and he finds most of his clients there. He also has many repeat customers.

Morimoto's job is to be wherever his clients want him to be and to do nothing in particular. For example, he once went to a park with someone who wanted to play on a see-saw. Another time, he visited a train station to wave goodbye to someone. However, Morimoto doesn't accept every offer. He refused to move a fridge and refused to go to Cambodia.

Morimoto's job is his only income, and he supports his family with it. He sees about one or two clients a day.

Men artists: Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) was part of the Neo-Expressionist movement of the 1980s, led by Andy Warhol. Basquiat's primitive style grew out of his time as a graffiti artist in New York City. People first knew him as part of the anonymous duo SAMO© (pronounced "same-o"), with Al Diaz. They were among the first to use words to communicate thoughts, rather than just tags with names and numbers.

For 3 years, from the age of 17–20, Basquiat sold his art on t-shirts and postcards on the street for a couple of bucks each. Finally, he made it into a group show at an art gallery. People and critics loved his work, and in no time people were paying $50,000 or more for one of his pieces.

The child of a Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother, Jean-Michel Basquiat brought the Black and Latino experience into the fine art world. His art was angry and harsh, yet also poetic. He was able to express a reality that had long been excluded from elite society.

Embracing change

Humans find it difficult to adapt to change and this is evident in how technological advances are viewed. This is nothing new because even Socrates, the architect of Western philosophy, wasn't too excited about the introduction of writing, as he felt people would become more forgetful.

It may be natural to fear change, but we have to realize that by nurturing this kind of fear, we are resisting innovations that could improve our quality of life, productivity and connectivity. 

The fear of technological change shows a lack of trust. As it stands, Americans don’t trust each other, our corporations or our public institutions. The absence of trust means a lot of damage has been done and the only way to fix this is to ensure everyone has the information that is essential to building trust back up.

Video: Portals link the world

A public art installation makes it possible for people far apart to interact with each other. The ongoing project, "Portal—a Bridge to the United Planet", aims to create a sense of unity among people in different countries. 

Watch the short video below and listen for the answers to these questions:

  1. When did the project start?

  2. When the news of the portal "instantly went viral", how many people did it reach?

  3. How big is the portal?

  4. How does it work?

  5. Which two countries were connected first?

  6. How many countries do they hope to connect in the future?

Visuals: Children's dream jobs

Adecco, a Japanese company providing human resource services, conducted a national survey asking 900 elementary and junior high school boys and girls what job they wanted to do when they grew up. Many children showed an interest in jobs that involve digital technology, which is no surprise since they have been surrounded by the technology since birth.

The detailed results of the survey are shown below.
 



elementary [adjective] /el-uh-MEN-tuh-ree/—simple or early stages of studying

Do we need to replace the GDP?

The standard measure of economic performance, the gross domestic product (GDP), measures the value of goods and services produced within a country over a given period. However, the GDP doesn’t measure social factors like income inequality, domestic violence, drug addiction, or the impact of today’s actions on future generations. It also ignores sustainability and environmental destruction. It’s a very short-term view of market factors without respect to what’s happening on the social and environmental levels. As a result, the GDP gave us no warning of the impending global financial crisis in 2008.

But we continued to base our economic predictions on that metric. And it began to show economies recovering and growing—so everything’s going well again, right? But what if we factor in social and environmental realities?

The many faces of Indonesia

Indonesia has over 17,000 islands. If you ever go there, you will see how different some of the major islands are. For example, Bali is the only island where most of the people are Hindu. It attracts a very large number of tourists. It is known around the world as a great place for a holiday.

However, Sulawesi, an island to the north of Bali, has very few tourists. Here, most people are Christian. There is very little made for tourists on the island. Makassar, the main city, has only one hotel. You will also have to take public transportation to get around.

Most Indonesians live on Java and are Muslim. It’s the only island with a train network. That's a good thing because you have to cross large distances to visit World Heritage sites such as the Borobudur temple and Mount Bromo.

Visuals: Racism in football

European football (soccer) has a history of racism. Recently, there has been a rise in racist comments from fans against players of color. Many football clubs are taking action against it. There are even projects involving computer- and A.I.-assisted technology to pinpoint racist fans.

But fans aren't just shouting abuse at matches; they're using social media as well. A 2021 study of online messages against the U.K's Premier League players found more than 3,000 abusive messages, 56% of which were racist.

So, how are social media platforms responding? Are they doing enough? The graph below shows what fans across Europe think.

How Meta targets political ads

Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, says it will provide outside researchers more information on how political and social ads are targeted on its platform, providing insight into the ways that politicians, campaign operatives and political strategists buy and use ads during election periods. Starting from May 2022, academics and researchers registered with Facebook Open Research and Transparency will be allowed to see more detailed targeting data, including which interest categories—such as “people who like dogs” or “people who enjoy the outdoors”—have been chosen to aim ads at specific people.

Meta also plans to include summaries of targeting information for some of its ads in its publicly viewable Ad Library. Created in 2019, the Ad Library allows the public to obtain information about political ads, thus helping to safeguard elections against the misuse of digital advertising.

The Dalai Lama on leadership

The Dalai Lama wrote an opinion piece for the Harvard Business Review about the importance of leadership and what makes a strong leader.

He says that the world is facing an emotional crisis where rates of stress, anxiety and depression are higher than ever. The focus on turning a profit often overrules a commitment to people and society. In organizations, he explains, people work closely together every day, but many feel lonely and stressed. This is because there is a lack of responsibility toward each other.

He advises leaders to be mindful towards each other, saying that the opposite of fear is trust, which boosts our self-confidence. Compassion also reduces fear, reflecting a concern for others’ well-being. He asserts that people are naturally driven by self-interest, but we need wise self-interest that is generous and cooperative, taking others’ interests also into account.

Pinterest: safety over free speech

How much should tech companies regulate information? While Facebook and Twitter have up to now chosen to err on the side of free speech, an unlikely platform has taken an important step. Pinterest found that users were searching for information on vaccines, so CEO Ben Silbermann pulled all medical information from the platform.

Vaccines have been a contentious issue in social media, but not in science. While the science is clear that vaccines save lives, there has been a reemergence of previously eradicated diseases like measles. That reemergence has been linked to disinformation shared in social media. 

Short film: "Float", and metaphor

First, make a choice about how to watch the film. It is about 7 minutes. You have a few options.

  1. Watch the film before the lesson as pre-study homework.
  2. Watch part of the film in the lesson.
  3. Watch the whole film in the lesson. 
    • If you choose to watch the film, please do your best to describe and discuss it as you watch. There's almost no dialog, so you can easily talk while watching.

This discussion topic is based on a short film by Pixar, called "Float". It uses metaphor to express a complex truth in simple terms.

What is a metaphor? It's saying one thing is another thing, but it's not literally true. Here are some examples:

The Swiss Cheese model of defense

Human beings are flawed. So no system of defense that depends on human action is going to be able to protect us 100% of the time. But we can prevent most problems. In 1990, Professor James Reason came up with the "Swiss Cheese model" to create defenses that are hard to break through.

Think about Swiss cheese—it has lots of holes in it, right? Well, the Swiss Cheese defense model takes the "holes", or human flaws, into account by using several layers of defense. Each layer has holes, but not every layer has the same holes. So, put enough different layers together and there won't be a complete series of holes that line up to allow something through. Each human failure will be blocked by other successes.

The success of Bookshop

According to The Guardian, a newspaper based in the United Kingdom, Bookshop is a socially conscious alternative to Amazon that allows readers to buy books online while supporting their local independent bookseller.

Bookshop was founded by writer and co-founder of Literary Hub, Andy Hunter. It allows independent bookshops to create their own virtual shopfront on the site, with the stores receiving the full profit from each sale. Customer service and shipping are handled by Bookshop and its distribution partners.