Learning Journal 25

I had an interesting experience yesterday that made me very happy!  Well, I don't know if happy is the right word, but it made me realize that some of the things that I have learned in this class are applying to my life already. I was in class and we were talking about gay marriage and the effects of having two gay parents on a child.  Normally, I believe basically everything that my professors say, especially about research and outcomes.  My professor was saying how having two gay parents can be harmful for kids because they need a mom and a dad, for different things like reasoning (moms) and emotion regulation (dads).  He was also saying how other kids can make fun of these kids because of their two gay parents.  But, I remembered reading in two of my other text books how research has shown that there are no actual negative effects of gay parents on their children. So, instead of believing what my professor said, I looked back at my books and at the studies they used.  And although there did seem to be some possible confounding variables in the studies used to validate these results, the research was there and it was used in the text books.  So how does this relate to Tonga?  Well we talked about the Ophellia syndrome earlier in the semester and about how important is to not wait to be spoon fed things and to question what people tell us.

I'm hoping that this little experience means that I'm becoming more prepared for the field.  I think that going out and studying what I question, is exactly what we will be doing in the field, so that little experience was a little bit of prep and helped me to see how much more I can learn what I try to find out more than what one person tells me.

I also watched the video about translation, something about "the babel fish."  Watching that made me realize how serious of an issue translation can be. My tongan is terrible, and I think I'm just kind of expecting that the most of the people will speak english.  But I know that this is probably not going to be the case, or atleast not for everyone that I meet.  I think it's really funny how somethings can be so misunderstood in other cultures, because of how different phrases are understood.  I definitely want to make sure that I find a good translator and make sure that I'm not saying things that would assume that they understand what I mean.  For example, instead of using a phrase that describes something here, I will make sure that they understand the concept of what I'm asking by using words that I know they understand meanings of.

Learning Journal 24

I was really impressed today in class about the importance of being flexible.  I think sometimes I get caught up in schedules and goals and getting things crossed off lists and can miss the importance of what I'm doing.  Ashley was talking about this in class when she was saying how people can be so worried about reaching their goal numbers, they miss the importance of their project.  I kind of liked what she said about how it's important to not just be goal oriented but to also be intention oriented.  I definitely don't think only being intention oriented is enough by itself. If we were always intention oriented, then I feel like we wouldn't accomplish nearly enough, because we could just settle and make ourselves feel better by saying, "well I had good intentions."  Kind of like the old saying, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."  But I do definitely understand that if you are so obsessed with reaching your goals, you can miss a lot of stuff a long the way.  I think this is something important that I will need to remember in Tonga.

First of all, my project is to learn about families in Tonga and to be immersed in the culture.  Although I will have goals to interview so many families a week, or to do so many activities to meet people, the reason I'm doing these things is to learn about the families, and not to reach the numbers.  So, if I spend a lot of time with one family learning about them and can't fit in another interview that week, I think that's ok because I'm still learning a lot.  Secondly,  it's important for me to not set too many strict goals because I can't control what happens completely while I'm there.  We talked with Sione last week about how people don't set plans for a specific time because things always come up and they are always "running late."  So, I have to make sure that I don't set myself a rigid schedule that would be dependent on everyone else being on time or being where I need them to be at a certain time.  Instead of spending time being frustrated about plans not working out or about not finding someone to interview that day, I need to make sure that I am focusing first on getting involved in the community and putting myself in culturally unfamiliar or uncomfortable situations, like Ashley said in class today.  That is going to make my experience better and help me to learn more than if I am just worried about getting a certain number of interview or so many pages of notes.

Learning Journal 23 and source about language

Article about language in Tonga.
New Zealand Ministry of Education. 2000. Guidelines for Tongan language programs. www.learningmedia.co.nz

So this article talks a lot about really specific language things, but I was really surprised that they only have 11 consonants in their alphabet, which explains why there are so many vowels in every word!!! I don't know how I didn't realize that before, but I didn't.  It also talks about the importance of pronunciation, which I know I am really bad at.  But the same words (or letters put together in the form of a word) can have different meaning depending on where the accent is.  It's crazy how different their language is from ours.  It also talked about the different levels of language, like the ones they use when they are talking to family and friends vs. the king. They say it's just like in any other language where you use different words depending on the social situation you are in, but it seems a little more complicated than that.  I'm just hoping that if I happen to run into the King while I'm in Tonga, he will excuse me because I'm an American.  That's probably not the attitude I should have, but I'm really just working on learning how to talk to the normal people right now.

Learning Journal 22

I really enjoyed the sessions of the Inquiry Conference that I went to. I went to one about medical treatments, and I was really impressed by how much the guys learned on their field studies.  Some of the injuries that the people came into the clinics with were terrible, and I just kept thinking how different their injuries would have been if they would have had the kind of treatment we have here.  But the more that I listened, the more that I realized they have their own ways of doing things and their culture has some influence on their ideas and perceptions of medicine.  For example, one guy was saying how in Ghana some people don't like to take oral medications, so they crush up the antibiotics and put them on their body directly.  I was just thinking how a lot of people here wouldn't understand that, and might say that's an ignorant thing to do; but what I realized was that they have their own ideas of what is best and that's their tradition.

As far as how I can apply this to my trip to Tonga, I think that it's just always good to have reminders of the importance of learning from the other cultures.  It's a lot more important to learn from other people than to say what you think could be done better or what you think is wrong with their culture.  The guys at the presentation talked about how they learned from the places they went even though the things were just simple.   Once again, that's my goal for my time in Tonga-- to learn as much from the people as I can, even if it's just the simple things.

Learning Journal 21

It seems like it has been a million years since I have written a blog post (I'm not necessarily complaining), so I'm having trouble remembering exactly what the last thing we read or talked about in class was.  I thought the peer reviews were pretty helpful, it was nice to read other peoples proposals to gain a better understanding of what areas could be better and to get ideas of how to incorporate things in.  I am continuing to work on my IRB proposal right now, and then planning to get back to my actual project proposal next weekend.  I can't believe how close it's getting to the end and to Tonga.

Last week in our Tongan class, we read an article where this man talked about his opinions of Tongan culture (he was Tongan, but moved to the states in his childhood).  He made some really wonderful points, especially in talking about how he loves his culture, but he has to forsake some of his culture norms to be in harmony with the gospel standards.  It just made me think about how we don't have to adopt every single culture norm just because that's our culture, we can have our own opinions about things and have different ideas than the culture norms around us.

Learning Journal 20

Every day I'm getting more and more excited to go to Tonga, but I'm also getting more and more worried about my project proposal.  I feel pretty good about my project as far as the subject and methods, but I'm still struggling with the background section.  There is just so much information about families, and different studies on families across the world, it's so stressful!  But, other than that, I feel like everything else is coming together, and it's starting to feel very real!

I thought the reading called "Baskets and Blankets" was kind of interesting, even though I wasn't really feeling all the art talk.  But I really liked how the author talked about how to learn about a culture you have to appreciate the beauty in the culture.  And sometimes you don't know enough or don't have enough experiences to really be able to understand another culture.  I think sometimes, even though I know better, when I go to Tonga I'll be able to understand everything about the culture and I'll be an expert about Tonga!  I think it's important to remember that even though I'll spend three months there just learning about the culture, you can't expect to come back with a comprehensive view of the Tonga culture.  It's just a small step in learning about the culture, in one area.  The article also made me realize how important it is to pay attention and look for the beauty in the culture. It's not like that will make us able to understand all the differences in the culture or their traditions, but I think it will make us more appreciative.

Learning Journal 19

We talked on Wednesday about how we will be perceived when we enter the community and how to show reciprocity.  We were asked what we would do when get dropped off at the host family's house and how we would introduce ourselves.  I think the automatic response is to say, "Hi, I'm Allyson! I'm from the U.S., specifically a small town in KY.  I am a student at BYU and came down here to do research on the family."  But, after our lesson on Wednesday I thought about how important it is to not only introduce ourselves, but to introduce ourselves by asking questions about them or making observations about things they are doing, i.e., "that pig you're cutting open looks like it will be really tasty", or "I like your chicken!"  But seriously, I think by asking questions about them or expressing interest in their lives and cultures, they will get to know us at the same time.  And by learning about them from the beginning, I think that will help them to understand that we are there to learn from them and not there to teach them, or fix them like the article last week talked about.

The lesson also made me think about how I want to bring a little scrapbook or photo album with me.  My friend went to Peru last year and she said one of the best conversation starters/relationship builders was sharing things about her life with the kids she taught.  They loved seeing her family, and pets, and friends.  She said all of the little girls loved looking at her friends and all of our prom dresses.  I think by sharing things about our lives, that will make them more comfortable to share things about their lives with us.

One last thought I had came from our culture class.  Sione was talking about how a lot of Tongans think of the "Palangi" or white people way as being superior to the Tongan way.   For some reason this made me so sad, because even though I have a lot of pride in my culture and this country, I definitely would not consider it at all superior or better than the Tongan way, or just about any other culture for that matter.  It made me think about how I'll deal with people who think like that or treat me like I'm superior to them, because I'm a palangi.  I know we aren't supposed to try to change anything about their culture, or try to be the "mother teresa" or whatever, but I know I want to make an effort to show that I really believe there is a lot of beauty in their culture.  I don't think this will change the way they view the Palangi culture, but I think it will make me feel better if nothing else.  I'd like to make an effort to show them there are many things in their culture that I admire and even find superior to the "American way."  It's funny, because one of the most annoying things to me about my culture is that a lot of us think that our culture is the best and everyone else should want to be like us.  So it's ironic that the one of the saddest things about the Tongan culture, to me, is that some of them might think our way is a better way.