What is culture?

Today at Parikrma, a boy came into the office and he had to explain to us what culture was. It was brought up because he had his ears pierced and he was wearing earrings, which in his village is believed to bring good luck. After he was taught the lesson of culture, the next topic was about respect.
In the preparation of our in country experience, we had several courses one of which was about culture and cultural differences. It actually explained to us IBM´ers what culture was, defined as ´the way of life of a group´. Two levels of culture were distinguished; the things we can and the things we cannot experience by using our five senses. During our assignment I got plenty exposure to both levels from the people of Bangalore, my clients, the children and my team mates. Good examples are the food that they like to introduce us to, the religion that is always around and the cricket that is one of the biggest things in India.
What is more difficult to understand is the things you don’t see, especially the way Indian people feel is hard to get because they do not express it in the same way as we (or I) do. Reading peoples emotions is hard enough as it is, but together with a lack of cultural understanding it becomes even more challenging. One way of overcoming this barrier is to expose yourself to the other culture with an open mind and without being prejudice. Because this is not very easy, they start teaching this valuable lesson at Parikrma early in life.