Me within My Own Culture

I've been in the United States for seven years now, and I have been greatly influenced by american culture. Despite all that, I believe that I have kept up with my own culture very strongly and along with friends and family. I love my culture, and no matter where I go I want to keep that in my life, yet still learn about others as well.

Chinese Food

 Chinese food, a mixture of noodles with black pepper and eggs with veggies. I really liked it,

  This is fish with bell pepper and egg yolk.

New Culture

I love learning about other culture and traditions, I cherish and respect other people's ways of life and how they live. In order for me to learn Spanish, I had to watch TV, eat, and be around people who know more about it compared to me. For three years in a row, all I watch is Novelas, Telenovelas and TV shows in Spanish so that way I can learn everything there is to know about their cultures and important traditions. For the last couples months, I have transition from Spanish shows and went on to Koreans shows, which surrounds my current life.  I have a love for languages, and currently I am learning Korean as my 6th language. 

Me within Culture

Although I have been living in the United States for over seven years, I basically grew up here and everything I know and learned here. I came here when I was very young, and I have adopted the American multi culture. Despite all that I still use my own culture from the Congo and cherish very much.I try to help my younger siblings to overcome those crisscrossed paths of culture exchange.

 My brother on the left, he's wearing an African shirt called Yamado after church. We all have Afrcian clothes,  originally from Africa which are very expensive and we wear them all the time.

 My life expectation, I play soccer and juggle to be a model and church girl as well. I played many other sports and sing in the church choir, so I had to make time for both these important things in my life.

After my family received the U.S citizenship in 2015, we took this picture in Tucson downtown.

Every Picture was placed to bring in a more home vibe in the restaurant and decorations. Each and very single image has a sole meaning behind it.

Maneki Neko Money Lucky Cat Chinese Japanese Statue

                     

                      Maneki Neko Money Lucky Cat Chinese Japanese Statue

                     I few days ago I went to two different Chinese restaurants with my friends as I was looking around, I noticed that at the entrance they have a cat figured statue with its pawn up. I was getting real curious and the fact that there was many objects with red color everywhere. I knew that color red was for good luck, but I wasn’t to know why the cats where there. In my country many cats are regards as a sign of witchcrafts and bad luck to many people. In my country, it is widely known that when wizards or witches wants to go cast magic they turn themselves into white or black cats. All this left a bad impression about cats on me, so I wanted to know what the owner of the restaurant would say about the cat’s meaning from his beliefs and culture practice. At the end I asked the owner about and he told me, that cat is a sign of good luck or talisman to people who own business. It’s usually made of ceramic and plastic, it’s a common Japanese figurine often displayed in shops, restaurants, stores and other business places. It is also sometimes called the "Chinese lucky cat" due to its popularity among Chinese merchants. So when I heard this story behind the cat , it completely changed my view on cats in different places. Not all cats are bad and evil like I have believed to be so all my life.

Hello, everyone my name is Ngoy Constance Mwamba a fellow student in Asian Culture and Visual studies. I love learning about others and their traditions and culture. I am from Congo which is a country in central Africa. My country is full of different beliefs, traditions, religious beliefs and cultures. Coming to America gave me the opportunity to learn about others and what is important in their daily lives and ancient beliefs and how its adapted today. I am very happy and excited about this class and all there is to discover. I will do a lot of comparison between what I know as a child in Africa and what I will learn in this class. I hope you are all as excited as me. Please enjoy every post on this blog.