- In the second week of our YTT we had an open discussion about the different prejudices we have.
Master Paalu spoke about how he likes to bring up controversial topics. He fully achieved his goal in this lesson however he does this in a neutral way which provokes conversation raising awareness of our different prejudices and how ridiculous they can be.
At first I felt uncomfortable discussing what prejudices are learnt from our up bringing but as the group opened up about their different prejudices it opened my eyes to show that we all have them and it is our choice whether we let them impact our actions.
I found this session particularly interesting because the group of trainees we have is so diverse coming from all different backgrounds which really raised some key prejudices we grow up with in our different cultures. We have Yogi’s who are originally from India, France, Columbia, Indonesia, England, China, Argentina, Italy, Russia, Japan and the Philippines.
Some of the prejudices we have and discussed in our lesson:
The French are rude and arrogant.
Some of us judge each others personalities on the type of pet we choose (dogs owners are more friendly then cat owners).
British are drunks.
British don’t know what good food is.
Chinese people spit.
Latinos are always late.
Filipino always say yes mam.
Ex-Russians are Rude.
Russians drink vodka like water.
Indian’s have a funny head movements.
Japanese work too much.
Argentinians are over confident.
Some countries don’t like others because they were used as servants to others historically.
These are just a few of the examples we came up with we yet as a group of multi-cultured individuals we can all come together and forget all the prejudice we have been taught.
This session taught me it is so important that we try to drop all pre-conceived opinions we have of one another and also the opinions others have of you.
Treat everyone as a human, do not judge as we are all individual.
Bettina x
