FREE ESSAY ON ON MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH OTHER CULTURES ENCOUNTERED BY MY ...

ON MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH OTHER CULTURES ENCOUNTERED BY MY ...

On My Personal Experience with Other Cultures Encountered by My ...
... Sight
Every lucky man has all five senses, perhaps he or she has also the power of predicting
the future by means of of the so called sixth sense, or intuition. We use them altogether
all the time, and so one can hardly tell a story in which just one particular sense is
engaged. I have spent most of my life here in Slovakia and I only communicate with other
worlds by means of the Internet, by reading or by watching TV. Or I communicate with
those worlds which come to my world. As far as my vision in interaction with other
cultures is concerned, the most intense memory is a 16th century painting by van Brueghel
Jr. called The Triumph of Death. It shows Death and all that it stands for coming in
overwhelming quantity, torturing and killing masses of people in insane laughter. I saw
this picture when I was 7 for the first time and since then I have been returning to it,
wondering what event could have led the author to create this dreadful masterpiece. I
have seen many similar and even much better artistic works since I saw The Triumph of
Death for the first time, but with the help of this particular work I realized that Art
is all about making an image of and perceiving different worlds inhabited by different
people.
... Hearing
Music. This is the first thing that comes to my mind when hearing and other cultures are
mentioned. I remember one summer night, when there were about 20 people sitting around a
fire and everyone held an instrument. Most of those were people I did not know, but at
that moment I felt strong mutual unity powered by tribal beats of bongos of all sizes. It
was a ritual of freeing our minds to other dimensions and the music was the gate. At that
time, banging a bongo, playing a didgeridoo or another non-standard instrument was a
matter of fashion, of course, mainly within the young, now it is fading away. I do not
know and I do not care how this customs of native Australians and Africans got here, but
I really enjoyed that.
... Smelling
I am a man from town, no matter how big. I spent all summers of my childhood in the
country, where I kept a herd of cows with my friend, where fell in love with a simple
village girl, where I cut down trees, where I learnt to use chainsaw, to mowe, to milk a
cow, to jump on a horse without being kicked, to drive a tractor ... and where I did all
other things that can hardly be done in a town. Two months a year in a place where most
of all things are not bought but made. Two months in a place where the air smells of
fresh pines and fresh cow*censored*. And therefore cow*censored* does not smell to me as
it does to other people. To me, it represents purity of nature and the value of human
work.
... Touch
He was not mongoloid, but Mongolian, and a little bit god-forgotten boy, perfect at
playing chess. All kids were afraid of him, the big ones told horrid stories about him to
the litlle ones. Once, when I was sitting and building sand castles with his brother
Khatam Bhatar, I did not notice him approaching and all kids running away. He came and
touched me. I realized what I had to and I began to scream, as other kids used to. This
was the first and the last touch done by him to me. He died several days after, with his
crippled mind, unspoken words and unimaginable mathematical imagination. 
... Taste
I was about a 4-year old boy. My family lived in Russia at that time, and for some
reasons we all went down to Georgia. Unfortunately, sharp curves of a Caucassian road did
not do well to my little stomach and so I expelled the whole of its content on the
coating of our car. It was nothing else but chachapuri, the traditional food of Georgia.
It was so delicious that the only thing I could ask for after realizing that my belly was
empty was just another portion of chachapuri... 
... Intuition
I am really very sorry, but I do not feel being endowed by this gift and from this reason
I cannot supply any story. I am a rational man and what is hypothetical is not true, no
matter how true it is or will turn out to be.