March 9

Today and monday's class were all about different symbols that different cultures have. We have many symbols that are the same but represent different things (a t as a cross and a letter), as well as different symbols to represent the same thing (peace sign, dove, two fingers raised up). It's extremely important to recognize that symbols mean different things in other places, and things that we normally wouldn't have meaning on might be significant. An example is a cow here, which is just a farm animal we use to produce milk and meat, but in India the cow is extremely sacred and they wouldn't even think of eating one.
I don't know of any Tongan symbols that are different, but going along with that when we study another culture we have to realize that the way that they think is even different than our own. For example, Tongans are very connected with the nature around them, and have close ties with their families. In our culture, we don't think that way about nature and our society is becoming less and less family oriented. For my project I want to be able to learn about the way that Tongans think so I can better understand them and their culture. This is important because if you don't know about their symbols or what's sacred to them, you could really offend someone or even the entire community. I sure as heck don't want to do that when I'm trying to talk to people and research them!