BY: ROZAILINA OTHMAN (EIT-201103884)
Introduction
When study about culture, some factors such as geographical location, history, environment and religion cannot be opted out. The purpose of this paper is to study culture differences between two countries; Malaysia and Germany. Geographically-wise one country is located in Asia and another is in Europe. Both countries have their own unique culture and tradition from hundred years ago. This study is based on interview between the author and a Malaysian student who currently living in Germany.
Interviewee background
Her deep interest in car and formula one, bring Nur Hannani Fazilah to Germany. Thanks to her excellent achievement in Malaysia Public High School exam, Nur Hannani Fazilah or wanted to be called as Hannani, was awarded with scholarship by Malaysian government to continue study overseas.
At first she had several options either goes to United Kingdom, Australia, Japan or Germany, but 8 years ago, when she was 20 years old female student, she thinks that going to English speaking countries is kind of boring so it left her two options either go to Japan or German. She picked German instead of Japan because she wanted to know what the manufactured country of her favorite car, Mercedes look like and she thought German language kind of unique. The language is different from British or American English and not too hard to learn like certain Asian countries. So in late 2006, she started her first journey to Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany to study chemical engineering.
Perception vs. reality
We can’t escape from having perceptions about certain country. These perceptions were imprinted in our mind since we now we are exist in this world. Perception is build from personal experience or information from news or school. Perceptions can be good, bad or even totally different from what the actual fact