Part 1: The importance of cultural understanding cannot be overstated, especially in today’s global marketplace. Americans tend to be rather ethnocentric; that is, quick to pre-judge other cultural norms as wrong (or of lesser significance) simply because they differ from American practices.
One of the ways we can open ourselves to cultural differences is to experience those differences through the common element of food. Toward this end, create basic dining guide for ethnic restaurants in our area. Select a variety of five restaurants and profile each on the elements of 1) food, 2) service and 3) décor. The guide is not meant to be a rating guide. It is simply meant to be an informative guide. A couple of descriptive sentences on each element for each restaurant will suffice.
If you have don’t know of or haven’t been to enough of such restaurants personally, you can research them on the internet. Try to look for restaurants other the most common (Italian, Chinese).
Part 2: We are a culture that loves labels and so names have been given to various generations based on our dates of birth and framed by socio-cultural experiences and similarities. Of course, as with Astrology, those of us on the cusp can claim characteristics from both the group we are in as well as the one we border. I, of course dismiss labels and strongly claim characteristics from all, although I am quite sure the music of my generation is some of the best ever written and performed.
While there are minor variations in the dates categorizing Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y, our textbook uses the following dates:
Boomers: 1946 – 1964
Generation X (Gen X): 1965 – 1980
Millennials or Generation Y (Gen Y): 1981 – 2000
Marketers use each group’s similarities as a means to target communications, to make them more meaningful and illicit stronger reactions. Of course, no group is homogenous and some of us strongly resist being categorized. The textbook discuss characteristics of these three groups on pages 43-45. What group are you in? Do you think the generalizations listed are indicative of you? If not, do you think they are fairly accurate of your generation as a whole?