CultureShock in the WikiWikiWeb

A wiki is a kind of website which has a concept of “open editing” that permits visitors to freely create, remove or else change and edit Web page content with the use of any available browser. It is an efficient and effective collaborative authoring tool that provides total ease of interaction and operation.

I was surfing the Wiki and my interest was growing by leaps and bounces, when I followed the ThreadMode of the WikiWord - CultureShock. It began with the definition, in-depth explanation and classic examples of culture shock.

I knew what it was to experience culture shock, first hand. That was when I was, at one time, a foreign exchange student in the US of A. Some culture shock experiences were embarrassing and unsettling but others can be learning windows from where I saw a new and exciting world. This new world may not necessarily be better or worse than mine, but at that point it was definitely different. I believe, then and until now, that the difference added value to both worlds.

At the Wiki, the CultureShock by the Wikizens were amusing without being offensive. More important for me was not so much the entertainment value that the Wikizens, perhaps, unconsciously injected into their WikiText, but the added knowledge that the experience they cited brought forward.

I felt that people from every culture mean well. Be it in a greeting, a kiss, a hug, a gaze, a spoken word, and a handshake the instinct was always to extend a gesture of welcome, good will, sincerity, and pleasantness. How the meaning was lost in translation and transmission was the diminishing factor in what would have been an ideal equation.

Through the Wiki, Wikizens are able to create a platform or a plank where they share the meaning of gestures and words in their language, in their culture, and in the life they have been accustomed to. Everyone else are outsiders looking in, gaining insights of a culture initially strange and shocking.

With this new understanding comes acceptance of the foreign, tolerance for the different, and appreciation of the diverse.