My Motivation

It occurs to me that at this point, it may not be entirely clear why I’m doing what I’m doing. HSBC sum it up well:

“We never underestimate the importance of local knowledge”

This, perhaps, is the key point to my whole project. There is a great need for us to learn about other cultures! We, the British, are never formally taught about other cultures. We are taught different languages, but are never taught about the way native speakers of this language are as a culture. Obviously, most languages don’t have a single culture associated with them, so cultural education within a lingual education setting might not be compatible. For instance, Mexicans, Argentinians and Spaniards all speak Spanish, but they do not share the same culture.

It is, sadly, far too often the case that a lot British people just don’t care about other cultures even when they are amidst that culture. In my personal experience, I can think of many times when Britons go abroad and won’t think twice about their behaviour. It’s not just when you go abroad either.

I’m from Bradford. Bradford is renowned for its curries! It’s also renowned for it’s multi-cultural populace. This is good and well, but there are far too many people in Bradford who are ignorant of these other cultures. Some may argue that people from other cultures should adapt to British culture when they’re in this country, which is a valid point, but would those people be willing to adapt to other cultures when they’re elsewhere?

Whatever the case, my project aims to help educate the British about different cultures in a safe environment — the living room! Each day is assigned a culture/country, and throughout that day the user can control their TV by performing gestures native to the culture of that day. If they get a gesture wrong, the TV will perhaps turn off for a set amount of time. All of these details are subject to change, but this is where I’m coming from.