Example Essay

Example Essay:

               I can say I’ve been through quite a number of situations in my life where the true nature of people is exposed. When talking about unspoken rules or common courtesy guidelines, as some might prefer to address them, I might not be an expert but I believe that I can think of a few moments in my life when I’ve had the pleasure, and displeasure, to deal with humanistic instincts. For instance, 3 times I have been hit/run over by cars (talk about nine lives…). Every single time I was hit, the crowd around me has reacted in different manners. Luckily for me, and for the purpose of this essay, each accident has been in different countries; this allows me to compare the reactions of three distinct cultures in real life situations. With these situations in mind, I propose a topic of discussion: different reactions in different cultures to a single unspoken rule –The courtesy of helping others in need of immediate medical attention-.

               November 12, 2010 Boston, Massachusetts. It was a day like any other. I was longboarding to class as I would do every morning; averaging 15-20 mph while riding downhill. Then it happened. A car apparently fails to look at its rear view mirror and doesn’t see me as I approach its right flank whilst in the bike lane and takes a right turn just as I’m about to pass him on his right. The car literally turned about 3 feet away from where I was and had no signal light on. As you might imagine, being unable to react, I hit the car longboard first and am instantly catapulted over the hood of the car about 20 feet down the road from the intersection. You would think I would at the very least have a few scratches on me, but luckily I was wearing a Kevlar jacket that ripped instead of my skin and the momentum helped soften the blow to the ground. The closest thing I had to a scar was a very mad face because the car drove away and I had a much ripped, very expensive jacket that needed replacing. Don’t take me wrong, I was thankful that I was ok. In reality, what surprised me the most was that people didn’t even look my way as the car honked his horn, I flew about 10 feet, slid across tar another 10 feet an laid on the ground for about a minute as I shook off the fright from the obviously terrifying experience. In Boston, Massachusetts, no reaction whatsoever. Let’s move on.

               December 20, 2010 San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was a day like any other. I was longboarding on the sidewalk at Old San Juan. Some lady parked on the side of the road opened her passenger door at a very inopportune moment. I hit the door head on and automatically fell to the ground. Honestly, I wasn’t going that fast. It didn’t hurt much; although this time I had a few scratches, nothing mayor. I’ve had worse cuts trying to do a trick from a standstill position! The only difference was that for that instant, and the next five to ten minutes, it was as if the world stood still. Everybody was watching me. Some commented their worry, others laughed at my misery. Still, the raw truth about it all is that I didn’t even hit the car that hard and people actually came and asked me if I needed some help. Honestly, the Puertorrican culture is not more compassionate than the American culture is; Puertorricans are just more curious! Each and every time a car accident happens on the road, most of the cars reduce speed just too see what happened. Most of the people don’t actually care about you. They just want to be well informed, I guess? Onto example number three.

               August 28, 2011 Madrid, Spain. It was a day like any other. Don’t worry, I wasn’t longboarding this time. I was just strolling down the streets of Madrid near Calle Sol. A random white van had parked in the crosswalk and I had to take a little detour around the van to be able to walk across the road. The light had just turned red for cars and green for people. I was the first person to proceed in my journey across the street. The real problem was that the exact spot where I was crossing the street was the end to a curb. I looked both ways and saw nothing. The cars parked in the street blocked the view of incoming traffic. To have a better view of incoming cars, I had the tremendous idea of walking two steps forward. As I stepped further into the road I saw a car coming straight at me. I quickly attempted to turn around and step back out of harm’s way, but the car was going too fast for me to have time to react. I only managed to turn my body away from the car which by some miracle allowed the car to hit me, while going over 25 miles an hour, in the back of the knee. The key was that since the car hit me in the back of the knee, the knee bent receiving some of the impact, then my torso gave way and received part of the impact and finally, my head hit the glass and crashed it completely. After this, I proceeded to fly about five feet hit another car and fall to the ground. There was blood everywhere. The people from Madrid all ran to aid me in my misfortune. A couple of men working in the street brought a couple boxes and opened them up to cover me from the sun; a random person called the ambulance, because I sure as hell didn’t; some other random person brought me a bottle of water and all of a sudden I was surrounded of people that actually cared about one’s well-being, or at least that is how I felt. The ambulance quickly came. The healthcare in Spain is free. The doctors said that if I hadn’t been carrying my backpack full of soft and mushy things (spare change of clothes, etc.) that I would’ve had a broken spine. All in all, I was fine. I just opened up my head with a couple chards of glass, but that’s about it. Regardless, I really enjoyed the attention and it opened my eyes to a beautiful world in which people actually cared.

               I believe that the differences are pretty obvious. You don’t have to be a sociology expert to notice the clear trends in the three distinct circumstances. Americans have a more crude culture and tend to be more closed; whilst Puertorricans and Spanish people greet each other with kisses even when they meet for the first time. Puertorricans, I believe is like a balance of the two. Because of our history, we have been influenced by the two different cultures. We are curious enough to at least look, but we aren’t compassionate enough to actually do something about it. Last but not least, the Spanish actually come quickly to your aid when in need. It’s programmed in their veins. As we can see, different cultures obviously do have different sets of unwritten rules and unspoken strategies as to how you should act upon them. Just be sure to be in Spain the next time you get run over by a car; they’ll take good care of you! At least they took good care of me.