The Inside Perspective Of An Outsider Essay -- China Anthropology Stud

The Inside Perspective Of An Outsider I read everything I could find. I spoke with natives who were visiting the United States. I studied the language diligently. I scrutinized pictures, noting each detail. Nothing prepared me for that first long walk along a Beijing street. I smelled for the first time, the smells that were to become a familiar component of my three-month stay in The People's Republic of China. I made eye contact with people who had formerly just been captured still-lifes on a reference book's glossy page. I attempted to speak my broken Chinese with people who did not care that my book at home had taught me the words for "ambassador" and "diplomat." I took my first tentative step towards cultural understanding. The China surrounding me collided with the China I ignorantly thought I had prepared myself for. I. Anthropology Allyn Maclean Stearman graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1964 with a degree in Spanish. In conjunction with her foreign language major, she spent her junior year studying abroad. Her travels in Columbia certainly influenced her decision to join the Peace Corps immediately following commencement. Peace Corps placed her in Bolivia where she ended up staying for four years. Her community development work in Bolivia not only made her fall in love with the Bolivian Amazon, but also inspired in her that first recognized interest in the study of anthropology. According to James P. Spradley, the goal of anthropology is "to describe and explain the regularities and variations in social behavior" (p.10). John H. Bodley (1997) takes the purpose of anthropology one step further. He makes the claim that the acquisition of some basic anthropological tools will prep... ...etite. The long periods of loneliness and alienation alerted me to the daily struggles of an outsider attempting to be an insider. Works Cited: Bodley, J. H. (1997). Cultural Anthropology: Tribes, States, and the Global System. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company. Grindal, B. & Salamona, F. (1995). Bridges to Humanity: Narratives on Anthropology and Friendship. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Spradley, J. P. (1979). The Ethnographic Interview. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Spradley, J. P. & McCurdy, D. W. (1972). The Cultural Experience: Ethnography in Complex Society. Kingsport, TN: Kingsport Press. Stearman, A. M. (1989). Yuqui: Forest Nomads in a Changing World. Chicago, IL: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Stearman, A. M. (n.d.) "Fighting the Odds for Cultural Survival: The Story of a Yuqui Development Project".