The Way of Looking at the World by Umene Shikata

For the first class of Academic English we were all asked to draw a world map. The reason we were asked this was not obvious at first. After drawing it, we were asked to have a look at other students’ work. We then slowly understood the meaning of this exercise. Every student had indeed drawn the map in a different way, showing that everyone has its own perception of the world. Furthermore, another drawing was requested. Most of us drew it in a different way.

 

Drawing a map of the world was not an easy task. At first the details didn’t come up. Having been raised in Japan, I instinctively drew Japan in the middle of the map and detailed it. In fact most of the students drew their own country or the location of their country in the middle and like me detailed what they were familiar with. In addition some of us exaggerated the dimension of their native country. However the more distant the location was, the more difficulties student experimented to draw accurately the shape of each countries and even main lands. Because most students were familiar with Japan, the shape of the country was detailed. However, the shape o f Eurasia, America and Africa were drawn as squares or circles. Since I am half Italian, I am more familiar with Italy and Europe in general. My map of Europe was therefore more accurately drawn. On most of the students’ map, including mine, poles were not displayed. Others did not even draw Italy within Europe. Another difference I noticed among students’ drawing was the style. Indeed, some of them were in two dimensions while others were in three dimensions. After finishing the exercise we were asked to take a look at others works and requested to repeat the exercise. I was amazed on how people’s perception of the world changed after this. Most of them acknowledged that three dimension was more appropriated and thus started to copy this style. Most of them did include the poles and rescaled their country to the rest of the world. Also, after checking others map, most of us were able to draw the world map more effectively.  This shows how people’s perception is usually influenced by their environment, culture and education. For instance, people from the south hemisphere are more likely to draw it upside down, even if they probably think that our way is the upside down one. I unfortunately got extremely confused after viewing my classmates’ work. The huge amount of differences overwhelmed me and I suddenly could not picture the world map anymore. As a result I was unable to complete the exercise and started to feel embarrassed. I also started to question myself over the reasons that put me in this situation.

 

Not only did we learn that everyone has its own perception of the world, but also that we can easily get influenced by others. Our own perception of the world had indeed changed after having a look at others work. As a conclusion, we can then assume that every social topic can be controversial because of everyone’s different perception, different background and religion. 

Umene Shikata