Why People have different maps by Jake Han

When Professor Stan asked us to draw the map of the world, I recognized that my classmate would draw the map similarly　to each other. However, when we had a time to look around my classmate drawing, I was surprised to see that every people have different shape and size of the drawing. Some of them drew the map upside down; some of them drew their own country as a center of the world and some of them drew the map in three dimensional. After having to look around, we had another time to draw the map and we had another time to look around classmate’ drawing. I was still surprised that there was no one who had a same drawing as each other. When we finished the class, I suddenly had a question that even though we have an actual figure of world map, every people have a different interpretation on the word ‘world map’. So through this blog, I research and think about this situation. And here are the three ideas that why our entire class mates had a different drawing on the world map.

Firstly, I think each one of us has different background so it makes our drawing differently. I can infer through the map that for people who drew their countries as a center of the world, I can say that they are really proud of their own country. The reason why I think this way is because each country and people have a different way of teaching and acquisition of knowledge. For example, Koreans are usually learning the history of our own country rather than the world history. Therefore, the viewpoint of watching other country becomes less globalized and I become more being proud of my country.

Secondly, drawing skills can be one of the reasons. Provided each has same concepts of the world, expressing through drawing can make our map differ to each other. For example, when people draw the same object, they don’t draw all the same drawing. It means that even though we have same concept of one subject, we expressed differently through drawing. 

Thirdly, I think less geographical knowledge makes our map differed to each other. For me, when I drew the map, I just drew the figure of the world as I wasn’t quite sure of drawing. The reason why there is less knowledge on the world map for me is because I didn’t really had a lot of chance to learn about the whole country in the world. So I think each people’s knowledge on the map is a really important factor.

In conclusion, what I learnt from this assignment is, it is common that we all do not think about the same map in the same way. It means that after we graduate and enter the society, there will be really a lot of people interpret one situation or object in many different views. So since we humans have a different view of thinking I think we should give a place in our mind to the reasonable opinions of others every time.

Jake Han Sihun