Card Game of Shame

Dear Diary,

My cultural diversity class is moving right along now, already into week four. I feel like my perspective, or cultural lens, has grown a little wider. I’m making connections both in experience and emotions with each activity we do in class. Last week I participated in a very frustrating, but eye opening activity. We were instructed to play a card game, and we were put into groups and given a sheet of instructions on how to play the game. First I must mention that I am rubbish at card games. I have no idea why it takes me so long to pick up on the rules, and while I have many theories none of them are very interesting. So needless to say I was pretty bummed when I picked up the rule sheet. I tried my hardest to understand what I was going to have to do and how the game was to be played. To make matters worse we were not allowed to talk the entire time, so there was no way for me to communicate to my partner just how useless to her I was about to be. As we rotated from one group to another I continued to get more and more confused.Rather than shut down in frustration I just decided to adopt the ‘fake it till you make it’ rule of thumb. I would learn latter that each group had been given a slightly different set of instructions, so it would not have mattered if I had understood my own original game rules. Even so I watch other player’s closely and did my best to emulate what I witnessed them doing. If I did something incorrect I just let them correct my mistake or keep placing cards down till whatever I did was accepted by the group. When the group would look at me in confusion I would just stare back and smile or shrug my shoulders, embarrassment getting very overwhelming. I felt so stupid and frustrated it really was a rather horrible few minutes.

When it was all over I couldn’t help but want to bang my head on my desk, ‘couldn’t we have just played go fish’, I said to my partner exhausted. Not being able to talk made things so difficult, I can pick something up much faster if I hear it explained. I also felt like I had been the only one struggling to understand the game. Until our professor revealed that all the rules had been different on purpose, so everyone had been through the ringer too. The light bulb went on in my head and all at once I understood the purpose of this game (it did nothing to sooth my pride though). This experience simulated what it would be like to be from another culture while visiting or living in a new country. You might not be able speak to the locals, so rules, laws, and customs would all be very difficult to pick up. You might find yourself imitating what you saw in order to fit in, and depending on the rule or legislation of a city an individual could find themselves in a lot of trouble. On a positive note thought I realized that while I could not communicate I was still able to play the game with others. I realized that this can also be true for a person who is immigrating or visiting a new place.

Communication does not always have to be verbal and with effort something important, like a card game rules, can be conveyed. I liked that this experience was emotional, even though I got frustrated and embarrassed I’m never going to forget this card game or the simulation. I feel like on a small level I can now empathize better with how frustrating it might be to an immigrant, or someone visiting a new country, to pick up local customs and language.I think as a child and youth worker, this is definitely going to come up in the field, and I will have to come up with a competent way to work with a child and their family that is respectful. A child from an immigrant family that perhaps can’t speak a lot of English may be experiencing some of the emotions I did when I played this game. I know that felt pretty crappy the entire time we were playing, exhausted by end really. I look forward to the rest of the semester where I can learn some cultural competent strategies to help a child and their family receive the assistance they need.