By Dr. Rieko Tsubata, MD

Everyone has his or her own racial identity and cultural pride. This is only natural and somewhat necessary to keep the prosperity of a race thriving. Each race has its own culture, religion and ways of thinking, which are usually different from each other. Some races strictly keep their own identities and others are more flexible to accept the ways that others live. Once I had an unfortunate experience of cultural conflict that I'd like to share with you, in hopes of promoting peace, harmony and respect between the vast cultures of the world.

Some years ago I lived in Germany before I entered medical school in Japan. I was attending a German language course at the University of Cologne along with a number of international students from around the globe. Some students came from other European countries France, Spain as well as Eastern European countries; some came from as far as China and Japan. In addition others came from the Middle East. Most of these students were preparing themselves to enter one of the German universities.

The class itself was very good; the teacher was very eager to give good lectures and friendly to everybody. In addition, all the students were earnest to study and enjoyed the lessons. The atmosphere in the class was really nice.

In December we were supposed to have a Christmas party with all of our classmates and the teacher. Most of us were looking forward to having the party and started preparing for it in mid-December. However, just a few days before the party was to be held, it was suddenly called off, because some of the students from the Middle East were against having a Christmas party, because they were not Christians. All the rest of us were very disappointed at the cancellation.

Most or all of the students from Asia were not Christian, however the idea of a Christmas party was just fun and had no religious meaning or overtones to us. Although, for most students from the Middle East, it was considered to be serious and unacceptable to attend such a party with other Europeans and Asians, even though they wanted to live in Germany and study at German universities.

We Japanese, on the other hand, are quite flexible and have a mind that is easy to accept other cultures and to mix them with our own. I'm not suggesting that such an attitude is necessarily better, however I do believe it leads to peaceful living between peoples. At the same time, I believe it's important to preserve ethnic identity, cultural traditions and ways of life. It is also important to pass down these traditions to the younger generations in order to retain cultural identity.

In light of all this, when individuals in general stick to one's own culture and traditions too much so, it tends to make relationships between people of other cultures worse. Therefore, I think it's most important for all ethnic groups throughout the world to try to understand each other, respect each other, accept each other's differences and enjoy the many different and wonderful cultural experiences there are to share in, especially when visiting a foreign country or living abroad. I'm sure you remember the old saying, which might be good advice to follow. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."

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