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Cultural Dimensions Of Individualism And Collectivism

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Cultural reflects human’s action, thinking, feeling, attitude and many other aspects. It is diverse in each country, region and even group of people. Each culture is widely known thanks to its introduction intro works of art namely pictures, songs, novels and films. Watching films help a person easily recognizes the salient features of a culture through the characters’ acting. Also, the film is a source for the study of intercultural communication. The movie “Lost in translation” is an example, which contains the cultural dimensions of the two countries, America and Japan. In this essay, I am going to focus on two remarkable dimensions which are Japanese society values and Individualism and Collectivism.
“Lost in translation” is a comedy drama …show more content…

They met each other for the first time in the New York Bar of the Park Hyatt Hotel. Both of them face loneliness and isolation in a total storage place and that is why they find each other, in order to soothe their solitary souls. First released in 2003, the movie immediately receives a great deal of coverage since it touches the darkest side of a human: feeling lost and helpless in something supposed to be exciting.
The first cultural dimension is Japanese society values. According to Lustig and Koester (2010), value is culturally defined as guiding principles in people’s lives or standards of good, beautiful and desired characteristics in society. From culture to culture, values differ in their valence and …show more content…

As Lustig & Koester (2010) note, individualistic cultures “believe that people are only supposed to take care of themselves and perhaps their immediate families.” (p. 117). Conversely, members of collectivist cultures “require an absolute loyalty to the group, though the relevant group might be as varied as the nuclear family, the extended family,…” (Lustig & Koester, 2010, p. 117). Also, Lustig & Koester (2010) mention that each group is “expected to look out for and take care of its individual members.”. Charlotte has just been to a Japanese temple and was exposed to the culture but this cultural experience has not evoked any feeling in her. She attempts to call her best back in the US to explain and express her loneliness in new country and her not-going-well relationship with her husband but her friend has no time for her. Charlotte belongs to an individualistic world in which everyone has to look after him or herself. One person hardly cares about the problems of the other. Charlotte finds herself not to be a member of Japanese society in which you have to have a group to belong to, otherwise you are nothing and she is additionally let down by her friends and family back home. Another scene is “Japanese karaoke” scene. Japanese people never do karaoke in public but only with their particular “group” to save face. As Charlotte is a friend and Bob is one of her

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