Importance Of Cultural Awareness In Mongolia

Cultural Awareness:

Surviving in Mongolia

SSG Barker, Russell

Class# 002-18

13F Advanced Leader Course

SFC Molton Cultural awareness is important for many reasons, as each country has very diverse ways of doing things. Culture is defined as: “the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time”, according to Merriam-Webster (2016). What does this mean to the average person? Being that humans are surrounded by multiple cultures, we sometimes have the tough task of developing new relationships. At times our cultural differences can even end those relationships. Regardless, there is no country, city or village in the world that will be the same; this makes the world a very interesting and at times difficult place.

By late 2008, Mongolia was hit hard by the global financial crisis” (The World Factbook, 2014). After this crisis, Mongolia’s economy contracted by nearly 1.3 percent. Mongolia’s official language is Khalkha Mongol, and spoken by over 90% of the country. The existing and recognized religions of the country are Buddhist Lamaist (50%), Shamanist and Christian (6%), and Muslim (4%). Forty percent of the population does not recognize religion, and therefore does not practice it. The life expectancy rate of a Mongolian is 68.95 years, significantly lower than here in America. The literacy rate comes in just shy of 97.4%. That literacy rate is not horrible, when comparing its statistics to the rest of the world. However, there are only approximately 330,000 internet users in Mongolia, which is over 742 times less than America (The World Factbook,

A person does not need to travel to a different country to witness the differences between cultures, there are differences within the United States that are obvious; for instance the south and the north have very different lifestyles, cuisines, and even religious preferences. A lot of the service members in the US military only study the countries that the military is interacting with at the time, and they do not worry about the countries that surround hostile areas, such as Mongolia. All military members need to be culturally aware of the country they are in and of their surroundings at all time, in order to be as safe as possible. Something small like knowing the main religion could make a world of difference in the eyes of the local population. As history has shown, winning hearts and minds can change an entire conflict thereby gaining the support of the United States population, as well as the nation in which the military is