Stereotype is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of thing or person. It can also be a thought that is adopted about specific types of individuals or certain ways of doing things. These beliefs, opinions, or biases may or may not be true or an accurate reflection of reality. Because of stereotyping you can sometimes miss out on a deeper understanding of an individual that can make them unique. There can also be self stereotyping as well.

Example of cultural stereotypes.

Black Americans - None of them can swim, eat fried chicken and water melon, and we are always extremely late.

Black women - suffer from "angry black woman syndrome", don't like to get their hair wet, and treat men disrespectfully.

Lesbians - All lesbians hate men, pretty women can't be a lesbian, and masculine identified  women want to be men/feminine women are pretending to be lesbians.

Round 2: Flowers?

So basically I wanted to get out of the box just looking for round red circles. That's not to say that I didn't find any. But I wanted to think outside of the box. Yesterday I went on my usual 15 minute walk/run before I walk to complete my resistance training. It was a cool day. I really do enjoy the fall...sometimes even the winter (only when it snows). This walk was slightly different in that I decided to take walk on the opposite side of the street then usual. There I happened upon some red flowers. Aside from seeing bees on the flowers, I really love to take nature in. That's when I noticed the round shape that the bushes made. Aha! I had found a natural occurrence of the red dot. Enjoy my revolulation and this nice picture of a bee at work.

Super Cao Nguyen

I decided to visit an Asian store in the Asian district of Oklahoma. My wife has had the pleasure of visiting a lot of different cultural stores due to her job. So when I told her that I needed to visit a store different then my culture over the weekend she knew the store that she had in mind. I enjoyed my visit. We even bought some things for cheap that we normally would get from Walmart. For the most part I thought I knew most of the things that where apart of the Asian culture (Pocky anyone?). There were a lot of things that I recognized so my thoughts were wondering. How was I going to complete the assignment? That's when we walked into the "celebration" aisle. There I found paper, foils, shrines, etc. But what caught my eye were not the various amounts of "fake gold" (picture below) or even the signs of wealth.

I picked up what I thought to be fireworks. I wanted it because of how big it was and I also felt that it was rare to find fireworks outside of a firework stand. Of course I had no idea where I would set this thing off but I wanted it. I really, really like fireworks. I turned to my wife and asked her why fireworks next to the shrines were there. She laughed at me, took them from me, and looked them over. As it turns out they were actually very large incense. These types of incense aren't for everyday use. They are actually used for shrines, prayers and meditations, and for the Chinese New Year. There are some that are even as big at 66 inches that are used in temples. I wanted to buy some but my wife didn't want me to burn the house down with a giant ash pill in my room.

Aside from that I enjoyed my trip and also ran across something I thought may have been a back scratcher or maybe even a very large pie tool for decoration. My initial thoughts were wrong because it actually was a coconut scraper. This tool gets all the coconut meat from the coconuts' middle. This is much easier than using a fork or spoon...etc. I was drawn to this because it was huge and pointy like some weird torture device.

Some other things I found...

Culture, Worlds, and Red dots...oh my!!

Let's start today's post by saying HI!! Welcome to my small world in the corner of the universe. My major is General Studies with a minor in Graphic Design. People call me Yoshi. So enough with the formalities let's get to work.




Culture is defined by dictionary.com as the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another; a particular form or stage of a civilization (certain nation or period); or the quality in a person or society that arises from concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.




But according to Wikipedia.org it is quoted by E.B. Tylor as being "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." But continues to define culture as a defining aspect of what it means to be human, culture is a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of phenomena that are transmitted through social learning in human societies.




Third world is defined as the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The term was started during the Cold War because those countries hadn't yet aligned with the Communist Bloc or NATO. However, there is no clear definition of meaning the definition for Third World as it also has a connection to world economic status as well. Thus making the usage of the term Third World for countries that are extremely poor or non-industrialized more common.




First world also started in the Cold War as being countries that had Aligned themselves with NATO and generally are both have a strong economic market, as well as, being a democracy. The United Nations first used this term in the 1940s. This includes Western Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The term First World also has no true definition though is has been used for countries that are mostly well developed, wealthy, capitalist and have the greatest influence over the world as a whole.




Though the terms are outdated from their original definitions they are mostly used now to describe economic wealth of the Nations involved. This is actually split into 4 different world terms and measured in U.S. dollars by the Gross National Product.




Now that I have completed the work part of this post lets look at something fun! You guessed it. It's my very first red dot!! I figured I'd look for a red dot at work. We actually have a dart board that my coworkers use to relieve stress. Enjoy!