North Korea VS Qatar

The eye-opening documentary “A State of Mind” is centered on two North Korean gymnasts, Pak Hyon Sun and Kim Song Yun, who are preparing for the Pyongyang mass games, an annual event in NorthKorea. Throughout this documentary we not only see the ongoing struggles and challenges the girls face but also how their everyday life is, living in a communist run country that is extremely secluded from the rest of the world. After watching the documentary, the vast differences in culture between Qatar and North Korea were extremely apparent especially when it came to cultural diffusion, but regardless of North Korea’s ethnocentrism, some sociological similarities were visible as well.

The importance of family is a major one. Qataris and North Koreans share the same intense respect and love for family. For example we see Pak Hyon Sun is an only child living with her parents and grandparents under the same roof and Kim Song Yun is one of three girls in her family also living with their parents. Similarly, Qatari families have the same values when it comes to loved ones and express the same admiration towards elders. Mother daughter relationships in particular resemble each other in both cultures even in the smallest things, like mothers showing maternal affection and telling you to finish your food or go do your homework.

The mass games require an extreme amount of determination, skill and training especially in a sport as challenging as gymnastics however when compared to Qatar we see how similar that is with soccer in the region. Qatar has assembled a young team of athletes just over a decade before the event in hopes of reaching the impeccable standard it needs to win the world cup in 2022. This includes vigorous training sessions and ongoing will power, very much like what the two girls had to go through to be ready for the mass games.

The music and dancing portrayed in the documentary also shares the same essence as Qatar’s in that it’s very tradition oriented. During celebrations such as the mass games we hear patriotic music played by an orchestra and each dance or performance is telling a story. Qatar also has traditional dances and music originating from Bedouin times, in particular a sword dance called the Ardha, usually performed by men. Qatari music revolves largely around percussion and string instruments such as drums, violins and oud.

Qatar and North Korea are widely different from each other when it comes to most things, there’s no denying that. North Korea is definitely one of the more secretive countries in the world so their way of life might look strange to foreigners, but no matter how different a culture is to the other, there are certain aspects that they all have in common no matter how ethnocentric they are.

Culture shock?

If someone would ask you, what makes you different from Person A or Person B, you would probably be able to come up with a list from the top of your head, without even having to think, like nationality, language, religion or even food habits or education.

In other words, the way you have been brought up is what differentiates you from the others. A sociologist defines this as culture. The way of life of people or more specifically, the human created strategies for adjusting to the environment.

For some of us, seeing different culture is the best part about traveling, where as for few other, they have a culture shock coming from place X to Y. Culture shock is the strain that people experience while traveling from one region to the other, and must reorient themselves to the ways of the new culture. And this was exactly what happened in the movie Outsourced, where an American products salesman (Todd) heads to India to because of his replacement, after his entire department is outsourced. Being unaware of the beliefs and values of India, he found himself in a very inconvenient situation. For example, in India, Cows are considered sacred and play an important role in the Hindu religion. Whereas when Todd goes to India, being ignorant, he talks about cows as a food product without realizing how sensitive a topic it was and he goes on doing the same sort of mistake, until he finally finds someone who could teach him about the Indian culture.

People’s behavior and values change from culture to culture, and that is rooted to the shortage and abundance of resources in different regions. For example, the video shows how common begging is in India. However, in Qatar it is hardly seen in public. The economic structure of the country breaks the conservation-oriented behaviors of its people.



According to Sociology, some of the most important types of non-material cultures are beliefs, values, norms, symbols and language. And some of these aspects were clearly noticeable in Culture Shock, an Al Jazeera documentary, on how African migrants find ways to deal with the European culture. These African migrants face instances of racist violence in Germany, where because of their skin color, people assign symbols. People assign offensive names.

Despite being immigrants, some of their habits perfectly match local customs, which is a case of cultural universals, which refers to things found in every culture. But sometimes people hold on to the viewpoint of ethnocentrism, because of which these African migrants are not being accepted by the social norms.

Click here to check out the documentary on Al Jazeera

Culture Shock: What is it like to live in Europe with an African identity?