Sociological Imagination & Sociological Mindfulness

This week, in class, we learned about Sociological Imagination and Sociological Mindfulness. Sociological Imagination involves individuals and how they're influenced by when and where they live. For example, my dad was born in the sixties in the countryside of South Korea. Therefore, while growing up, instead of going to the movies or amusement parks, with his friends, he went fishing in the lake and hiking in the mountains. As a result, as my brother and I were growing up, instead of taking family trips to places with fun attractions and shows, we visited places with a nice scenery. Even if we were in the middle of Wisconsin Dells, my parents would take us on the boat tours rather than the amusement parks. One time, we were driving through California, and my mom and dad started freaking out because they had seen a sign for a nearby farmers market! As crazy as that sounds, throughout the years, my brother and I gathered a love for mother nature. Through my mom and dad's obsession with nature, we learned to appreciate the world around us; however, that isn't the case for most people our age. Most of the people, in my grade, don't appreciate nature, as much as my brother and I, because we live in a society where weekends are spent indoors due to the new Call of Duty game that just got released for X-Box. This week, we learned that Sociological Mindfulness involved realizing that people had unique qualities and appreciating them. Since the American culture is so different from Korean culture, I often find myself in arguments with my parents. Since respect is such a key aspect, in the Korean culture, I can't even call my own brother by his name. Instead I've been raised to call him "oppa," which is older brother in Korean. I have become sociologically mindful because I learned to understand that my parents were as strict, as they were, about respect, due to when and where they were born. I realized that I might have thought that they were being unreasonable with me; however, I now realize that due to the differences in cultures, I had as much of an influence on them.