Hello, Hola, Bonjour, Hallo, Ní hâo, Kon'nichiwa, Shalom, Marhaba

On Earth, we have so many different ways of saying hello.  Each word has a different meaning, depending where we are in the world.  Our planet is so big that each part has its own unique history and culture.

Culture is everywhere.  What we eat is cultural.  What we do for a living is cultural.  How we live is cultural.  Our clothing is cultural.  Our language is cultural.  Our religion is cultural.  Our greetings are cultural.  Everything that makes us who we are is because of our culture.

I am a Spanish and International Studies major with an International Business minor at Nazareth College.  This semester, I am completing a series of blog posts to discuss part of this enduring question:

How do different cultures co-exist?

Since this is such a broad subject area, I decided to tackle one aspect: greetings.  More specifically:

How do members of different cultures greet each other?

To answer this question,  I am going to focus on five major parts of the world: North America (United States and Canada), Latin America, Europe (with a focus on Spain), the Middle East and Eastern Asia.  I plan to ask my professors, who are from these areas or are experts in each of the areas, to describe the method of greetings to me.  I plan to incorporate different pictures and videos as well.

To further my answering of this question, I am going to draw upon different experiences in my time at Nazareth College, the most prominent being my study abroad in Valencia, Spain.  I have also taken courses about different areas of the world, anthropology and religion.

I hope this project helps me to answer part of my enduring question.  

I hope you enjoy following me throughout the world and that you learn something that you didn't know before!