Expectation vs. Reality

One obvious connection that I made between culture and Global Public Health is the fact that they are heavy influences on eachother. For example, as we learned in class one day, if you are looking at the illnesses that effect those who live in developing countries, you often find diseases that have known cures. The only reason why the illnesses are having such a large effect on the CDR is because the people in these countries don't have the same health care and medical advanvements. Also, there may be cultural obstacles such as religion. If you are in a country where it is a part of the culture to not trust western medicine then that will have a large effect on the health of the people there because they are likely to refuse treatment. Since I have been in Berlin, I have noticed how drinking and smoking are a large part of the culture in Berlin. I expected to see people smoking because it's Europe but I'm not sure that I was expecting to see people drinking so openly here. I can tell that Germans like to party. When I was talking to Ari one day, she was telling me that parties here don't start until very late at night if not in the early hours in the morning. Because of these habbits, I didn't expect every store to close on Sunday like it does. I feel like when things close on Sunday in the United States, it is a sign that those businesses are owned by someone very religious. With the habbits of the people here, I wouldn't expect businesses to be as religious. One of my a-ha moments was when I realized that going to school only costs the students 300 euros. I was just so surprised because it is so incredibly expensive to get an education in the United States. I can only imagine how much more educated the general public would be in America if it was that inexpensive to get a quality education there. This makes me wonder why this can't be the reality in the US. Also, I am curious how much teachers and educators make in Germany because there is a problem in the states with underpaying our educators. One thing that I was surprised that people are still very active here dispite the harm they are doing to their lungs by smoking. When I think of smoking, I think of damaged lungs and when I think about damaged lungs, I do not think about exercise so it's cool to see how active people here are despite the smoking.