Bafa Bafa Ba?

Bafa Bafa Ba? is a documentary I filmed about cross cultural assimilation. This is the teaser. Bafa Bafa is a cross-culture simulation exercise developed by R. Garry Shirts. It is designed for administrators, faculty, and students who are in situations that require an experiential understanding of another culture. After participants are given a brief orientation to the exercise, they are divided into two groups or "cultures." They are then introduced to the values, rules, expectations, and customs of their new culture. Observers are exchanged between the two cultures. After a fixed time, the observers return to their respective groups and report on what they saw. Each group tries to develop hypotheses about the most effective way to interact with the other culture. After the exercise, the participants discuss and analyze the experience and generalize it to other groups in the real world. Benefits include enhancing teaching and learning in a culturally diverse classroom, dealing with racial and ethnic conflict, and developing an understanding of the needs of different racial and ethnic groups. It also reports some learning outcomes from it, such as the negative feelings people often have for other cultures and the need for both study and experience in order to understand the nuances of culture.