Cultural Synergies and Opportunities

today

i’m going to be talking about cultural

synergies

and the opportunities that they present

as i was introduced i’m sam mortrey

i’m actor entertainer philanthropist all

of that

but i think the one i love the most is

being everybody’s friend

i think that is that one accolade that i

really

love and it is my job and i thoroughly

enjoy it to put smiles

on the face of people on tv and

everywhere i go so

within this presentation or even towards

the end if you crack a little smile

it means i’ve done my job well but if

you don’t it means i fill up my job so i

beg you please

if you find something that’s remotely

funny crack a smile

all right i want to take it back 16

years ago

i remember i was part of the cadet corps

school first small group of guys and

girls

who trained military style and we had a

very very

famous comedian come talk to us he’s

called kwaku sinti misa

i’m sure magenians know of him or we

affectionately

call him ksm he came to give us a pipe

talk at school

and he said a lot of things and out of

everything that he said the one thing

that struck me the

most was the word perseverance

now as a 14 year old that was the first

time i heard that word

it was a big word to me i said wow

that’s a huge word but he explained

feather

and he spoke about the importance

of having passion for your goals

and your dreams and never giving up

no matter what came your way not to be

frank and honest i didn’t really

understand what he said

because as a 14 year old i hadn’t really

faced any real challenges at that time

but five years on this word perseverance

would be my garden motto as i set on

this journey to

korea very uncertain journey

to have my bachelor’s in

computer science and engineering some

people get shocked when they hear it

shinto

a lot of koreans they get shocked they

can’t believe it like oh you studied

computers but you’re on tv and i tell

them well life doesn’t always go the way

you plan it

life is pretty funny but i’m still glad

where i ended up

so it was through the government

scholarship program

that i came to korea and the reason why

i say it’s certain jenny was because

it was riddled with a lot of what ifs

and a lot of questions and i’m sure

every foreigner in this room at least

at one point in time before you came to

korea you probably asked yourself a

whole bunch of questions

what kind of food do they eat there what

language do they speak

what is the culture how are people gonna

perceive me

are people gonna accept me for who i am

these are legitimate questions that you

ask yourself

and sometimes when you come here you

still find yourself asking these

questions

because sometimes you never even get

over that cultural shock

so these are questions that i asked

myself but at the end of the day

i was determined to ride the tide and

persevere no matter what

i don’t know about you guys but coming

from where i’m coming from you can’t

leave

and come back the same you have to

succeed

at whatever it is that you do and i was

determined to do

exactly that

and living in korea

when i first came there weren’t too many

foreigners korea’s a homogeneous society

it wasn’t very easy you had to go to

very specific

places to meet foreigners and

as an african as a person of color

it meant that i had to go the extra mile

it was almost as if you had to prove

yourself

to people everywhere that you went

and that was the same for me even going

into the entertainment industry

it was something that i carefully

planned

and calculated to do because every time

i spoke to my korean friends

i’d often ask them what makes you so

afraid of me

why do you think i live in a hut

somewhere

that i run with lions and elephants

i told them i had to go to the zoo to

see a lion i’ve never seen a lion in my

entire life

so i asked them what informed your ideas

of me

all these prejudices and they say well

the truth is that we don’t have any real

contact with people

um from where you’re from so we watch tv

and this is what tv informs us

it’s like ah tv is a very important tool

i’m gonna plunge into that

now speaking of tv takes me way back

when i was really really young i

remember

my grandfather a very very important

person to me in my life he’s taught me

so many things

when we wanted to watch cartoons

my grandfather never agreed he always

wanted us to watch

culturally centric programs or cultural

centered programs

like oktoberfest in germany or sumo

wrestling in japan

or traditional festivals in china and

the truth is that

being that young i didn’t really see the

importance of that

i just wanted to watch cartoons and just

have fun

but every time we did that my

grandfather would come

and reward us with cookies and give us

delicious

orange juices like yeah you’re doing a

good job little did we know

that subconsciously it was helping us to

be

more open-minded and to understand that

they’re very different coaches besides

those that we know now

down the line here i am working in the

entertainment industry

my main job is to connect two coaches

and i do not take that for granted at

all

honestly um i think it’s a great

recognition

and that is some of the things that you

enjoy from cultural synergy

to be able to connect these two cultures

and opportunities that come with it

now when david the comedian he was

talking about his mom being proud it was

the same thing

now when you type on your phone the most

famous black man in korea my face pops

up

and my mom would intentionally go to her

friends and say do you know korea

not really she shows them where korea

careers do you know who the most

famous black man in korea is they say no

my son

and she shows him a picture of me you

know she’s very very proud

and it makes me proud as well you know

and

these little things they really come to

tell me that

you know the job is going well but

there’s still a lot of things to do

and within the course of living here of

course so many experiences

but of course so many ideas that have

shaped me to be who i am

and i’m going to share these ideas with

you stretch it in the number 572.

if you’re not familiar with what it is

i’ll break it down so 572 is basically

my name

numeralized in korean 5 is for o

seven is for chill and two is for e o

chil e that’s my name 572.

yeah karen’s like oh my god it’s so

interesting when you talk about

connecting coaches right

because when you look at ghana and korea

on the map

so far apart so you travel a lot of

kilometers to come to korea

you go to language school you open your

book you’re learning korean

the first thing you see is kana you’re

like what

i came all the way from ghana to korea

and i’m seeing ghana

it’s like everything is connected

everything is connected and then my name

if i want to put sam that’s three so

three five seven two some ochiri

and those are the last four digits of my

phone number

i did that on purpose so i want to break

these ideas down

now the number five the five represents

the five things that i believe in the

first and foremost

is believing in yourself i believe is

the one thing that nobody

can do for you who you

are is what makes you unique i believe

that

a lot of people have accepted me

they like me because i’m true to who i

am

i don’t pretend to be somebody else and

believe in yourself provides you an

opportunity

to tell people about where you’re from

your culture and to share things with

them

so it’s so important to believe in

yourself no matter where you go

it’s the one thing that nobody can take

away from you

the second thing is respecting cultures

and ideas it’s important that sometimes

when we come to korea

we often find ourselves projecting

things that we

know from our cultures and always

complaining about career over and over

again

but we need to respect different

cultures the third thing

is that you cannot fight you cannot

fight ignorance with ignorance

you have to fight it through dialogue

it’s why when somebody comes at you and

you talk to them

they get shocked and it provides you an

opportunity to have a conversation

the fourth one is don’t be afraid to not

know

a lot of people want to pride themselves

in the fact they didn’t know it all but

you cannot know it all

and in fact when you tell yourself that

you do not know it all

that’s when you’re able to learn and get

new information

the last thing that i want to talk about

is that you have to continue learning

life is a non-stop learning process

nobody gets it all you have to keep

learning and learning

number seven talks about the days of the

week

monday through sunday i believe that

every day is a new opportunity to meet

new people

to get a lot of inspiration to get new

ideas

so make every day count two

represents morning and evening my most

important times of the day

have you guys taken the subway really

early in the morning

i have and not one single soul was

smiling

because people don’t want to go to work

they just want to be in bed and sleep

but how you wake up in the morning

really sets the tone for how your day is

going to go

if you get up and you’re happy and

you’re positive

when you meet people you say hi you

greet them

you extend that positivity that comes

out of you

in the evening is when i just recount

and assess everything that i did in the

day

mistakes lent and it counterpoints me

to make better decisions moving forward

now there are a few things that i want

you guys to take away from today

the first thing is language nelson

mandela once said

that if you talk to a man in a language

he understands

goes to his head but if you talk to a

man in his own language

it goes to his heart hence when you meet

koreans and they say

oh they get so excited

and all you said was one word that’s how

powerful

of a two language is is that one thing

that when you learn

you never lose it it’s a great skill and

it brings you

endless endless possibilities so if

you’re in korea even if you’re here for

one month two months six months one year

i really encourage you to learn the

language

it’s gonna open a whole lot of doors for

you that you never knew existed

i would not be if i didn’t speak the

language and

learn the culture so please language

forever important

the second thing of course diversity

i believe that what

culture does for us is that it allows us

to embrace other coaches

and not losing and not lose our

identities

you want to be able to learn about new

coaches but not forget who you are

and where you came from it’s also about

defining our differences looking for

similarities

and above everything else coming

together

as a group i think is so important and

personally

some of the best moments for me have

been being a cultural ambassador for

different agencies

here in korea i believe that there’s

unity and diversity

so we have to embrace that don’t look at

somebody’s culture and say well this is

different from mine so

it’s bad no the fact that it’s different

does not mean it’s bad

it’s just different just learn it and

move on

now impact i believe that

the results of cultural synergy

eventually is to create a legacy

and leave an impact in your community

whatever platform you have whatever

opportunity you have

be it big or small i believe that you

can make a little impact

and as for this reason that i partnered

with world vision

to start the 572 school foundation

in ghana two years ago we just completed

the second school

and i believe some of these things are

very important in

giving the community a sustainable way

of creating new leaders for the new

generation now before

i end my talk i want you to ponder over

some of these questions ask yourselves

what do you represent

what is your cultural identity

enrich yourself on a scale of one to ten

how intercultural you are and when you

ask yourself these questions and you

answer them you’re gonna find that

everything is to connect even all the

speakers who are

spoken before me talking about how to be

a i want to be a great dad like you when

i grow up someday

and have fun with my kids and create

beautiful memories

we often try to find the differences

that put us apart as opposed to the

similarities

that can keep us together once we search

more for those things

we’ll realize that we have more in

common

than we have in differences and we

realize that at the end of the day

whether you’re from ghana you’re from

korea you’re from mongolia wherever you

are

you find out one single thing about you

which is human

and makes the other person human as well

thank you guys so much for having me

appreciate it