Pen pals are traditionally from foreign countries and sometimes they speak another language. Writing letters has benefits in helping to understand your own society as well as developing your language skills as you learn to express ideas simply and possibly develop a foreign language also.

When you begin to exchange ideas and experiences with someone whose culture is different, a number of things can happen. What we take for normal behavior will be seen as strange, just as we will find what they take as usual is odd. For instance, the French are a private people.  Research has found they consider it unnecessary to give their names and it is not polite to ask for them. In hospitals the medical staff will offer their job title, that is what they do, but not their name. Their name is personal.  This creates difficulties for English speaking individuals who consider it impolite not to offer your name. This is a tricky difference only found by experience.

By these exchanges about how each letter writer lives, both sides are learning about how everyday living is accomplished somewhere else. Because of varying climates, religious beliefs, social attitudes and geography, the best method of survival in a particular place has evolved.  Around this rises cultural norms.  By learning of the variations, we learn that there are some basic things everyone needs but which are satisfied by what is available to them in their environment.  That’s another way of saying we make do with what we have available. 

When individuals from other parts of the world become known to us, and we begin to understand their dreams and aspirations, they stop being someone we can ignore as strangers. They become people to us in the same way that our family and neighbors are. This is one way in which prejudices can be lifted because we can see they are the same as us. This can happen in reverse too.

Learning about other cultures can be a way of challenging our own accepted values. This does not have to be at a deep level but it can raise questions about how we do things. Have we chosen the best way?  By broadening our knowledge of a world outside our own environment we can become better balanced people. It adds to our education about the world and its peoples. 

Being able to reach out and communicate with others is a useful skill which can only benefit those involved.