Communism is the social organization in which goods are held in common.  When I think of communism I think of a lot of things, and they may be different then what you think of when you hear communism.  As I have experienced communism from my personal experiences I can say a lot of terrifying things about it.  If I ask my parents what they think of communism it will be much different then what I think it is.  My parents have lived their whole life through a communist government, and they have lots of good and bad things to say about it.  One word that comes to mind when I think of communism is Romania.
 Romania is my country, it is where I was born and where I was raised as a little child.  I could truly say with all my heart that I am a true Romanian.  Romanian blooded 100%.  My parents were born there my grandparents were born there and my great grandparents were born there.  As long as I have know all of my family has been born and raised in Romania.  I consider myself Romanian because of these facts.
 Now this brings up a very interesting question that I have had for a very long time and I don’t think anyone could answer it but me, and yet I have no answer for it.  What culture will my children have?  By answering this question I have stated a couple of guidelines.  First considering that I would get married to a Romanian girl who was born and raised in Romania.  If I were to have children with this girl, what culture would my children be?  Would they be American because they would be born and raised in America?  Would they be Romanian because they would have a total Romanian background from their parents?  Would they be a mixture?  I don’t think I could answer these questions.  Maybe my kids will ask me this same question one day and I will have no answer for them.  I guess I would have to let them decide on their own, on their best judgment what they would consider themselves.
Now that same question could be applied to my life.  Even though I have answered it in the previous paragraph I would like to go more in depth with this question pertaining to my life.  What am I?  Romanian?  American?  Am I Romanian because my whole family is Romanian?  Am I American because I went to school here?  Am I American because I have my citizenship here?  What am I?  I guess I could consider myself both, or maybe neither, or maybe just one.  I guess this question is kind of difficult to answer.  What does my name mean?  Is it Romanian?  When people hear my name they consider me a foreigner.  But am I really?  If everything would be the same, except the fact that I would not know my history, would I consider myself American.  Does the fact that my background is Romanian hold enough truth to make me Romanian?  I have started a new life with a new country, a new language, family, friends, school, and many others.  I am a totally different person.  But yet I am the same.  It is very challenging to consider yourself something that your not, and then consider yourself something that you were, and you left it behind.  Culture is very difficult to confirm.
 I grew up in a middle class family in Romania.  Living in a small apartment and my parents going to work every day.  I knew that I would never become something famous or a doctor.  Why would it matter anyways?  A doctor got paid just as much as a farmer anyways.  Why should I strive for something good, I am going to be just as good as the person next to me anyways.  No that is not how I was taught to think.  I had to do the best.  I had to get only A’s anything lower was not acceptable.  But you ask yourself, why?  I don’t know it was just how us Romanians used to think.  As children we never used to have much time to do homework.  We had to do work, while mom and dad were gone we had to clean the house, do the dishes, and anything else that was left undone.  We couldn’t let mom and dad do it, they were to tired when they came home from work.  And when we did have free time we wanted to play and have fun, not homework.  Romania is so much different and so much harder.  But I am glad to be Romanian and I am glad that today I live in the United States.
  Farming was a major part of our lives.  During the winter we would have nothing to eat if we did not work during the summer to store up things so we could have in the winter.  It was not acceptable to be lazy, when you had a little free time you had to do something productive.  If you did not farm you did not eat.  It was that simple.  We did not have stores to go to and shop for what we needed.  And if we did it would be to expensive for us to buy.  There are many good things that being a Romanian offers and then there some bad.
 One thing that I have totally noticed that is different between many others and me is that I have much more respect for my elders.  It was the way that I was raised.  You always gave priority to the elderly, they were always put ahead of you, because they are more experienced and they deserve to have a little respect.  I have noticed that the way I treat the elderly and the way others treat the elderly is much different.  That is one thing I have learned from being Romanian.  Another thing I have noticed is that as a little kid I have always learned to save every penny that I earned.  I learned that no matter how much you have you could always strive to have more.  I learned this because my parents always told me to do so.  I believe they told me this because they have lived through some very hard times and they probably had no money at times and they learned from their experiences.  They didn’t want me to go through the same things they went through, so as a little boy they have taught me this lesson.
 Now I would like to change the topic a little bit and talk about the social construction of cultural knowledge.  I can say that I have learned about my culture through being social.  I have learned about my grandparents through my parents, because I was too young to know them at the age of seven.  I know about my country and how it was through what my parents have told me.  I know everything that I know about my culture through being social.  Going to a Romanian church gave me a lot of information about my culture.  I heard a lot of stories, jokes, horrifying times, and many things about my fellow Romanians.  If I would not participate in a Romanian church and not talk to my parents about Romania I would probably know nothing about it and therefore consider myself an American.  Through this I can see how important the social construction of cultural knowledge is.  When I have kids and they are old enough to understand I will tell them all the stories that I have heard from my parents, I will tell them so that they can know a little about their culture as a Romanian.  I consider myself Romanian and as long as I live I will do so, because I am proud of it and I will never ignore it.  The social construction of culture knowledge according to my standards is the information you are given or being passed down to you about your culture from parents or family that know precisely what your culture is.