Lessons from Cross-Cultural Communication 1
To answer a few of the questions: I'm about an hour away from the Pacific Ocean, but I haven't seen it yet. The weather was unseasonably warm for a long time but it recently dropped down to about 10 degrees Celsius. It's a bit of a pain, but at least there are no more spiders. :-)
I have a few anecdotes about my host family I'll save for later. I do have a joke, though:
Q: If a person that speaks two languages is bilingual, and a person that speaks three languages is trilingual, what do you call a person that speaks only one language?
A: An American.
I am taking three "normal" classes, but the vast majority of my time is spent in my fourth class, Japanese. It's similar to my class last year, except it meets 13 hours a week - I'm never complaining about class length at NU ever again. For "fun," we get to spend two hours on Tuesday talking to Japanese students who are studying to be teachers of Japanese (and it is fun). Recently we've been using a Japanese book on cultural differences and discussing different scenarios. I think this is relevant to a few of the people who read this blog, so I wanted to briefly write down a few things I've learned from these lessons:
1. You can't approach any culture objectively. Even your own.
I think this is a big problem with a lot of Americans today - we forget we have a culture and then assume our subjective cultural viewpoint is the objective one. When you interact with a person of another culture, you can't just leave your assumptions and experiences behind. But the good news is that because objectivity is impossible both you and the other person can gain something good from a cultural encounter, if you approach it with humility (what Luke was talking about below, I think). Sometimes, Japanese culture balances the weak points of my American culture.
2. It takes a long time to scratch the surface, and you can't learn all there is to know about a particular culture.
By "long time" I mean years. This reminds me of an anecdote about Albert Einstein: he's reading a physics book on a train, and a college student starts a conversation with him. She sees his book (this was before he became famous) and says, "Oh, physics. I learned about that last semester."
3. Labels can be useful, but in the end you have to embrace the complexity and diversity of humanity.
I think humanity is more complex than physics - I hope it is at least. People are sometimes divided into groups like "Asian," "white," "African," etc., and these horrendously broad labels just don't cut it. To start, we've been learning a little in our class about differences between the so-called East Asian cultures: Korea, Japan, and China. To complicate things further, there are differences by region, family, and of course each person is variation on their cultural theme. My host mother once said she didn't know Americans could be shy until she met me.
4. All cultural differences are equal, but some differences are more equal than others. (To paraphrase Animal Farm.)
The first differences you usually notice are those that are easy to notice and adapt to, like eating utensils, or how one does laundry. There are also deeper differences that are still easy to notice but sometimes hard to get used to, like gender roles or customs regarding hospitality.
Finally there are cultural differences rooted in your fundamental assumptions about daily life. You don't know they're cultural in the same way a fish doesn't notice the water around it. It's these that can cause the biggest problems and are the most important to learn. While you can learn some of them from books and classes, I think the only consistent way is through friction and failure, followed by forgiveness and communication. In that order!
Concerning this last category, I have two interesting examples from class we talked about, but this entry is long enough and I want to take a nap.
I have a few anecdotes about my host family I'll save for later. I do have a joke, though:
Q: If a person that speaks two languages is bilingual, and a person that speaks three languages is trilingual, what do you call a person that speaks only one language?
A: An American.
I am taking three "normal" classes, but the vast majority of my time is spent in my fourth class, Japanese. It's similar to my class last year, except it meets 13 hours a week - I'm never complaining about class length at NU ever again. For "fun," we get to spend two hours on Tuesday talking to Japanese students who are studying to be teachers of Japanese (and it is fun). Recently we've been using a Japanese book on cultural differences and discussing different scenarios. I think this is relevant to a few of the people who read this blog, so I wanted to briefly write down a few things I've learned from these lessons:
1. You can't approach any culture objectively. Even your own.
I think this is a big problem with a lot of Americans today - we forget we have a culture and then assume our subjective cultural viewpoint is the objective one. When you interact with a person of another culture, you can't just leave your assumptions and experiences behind. But the good news is that because objectivity is impossible both you and the other person can gain something good from a cultural encounter, if you approach it with humility (what Luke was talking about below, I think). Sometimes, Japanese culture balances the weak points of my American culture.
2. It takes a long time to scratch the surface, and you can't learn all there is to know about a particular culture.
By "long time" I mean years. This reminds me of an anecdote about Albert Einstein: he's reading a physics book on a train, and a college student starts a conversation with him. She sees his book (this was before he became famous) and says, "Oh, physics. I learned about that last semester."
3. Labels can be useful, but in the end you have to embrace the complexity and diversity of humanity.
I think humanity is more complex than physics - I hope it is at least. People are sometimes divided into groups like "Asian," "white," "African," etc., and these horrendously broad labels just don't cut it. To start, we've been learning a little in our class about differences between the so-called East Asian cultures: Korea, Japan, and China. To complicate things further, there are differences by region, family, and of course each person is variation on their cultural theme. My host mother once said she didn't know Americans could be shy until she met me.
4. All cultural differences are equal, but some differences are more equal than others. (To paraphrase Animal Farm.)
The first differences you usually notice are those that are easy to notice and adapt to, like eating utensils, or how one does laundry. There are also deeper differences that are still easy to notice but sometimes hard to get used to, like gender roles or customs regarding hospitality.
Finally there are cultural differences rooted in your fundamental assumptions about daily life. You don't know they're cultural in the same way a fish doesn't notice the water around it. It's these that can cause the biggest problems and are the most important to learn. While you can learn some of them from books and classes, I think the only consistent way is through friction and failure, followed by forgiveness and communication. In that order!
Concerning this last category, I have two interesting examples from class we talked about, but this entry is long enough and I want to take a nap.
posted by James at
11:48 PM
8 Comments:
I liked your observations, James. You are reminding me of some of the things we experienced when we lived in Kazakhstan. And the joke about "what do you call someone who only knows one language" -- I have heard that one, too. It was true ten years ago. Do you think it still holds true now? Do you see Americans becoming more interested in learning another language?
comprendo el chiste, y que tienes decir es interesante, pero muchisimos americanos hablamos mas de un lengua aqui... hablamos espanol y frances y japones, y muchisimas otras lenguas. Me gusta la frase de espanol: Decir poquito, pero malo, es hacer muchisimo de hablar...
Yeah, so translation:
I understand the joke, and I have to say it's interesting, but many americans speak more than one language over here. We speak Japanese, Spanish, French, and many other languages. I like the Spanish phrase: To speak little, but badly, is to do a lot of talking
I think Karen's right, that interest in taking languages (more than Spanish, French, and German) and studying abroad is increasing, but I'm not sure how far that is carrying past college.
What really unsettles me how the urban white American has little sense that he or she has a particular cultural perspective combined with the fact that that culture (mine) is the dominate one in the world. If you notice, the Ministry of Culture and/or Language typical around the world is missing in the US.
I'd be curious to hear more about the Feagin experience in Kazakhstan, that's a country and culture I know almost nothing about.
Very interesting post. For once, I am too tired to be random. I guess I'll write more later when I'm a bit more conscious.
james. you guys need a tagboard of some sort on this blog so we can just leave random comments. go look up tag-board.com or something, but then again ya'll will be back soon.
how many days / weeks left til u return?
when do u get back to etown?
james, very nice post. you are a good teacher. i agree, but i also think every culture has some things that are objectively bad and objectively good about them. the difference is that as christians we don't use our own culture as the benchmark for normal, but look at what is Biblical and go from there. Don't you agree?
Barney, I come back 12/22, but I think everyone (except Dave) come back earlier than me ...
Thanks for the comment, Lisa, but I think you have a little more experience with this than I do. I agree that there are things that are objectively bad and good within cultures, but it's sometimes hard to discern that and best to do it carefully.
I know what you mean by "biblical" but I think it's best to be clear about that. *God* helps and corrects us in our culture; without him, humanity descends into confusion (Babel). Most of the "biblical" cultures had problems that were objectively bad. The most prominant ones are the forms of injustice and idolotry the prophets spoke out against.
Good point, by Biblical, I meant "Christian" in terms of reflecting principles that the scripture teaches us for obedience and proper living, as opposed to Biblical in the sense of find out what the cultures in the Bible did.
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