With globalisation, intercultural interaction becomes inevitable. Work made across the globe require people to learn and understand the culture of their clients and colleagues. In my opinion, making an attempt to understand and accept the difference in culture shows a speaker's sincerity and the respect they have for the other party.
I take an example of a German girl, Kathrin, interacting with a colleague, Zhang, from China.
Despite working in the same laboratory, Zhang and Kathrin hardly interacts. Kathrin enters her workplace daily and greets all her colleagues with a cheerful 'Good morning!". To her disappointment however, she gets only a mumble from Zhang, without eye contact.
After some time, she casts an opinion of Zhang being rude and unfriendly.
An experience in Germany has allowed me to learn that most Germans greet their fellow colleagues in the morning and eye contact between people during communication is important. In this case, perhaps Zhang is shy and dare not look at people in the eye when he speaks. This can be quite common for people who have little self confidence or are simply uncomfortable with eye contact. It could also be the case that this is how people interact in his hometown and he is used to it.
In this situation, as both parties do not require direct contact at work, the both of them left the situation the way it is. To Kathrin, she was only going to be working with him for 2 months and to him, she was just a temporary colleague. The relationship could possibly have been improved and the awkwardness reduced if both parties give and take and are open to each other about their opinions.
Hence, when dealing with intercultural communication, a basic knowledge of the other party is important and can be obtained from books or through speaking to people. Coming from ourselves, we should also speak up and inform other people when we find that they are behaving in a way that we and our culture is not comfortable with.
I take an example of a German girl, Kathrin, interacting with a colleague, Zhang, from China.
Despite working in the same laboratory, Zhang and Kathrin hardly interacts. Kathrin enters her workplace daily and greets all her colleagues with a cheerful 'Good morning!". To her disappointment however, she gets only a mumble from Zhang, without eye contact.
After some time, she casts an opinion of Zhang being rude and unfriendly.
An experience in Germany has allowed me to learn that most Germans greet their fellow colleagues in the morning and eye contact between people during communication is important. In this case, perhaps Zhang is shy and dare not look at people in the eye when he speaks. This can be quite common for people who have little self confidence or are simply uncomfortable with eye contact. It could also be the case that this is how people interact in his hometown and he is used to it.
In this situation, as both parties do not require direct contact at work, the both of them left the situation the way it is. To Kathrin, she was only going to be working with him for 2 months and to him, she was just a temporary colleague. The relationship could possibly have been improved and the awkwardness reduced if both parties give and take and are open to each other about their opinions.
Hence, when dealing with intercultural communication, a basic knowledge of the other party is important and can be obtained from books or through speaking to people. Coming from ourselves, we should also speak up and inform other people when we find that they are behaving in a way that we and our culture is not comfortable with.
4 comments:
Dear Pei Yu
It is rather evident that the westerners and asians have different cultural practices. This is one of the classic examples out of many.
I do agree with you that we should find out more about different practices for different cultures. This will broaden our perspective and make us understand more of the other party.
Another interesting article on "Ten Tips for Cross Cultural Communication". It is rather interesting to know that "a billion in the USA is 1,000,000,000while in the UK it is 1,000,000,000,000." =)
Binglin
Hey Pei Yu,
I can empathise with the situation in the lab as I have seem this happening before and have encountered such situations during my attachment period at John Hopkins Research Institution.
Personally, I think that the initial difference in greeting habit sets up an initial awkwardness and if both parties avoid it, it will escalate to total forced oblivion of each other.
Thus, I believe that mutual effort to understand each others cultures is important to improve speech communication between different cultures. Necessary compromises can also be made that would put each other at ease and improve inter-racial understanding.
Hui Ming
Hi Pei Yu,
You have offered valuable information that we have to keep in mind when interacting with people of other cultures.
I am assigned to a mentor (a China research fellow) for my final year project, who will guide me through this project which lasts for the entire academic year. Communication between my mentor and I was thus important.
However, my mentor's surname is "Bai", which means "white" in Chinese. Being a Chemistry major, I often have to describe the colour of my reaction mixture to him. There were occasions when my reaction mixtures were white or colourless and I used "white" in Chinese to describe to him. However, I feel that it was a little insensitive since the word was also his surname. Futhermore, I am not sure of the cultural differences between people from China and Singapore. This made me felt very awkward at times and unsure of how to communicate with him.
Fortunately, he is a nice person and I hope he would not mind!
Jia Yi =)
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