Bring Down the Wall!

Picking just one concept out of this chapter to discuss is very difficult due to the intimate interlacing of the subject of intercultural communication. Since the pitfalls and solutions are in almost all areas are similar, it’s hard to single out a single concept without it overlapping two or three other concepts. For me, the section regarding barriers and the section regarding adapting were probably the most interesting.

I found the area regarding maximum differences especially interesting. Having grown up in a predominantly Asian community, it was interesting to learn that Western and Asian cultures are the most far apart. Considering that in my experience, many Asian cultures are trying very hard to assimilate western ways into their culture, this was particularly surprising. While I am fully aware of the traditional conflicts and differences between American culture and say Chinese or Japanese cultures, in a modern sense, the gaps are not as large as one might think.

In the past decade, China has slowly been moving towards a more capitalistic society. While their strong communist attitudes have made this a very slow process, they have been allowing more individuals to earn as well as opening up to more foreign businesses. In Japan, there has been a movement over the past 30 or so years that have brought their social attitudes much closer to what we have in America today. While they are still very ethnocentric, they much more tolerant of foreigners than they used to be, and they have made a lot of progress in gender equality and civil rights.

Check your Premises

Rationality, perfectibility, and mutability, which I will refer to as the three premises, aren’t exactly something that I can say I believe in. It would be easier for me to say that I agree with the ideas in principle, but that in reality they are all flawed. Something I learned early on is that contradictions cannot exist in reality. If you encounter a contradiction, check your premises, one of them is wrong. The simplest way to explain this would be to put it in terms of flight. To say humans can’t fly, would be a false statement. To say humans cannot fly without assistance from an apparatus would be a correct statement.

The rationality premise in general holds true, however, in the information age, we find that what is being analyzed is in many cases incomplete if not altogether false. Good decisions require accurate information and an ability to see beyond the moment. As previous chapters have stated, as an audience we can bring our own experiences and prejudices into a situation which can also lead to making bad decisions.

The mutability premise, like the rationality premise, generally holds true, but only partly. As I stated in a previous post, while environment can shape an individual, it cannot define them. The flaw in a universal education system that uses this premise would be that it assumes that all human beings are capable of reaching the same level if environmental factors are the same. However, such a system would mean that none of us would know who Einstein is.

The perfectibility premise, which I intentionally left for last, is the one that holds up best. America was founded on the idea that perfection wasn’t something that could be achieved, but rather something that we could strive for daily. As Americans we know that there is always going to be room to improve the system, which is why we have the ability to change the Constitution. That isn’t to say that we cannot meet our own definitions of what it means to be perfect, but that is a subjective belief rather than an objective one, which is really the only flaw in the premise itself.

Creatures.

I can agree with Benedict’s assertion that our habits beliefs and impossibilities are shaped by our culture. I do not, however, believe that they are defined by it. I had the joy of growing up in a cultural melting pot. Early on it was difficult for me to understand the nuances of communicating with people due to accents, attitudes, and local slang. Like the Moroccan example from the text, eating dinner wasn’t just about dinner. Doing stuff didn’t always include doing anything. Because I interacted with people from different cultures, ethnicities, and countries on a regular basis, I was able to see how the regular interactions with other cultures could change the shaping that Benedict was speaking of.

It’s very dangerous to use something so broad scoped as culture as a basis for learned behavior. Someone who grew up here in America, but was raised by immigrants, would have their beliefs and habits shaped by family and society, which may not be the same. It would then fall to the individual to decide what things they would choose to absorb and imitate.

Making Faces =)

One concept that interested me was facial displays. Terms like poker-face and sad-eyes are commonplace in society. As with everything else regarding the study of communication, I love to learn the nuances that, more often than not, go overlooked by most of us in our day to day interactions with other people. There are times when I know, just by face and eyes, whether or not to pursue a certain direction in a conversation. I have at times used facial expressions to indicate to others that I don’t want to be approached.

On the flip side I’m regularly astounded by the number of people that are completely oblivious to facial expressions. With simple flexing of muscles we can display such things as happiness, sadness, curiosity, apathy, and anger. With such a wide range of emotional states that can be expressed without ever having to speak a word, it’s amazing how many people fail to understand a mood.

 

Bite your thumb at this.

Whenever I contemplate how different cultures might view nonverbal gestures or take different meanings from them I recall my 9^th grade English class. Romeo and Juliet was required reading, and the class was surprised that biting your thumb at someone was the equivalent of giving them the finger. With that in mind I tried to pay a lot more attention to gestures.

I’ve noticed that in most cases, gestures aren’t really used to communicate more than very simple ideas or commands. I may waggle a finger at someone to get them to come to me, but in Japan they do that by facing the palm down and curling the fingers down. Apparently it’s very important not to call someone over in the western fashion as that gesture is rude to them.

Within this country I haven’t noticed a whole lot of regional differences in nonverbal gestures with the exception of greetings and farewells. In the south physical contact is much more common place than you find in the west or northeast. While I might wave or at most share a brief handshake here in California, I’ve been hugged by complete strangers in South Carolina. I have noticed that since I have been traveling less for the past few years, I have become less sensitive to nonverbal gestures and cues than I used to be.

Are you mad, or am I number 1?

When it comes to non-verbal messages, it is actually very easy to have misinterpretations. While no specific instances of my own misinterpretation come to mind, I do know that it not only happened, but it usually resulted in an embarrassing situation (which is probably why I don’t remember specifics). One instance that I do remember wasn’t a result of my misinterpretation, but rather someone else’s. When in high school a friend and I were talking about vehicles we might like to have and a person misunderstood our gestures towards his vehicle as gestures toward him. Needless to say he was angry, and it almost led to a fight.

 When it comes to improving the accuracy with which I interpret non-verbal messages, I have found that asking for clarity helps. In many cases just getting the context of the gesture can vastly improve my understanding of it. If someone makes a gesture that gives me a reason to have an emotional response, I generally request that they clarify it for me so as not to be the person I mentioned above.