ABC IC Cases -- Selected Intercultural Incidents

Intercultural Communication Exercise #4

Selected Intercultural Incidents

Submitted by S. Paul Verluyten

University of Antwerp

Directions: Assign one scenario per student (omit the italicized information). Ask students to discuss the behavior described in the scenario using non-pejorative, non-judgmental language. Finally, provide the information students need (italicized information) to make sense of the scenario. Ask students to discuss the question that appears at the end of each segment and describe what it tells them about their own cultural beliefs. This activity works well using classroom teams.

I spend three months in the USA. For two weeks, I was recovering from cultural shock as it was my first time in an English speaking country and it was really hard for me to say something in English.

An incident happened to me after a few weeks. We went out for a party. The house where the party took place was in a side street. After some time we discovered (two other Czechs and me) that there was a student standing in front of the house who was acting as a guard. They told us that he was watching people not to go on the street with a glass of beer or wine in their hand. As soon as someone tried to leave the house and walk in the street with a drink, he immediately ran after them and explained that it is forbidden to drink any alcohol on the street.

Later on, we found out that there are many other strange prohibitions in the U.S., such as prohibitions to drink a beer in a park or a picnic area, and many more…

In Europe, there is no moral stigma attached to drinking alcoholic beverages in public as there is in the U.S.

Europeans do not normally drink in order to get drunk (as some American students might), and do not at all appreciate drunk people. On the contrary, they will admire someone who can drink without getting drunk, and they drink in order to socialize and/or for the taste of it.

How do you feel about drinking beer, wine and liquor? If you drink, do you do so in order to get drunk or for the taste of it?

In the summer of 1984 I was on holiday in Bulgaria with my father. We lived with a Bulgarian family and once in the evening we invited them to go out and have a cup of coffee with us. They replied da (‘yes’), but turned their head from the left side to the right side, as if they were saying ‘no’.

We were really surprised because we did not understand what they meant. We didn't know whether our invitation was accepted or not…

In several Balkan countries including Greece and Bulgaria, people shake their head from left to right to convey the meaning ‘yes’. To compound the difficulty, they raise their head to mean ‘no’.

Kei, a Chinese friend I met in England, announced that she was coming over to Spain for a visit, and I wanted to introduce her to my parents also. I liked the idea of her visit but I was worried about the behavior she might exhibit in front of my —fairly conservative— parents.

After her arrival she had her first meal with me alone, and again she did not mind burping or farting in front of me, and even if she used to say ‘excuse me’ I found it terribly rude.

Thinking of a polite way to express my dissatisfaction without hurting her, I started shaking my legs like one does when one is nervous or upset. Kei said: ‘Ana, don’t shake your legs like that, don’t you know this is really impolite?’

If you go to a swimming pool in the Czech republic, there is always a sign that says: ‘After bathing, please take off your swimsuit and wash yourself with soap.’ If someone did keep his swimsuit on, Czechs would consider this strange as well as unhygienic.

Having this notice in mind, I went to the a public swimming pool in England and naively took off my swimsuit when taking a shower afterwards. The British women around me were petrified.

The degree to which public display of nudity is acceptable (including in advertising, etc.) is culture-specific

Would you take your swimsuit off for the shower on your first visit to a swimming pool in Prague?

In the summer of 1992, I was in Agadir, Morocco, with a friend of mine, who is born in Belgium but has a Moroccan father.

We were invited to have dinner with some of his relatives. He told me in advance that we would have to eat with our hands.

At one point, I could feel I did something terribly wrong. As soon as my friend noticed that I was using my left hand at the table, he told me (in Dutch) to stop doing so. After that, everything proceeded smoothly and the dinner went fine.

In Arab countries, people use the tip of three fingers of their right hand only when eating with their hands. In many Muslim (and other) countries, the use of the left hand is taboo for touching food or people. The left hand is the hand you use for ‘lower’ functions (such as cleaning yourself when you go to the toilet) and it is therefore symbolically unclean.

Were you told that a handshake should always be done with your right hand? What about other functions, such as handing something to someone?

Why is the left hand also (albeit much less strongly) taboo in Europe and the U.S.? Is it for the same reasons as in the Muslim world, or for entirely different reasons?

In Italy it is quite common among males to kiss each other on both cheeks, especially on birthdays or other celebrations and when we meet again after a long time.

While in England, I wanted to wish an English friend a merry Christmas and approached in order to kiss him. He backed off horrified.

Touching behavior (including handshakes and kissing) is culture-specific. In many Mediterranean countries, two males may kiss, hug or hold hands in public (what exactly is acceptable or not depends on the country or region).

Is there any situation where two males might hug each other in public in your country? (In Northern Europe, they do after they score a goal at a soccer game, for instance: why is it acceptable then?)

Would you accept Ignazio’s hug, or would you back off as the English male did?

In 1991, I was a student at a university in Pennsylvania, USA. I lived on campus and I shared a room with a girl from India.

Many times at night, while we were studying, she asked me: ‘Petra, do you feel like drinking a Coke?’ And I replied ‘yes’ or ‘no’. But invariably, her next question always was: ‘Could you get me one?’ So whether I wanted something from the vending machine or not, I went four floors downstairs, and brought her what she wanted. It didn’t bother me, it just surprised me that someone would ask for this on regular basis instead of helping herself.

Later I realized that my Indian friend came from a wealthy Indian family living in Nepal. Their house was full of young Nepali girls and boys who lived with them as servants. And now she was in America, on her own, doing her own laundry, tidying up her room, so at least she found someone to bring her a can of Coke,—to keep a trace of her old living standard.

As for me, I spent the first twenty years of my life in Czechoslovakia, under a socialist regime, and ‘servant’ was a word that in my mind belonged to the last century.

People from high Power Distance, low Individualism countries have no qualms issuing orders to others and being obeyed. People from low Power Distance, high Individualism cultures are used to helping themselves rather than ordering others around.

Edinburgh, Scotland, August 1990. I was there for three weeks with my cousin Paola and my friend Valentina to study English.

Once, Valentina and I went looking for my cousin Paola on campus where she was taking her classes. There we met Yuko and a Japanese friend of hers. As Yuko lived in the same house as Paola and they were also in the same class, I asked her whether she had recently seen Paola. After her negative reply, I gently asked her to say to Paola that we were looking for her, if she happened to meet her.

I noticed that after this request Yuko and her friend stood there instead of continuing their walk, but I did not pay much attention and walked away.

After fifteen minutes we came back the same way. From afar, I noticed that Yuko and her friend were still standing exactly in the same place as before. They were still waiting for Paola! We decided to hide and to wait for them to go away, in order not to embarrass them. After some ten more minutes, it was clear that they would not leave unless we did something. So I went to them and gently told them that ‘it was OK, now Valentina and I would wait for Paola’ and thanked them for their patience. They thanked us profusely (for releasing them from their duty, I suppose) and then they walked away.

Japanese communications patterns are based on understatements and reading indirect messages. Therefore, if you formulate a vague request, the Japanese may interpret it as an indirect way of issuing a formal command. Add to that possible language problems and the fact that ‘waiting’ does have the same connotations universally: you have the necessary ingredients for this minor, but embarrassing intercultural misunderstanding.

How could you tell Yuko that you only want her to inform Paola if she happens to run in to her, not to look for her actively, even less wait for her to pass by? Notice that if you say literally that this is what you want, as Raffaella did in the story, Yuko may think that you want more, as the Japanese are used to stating less than what is really requested.

I had the opportunity to spend two weeks days in Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa. I went there with Aldo, an older Italian man who does not speak English.

Aldo told me that for the 25th anniversary of his marriage he was going to buy a diamond for his wife in South Africa, and he suggested that I be the interpreter between him and the seller.

Buying a diamond is not easy. You have to know a lot of characteristics: the size, the purity and so on.

We spend several hours inspecting many different diamonds. After three hours Aldo was close to selecting among those the diamond he wanted to buy, but he still wanted to know everything about its characteristics in detail. For me and Aldo, the buying process up to then had been proceeding very naturally.

Suddenly the South African seller told us that he was very busy and had other business to do,—when we were on the verge of concluding the deal for this expensive stone. In Italy, it sometimes took me the same length of time (a couple of hours) to buy a pair of trousers!

Aldo got upset and we left the store without buying. Then Aldo told me that the had been reluctant to buy the diamond from that seller for other reasons also: the seller did not look him directly into the eyes and had not shaken his hand vigorously…

In some cultures, buying an item in a store is a social event as well as a commercial transaction; in other cultures, it is only the latter.

In some cultures, honesty and straightforwardness are conveyed by eye contact and a vigorous handshake. In other cultures, a subordinate (including a salesclerk) will show respect by not looking the superior (including the customer) into the eyes, and will certainly not shake his hand as though he was his equal.

How would you react if the salesperson gets impatient with you when you are buying something?

How do you feel when, during a conversation, your interlocutor avoids eye contact?

When my friends and I first arrived in Maastricht we had not had any sleep for almost 48 hours. But we were all starving, so three of my friends and me headed for a pizzeria in a busy area of town.

After deciphering the menu with some difficulty, we were ready to order; but there was no waiter to be found. About fifteen minutes later we were greeted and our order was taken.

Already very impatient at this point, we waited for another 20-25 minutes before we got our food. In addition, I did not receive exactly what I ordered. (In this situation, in the US, a manager would have visited the table, apologized profusely and possibly taken money off the bill.) All I got was a quick, ‘I am sorry.’

After we had finished eating, we waited impatiently for the bill, but they never brought it to our table. We had to ask the waiter specifically for the bill, and only then did he oblige.

My reaction to the situation was that, as obvious American tourists, we weren’t important to the waiter or restaurant and were therefore disregarded.

The first piece of advice is very simple, yet it is often disregarded: look around you and observe how the system works. If all the local people in the restaurant have to wait equally long for the waiter to show up, if they all ask for the check rather than expecting the waiter to bring it, then so it is, and the waiter does not hold a grudge against you!

The story is also a good example of the Self-Reference Criterion or SRC: the implicit expectation that ‘the way things work back home is the way they work (or ought to) everywhere’.

Americans in Europe frequently feel that they are not given due attention by the service staff, for instance in a restaurant. Europeans in the U.S., on the other hand, frequently feel that they are rushed through their meal. As soon as you sit down the waiter appears, and as soon as you are finished the check shows up, suggesting that you clear the table. In addition, the waiter keeps checking on you during the meal. Many Europeans will think: ‘Leave us alone, we are eating! We will call you when we need you!’

In Europe, going out for lunch or dinner is an enjoyable social event and a time to relax, so if it lasts a little longer, so much the better.

In European societies with their socially stratified past, serving other people may still be regarded as a form of servility, subservience. Therefore, waiters may attempt to psychologically compensate for their lower social status by treating their customers with some haughtiness.

Describe what eating out in a restaurant means to you. Explain what you expect from a waiter in a restaurant: constant care? discretion? …

My mother and I arrived in Bad Breisig, Germany, to spend a few days visiting with her relatives. I was very excited to meet these people as I had not seen them since the age of seven. Upon arrival my mother and I jumped out of the car and emotionally ran to her aunt and uncle with outstretched arms. Instantly I noticed that they did not reciprocate our emotion as they stood with their arms at their sides and an indifferent expression. This bothered me as I interpreted it as a rude gesture— distant and unwelcoming. Looking back now I realize I misinterpreted their behavior. I know this now because as we continued our visit with them I marked a change in their treatment of us: more touching, smiling and an overall greater sense of warmth!

Touching and hugging behavior is culture-specific; so is display of emotions. Germany is largely a non-touching culture (except handshakes), and public display of emotions (joy, anger, sadness, …) is kept under control.

The constant smiling of many Americans may strike Europeans as artificial and superficial. Friendliness, in Europe, is not necessarily conveyed through a smile.

Would you adapt your behavior to the German customs and refrain from smiling, etc., or not?

One of my first nights in Maastricht I attended a movie with a few other American students. We were excited to find out that the movies here were in English.

As soon as I had gotten comfortable in my seat and was in to the movie an usher from the movie theater angrily came to me and motioned that I was to remove my feet from the seat in front of me.

Putting your feel on a chair is considered rude in Europe. Americans irritate Europeans by exhibiting this behavior, also in trains, etc. (Take into consideration that the sidewalks may be dirtier in Europe and therefore the soles of your shoes will be also).

Try to identify other ‘typically American’ behavioral traits that may be considered rude in other countries.

I was born and raised in Singapore and I went to Taiwan for a visit last year, when I was twenty-three years old. I saw flowered wreaths at a shop. I thought that somebody had passed away, but I then discovered that it was really the Grand Opening of the business. In Singapore, flowered wreaths are only used for funeral ceremonies.

Even closely related cultures do not necessarily share all features. Singapore and Taiwan are both predominantly Chinese and economically developed, but there are notorious differences between the two cultures (or subcultures of ‘Chinese culture’).

Identify regional cultural differences within your own country. Avoid trivia and stereotypes, such as ‘there is more sunshine in the South (or the West, or …), therefore people are more laid back, etc.’

I traveled with Stephanie throughout Europe for twenty days before classes started. In Italy, we were lost in a town and could not find our hostel. A nun offered to help though she spoke very little English. She had a motion that was foreign to us and we interpreted it to mean go away. In reality, it now seems that the nun was begging us to follow.

Non-verbal behavior (such as gestures) is largely culture-specific. In Southern Europe and around the Mediterranean, and also in many other parts of the world, the beckoning gesture (‘come here’) is done palm down. In Northern Europe as in the U.S., it is done palm up. To compound the difficulty, the opposite gesture (palms down in Northern Europe and the U.S., palms up in several other parts of the world) closely resembles the ‘farewell’ or ‘go away’ gesture.

Which other gestures do you commonly make, and which codified meaning do they convey? How certain are you that those gestures will be correctly interpreted in other countries? How could you find out?

When the professor asks questions in class, none of the Indonesians will raise their hands and volunteer for an answer, even if they know it. Typically, only the Americans participate in the classroom discussion.

The professor called one of us one day and asked why we were not participating in the discussions. He attributed our passiveness to a lack of interest in the subject.

In fact, in Indonesia, raising our hands and participating in a class discussion is not our custom. However, we are more than willing to answer questions when the teacher points to us or calls our name in class.

In some cultures, a class is mainly a lecture by the professor with, the students learning through listening; in other cultures interaction and discussion is felt to be an essential part of the learning process.

In cultures where modesty is highly valued, students will be reluctant to put themselves forward by raising their hand and thus ‘showing off’ that they know the answer while others may not. In cultures where excelling is of high value, students may exhibit precisely the opposite behavior: they do want to show that they know more/perform better than the others.

What could be the respective merits of the two teaching styles described above?

A businessman from the former Czechoslovakia went to the United Arab Emirates to discuss a deal. The meeting with his counterpart, an Arab businessman, was to take place in the Arab’s house, as is apparently common there.

As he was invited to a dinner in someone’s house, the Czech businessman decided to bring flowers for his host’s wife, as he would have done at home. He was sure the wife would be pleased and her husband would appreciate the attention the visitor paid to them. The talks would start in a positive atmosphere.

The Czech man brought the flowers and expected at least a good welcome, but in fact he was not even allowed to enter the house.

In some Arab countries and other Muslim countries (but by no means in all, and to widely differing degrees), the wife (or wives) have their own, private quarters in the house and do not receive male visitors, except very close relatives. They may also leave the house only in the company of their husband and close relatives. They have their own, private domain and responsibilities inside the home, while the man’s domain is the outside world (work, the city, …).

Any reference to someone’s wife (‘how is your wife doing?’) is to be avoided. Needless to say, in such a culture bringing her flowers will be considered as a terrible insult to the husband, as it shows a lack of respect for the woman who is his wife.

What are the respective roles of males and females in your culture? Do people expect the same behavior from both groups, or not?

Last summer, my friends and I were traveling by car through various Middle Eastern countries and at one time we stopped at a gas station in a remote area in the south of Turkey.

After we filled our tank we went to the toilet. Surprisingly, there was one there and it was clean as well. With relief we started to wash our hands and faces.

Suddenly two old Turkish farmers in very dirty clothes pushed us aside and started using the wash basins, primarily to wash their feet, their nose and ears, etc.

We felt that these two Turks were very rude, and also, we found it rather bizarre that they would want to wash their feet and some other specific parts of their body such as their nose and ears, while their working clothes were (and remained) incredibly dirty. We stood there rather embarrassed and perplexed and could not understand what was going on there, in a public bathroom.

Muslims must say their prayers to Allah five times a day at a specific time (which changes every day and also varies with the location, as it depends on the position of the Sun; they can consult a detailed table for that, or just listen to the muezzin calling people to prayer from the minaret of the nearest mosque). The two farmers probably feared that they might be late for their prayer, that is why they were in such a hurry and pushed the others aside.

Before they enter their prayers to God, Muslims must perform a cleansing and purification process which is achieved by ‘ablutions’, that is, ritually washing certain parts of the body. This short ritual, which they perform five times a day even while working, obviously does not involve changing into clean clothes every time.

Write down everything you know about Islam, and then check your knowledge on accuracy and comprehensiveness.

A few years ago I shared a flat in London with two people from Korea. They were very decent and nice to talk to, but it was nearly impossible for me to share dinner with them. When they were eating, they always made loud smacking noises that I found truly disgusting.

Things got worse when they got a cold and their noses were stuffed. Then they would sit in front of the TV for hours constantly sniffing, without ever blowing their nose.

What is polite or impolite is not universally the same. In Korea as in Japan, making smacking or slurping noises while eating is acceptable. Blowing your nose in public, on the other hand, would be considered very rude. In Europe and the U.S., things are the other way around: blowing your nose is acceptable, smacking or slurping noisily is not.

Make a short inventory of behavioral traits that you would qualify as polite or impolite, concentrating on those where you are most likely to find cultural differences.

Last summer I worked in Seattle, USA for four months, as a painter on a ship. On one occasion I was painting the main walkway on the deck of the ship. This is a very popular part of the boat as everybody must pass this area in order to enter or leave the vessel, which makes the painting job less monotonous.

On this particular day the hours passed rather quickly, until I was suddenly shaken from my ladder onto the deck three feet below. A Mexican worker was furiously shouting at me and clearly close to physically assaulting me.

He said that I was ‘sneaking him out’ and that every time he passed by me, I was staring at him in a threatening way as if to look for a fight. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

Other Mexican workers eventually managed to calm him down and convince him that I had absolutely no hostile intentions with respect to him.

In some cultures (perhaps mainly, but not exclusively, Latin cultures), direct eye contact, and even a casual sideways glance, may be interpreted as defiance or a threat, a challenge to someone’s honor. Nowadays, this cultural feature may be limited to more remote or rural areas in some of the countries concerned, and may also be restricted to lower social classes. Notice that in the story, only one Mexican worker reacts that way, and the other Mexicans help in calming him down and explaining to him that he misinterprets Garret’s behavior.

However, in certain Hispanic areas of Los Angeles, it is still advisable to keep your eyes down when walking through the street!

In which situations is eye contact appropriate or inappropriate in your culture? What does the presence or absence of eye contact convey to you when someone is talking to you?

A few years ago I spent the summer traveling through Turkey with some friends. We stopped in a small town where Ali, a Turkish guy, probably a little bit older than we, appeared and started to offer us ice-cream. At first we found the asking price incredibly high, but then we started bargaining about it and eventually we discovered that the ice-cream would not cost us any more here than elsewhere.

We started to enjoy this bargaining business we were not used to, so as a game we went on bargaining with Ali about the prices of the different kinds of ice-cream and soft drinks that were on offer.

Then someone as a joke offered Ali the option of getting married with the blond girl from our group against the totality of the ice cream and soft drinks that Ali carried with him. To our surprise, rather than continuing this amusing game, Ali immediately agreed, which is against standard Turkish buying practice. We still thought, though, that he had a good sense of black humor and we continued to work out the specifics of our agreement: the girl against his goods.

However, as our whole group (including the girl) got ready to get into our cars and leave, things got a bit out of hand. Ali tried to prevent us from leaving with the girl, and started offering to us other, more valuable things against the girl. Ali now quickly became rather angry, and we felt it was best to get into our cars as quickly as possible and leave the place without any further ado.

Humor does not travel well. What is considered a joke in one culture will be taken very seriously in another.

In rural Turkey, marriages are often arranged by the family. Ali may have thought that the men in the group were the girl’s brothers or close relatives (as it is unthinkable to him that a female would travel with males who are not close relatives); in which case it was quite natural for them to propose their ‘sister’ for marriage.

In a poor area of Turkey, Ali’s supply of ice-cream and soft drinks may be considered as a small fortune, and therefore constitute a reasonable ‘dowry’ for the future husband to bring to his future wife’s family.

How much of a say do the parents and the family have in your culture when it comes to the marriage of the children?

In a seaside resort in Spain, I approached an African vendor who was trying to sell ‘African art’ (or so he claimed) to the tourists. There was an inexpensive wooden giraffe I liked and wanted to buy (while I was well aware, of course, that it did not deserve to be qualified as artwork). The African seller asked 1500 pesetas for it (approx. US$ 10.00), so I just opened my wallet and took out the money to pay him.

The African looked rather astonished at what I did, and did not take my money. Rather, he turned to another African nearby and they started a discussion in their native language. After a while, the vendor turned back to me and made it clear that he refused to sell me the giraffe.

There may be more than one possible explanation for what happened (as there often is).

Africans expect the prospective buyer to bargain, and contrary to what one might think they will not be happy at all if you just pay the asking price without entering the bargaining process. This reduces the buying process to a purely mechanical transaction, while it ought to be a game of human interaction and establish a relation between the two parties.

On the other hand, if you are willing to pay the asking price immediately rather than protesting that it is outrageously high, this may suggest to the seller that his initial asking price was actually too low—as otherwise he would expect you to express your indignation as soon as you hear him quote the price. Therefore, the seller, after conferring with a colleague, may think that he can actually raise his asking price for the next potential customer and get more money out of the object he is trying to sell.

Have you ever bargained for the price in your own country or elsewhere? Is it customary to bargain in your culture, and if so, for which goods is it appropriate/inappropriate (food? clothing? a hotel room? a new or used car? a house? etc.).

I am on my university’s swimming team, and in 1997 I received a scholarship to participate in a two-week training program in the United States, together with my friend Griet.

We were surprised to be offered to stay for two weeks in the house of Patsy, our American coach, whom we had never met before. For two weeks, we spent virtually our whole day in the company of Patsy, as she was our coach in the training program (we spent eight hours a day with her at the swimming pool) as well as our host (we went home together, did our shopping and cooked dinner together, watched television together in the evenings). We felt we were getting rather intimate with her, as she was telling us in detail about her recent divorce and other aspects of her private life.

Back in Belgium, we called Patsy a couple of times in order to stay in touch. The next year, Patsy told us on the phone that she had been asked by another Belgian swimming team to set up a training program for them, and that she would be in Belgium for ten days. We were delighted: at last a chance to see each other again!

But Patsy never called. Months later, we discovered that she had indeed come to Belgium for ten days, but she had gone back home without attempting to get in touch with us. We have not heard anything from her ever since.

Why do so many European tourists return from the United States with the same impression? Americans, so they feel, are ‘friendly but superficial’. Part of the answer seems to lie in the fact that friendship structures differ between the two continents. In every culture, presumably, people have different ‘layers’ of friends, ranging from the closest and most intimate real friends to casual acquaintances, colleagues at the office, etc. But these different categories do not necessarily overlap entirely in different cultures.

Americans quickly establish a conversation with other people, for instance at a bus stop, while standing in line somewhere, etc. (Once, while attending a Summer school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, an American student started a conversation with me at a bus stop on campus, and ten minutes later she had already offered for me to bring my laundry to her house, as I was living in a student dorm where I had no adequate laundry facilities.)

Europeans have trouble categorizing this type of relationship for which there is no clear equivalent in European countries. They may therefore (mis)categorize these Americans they had a meaningful conversation with as new ‘friends’ (hence: Americans are so friendly!),—and then be disappointed if there is no follow-up or further contact with this newfound ‘friend’ (hence: in fact, it is all so superficial!).

Another element that may help explaining what happened in the story above is the fact that Americans have a different balance between work and leisure than Europeans, with a higher priority attached to work (compare the high score of the U.S. on Hofstede’s Masculinity index). Therefore Patsy may have felt that her primary responsibility during those ten days was to spend all her time developing this new training program, and she had no difficulty ‘sacrificing’ to this the possibility of seeing her previous Belgian trainees again.

Finally, Americans may be more future-oriented, and pursuing a relation that belongs to the past and has little bearing on Patsy’s future may not have high priority in her mind.

Define what ‘friend’ means to you. Which other terms/categories of acquaintances would you want to distinguish? Describe friendship structures in your culture.

In the summer of 1997 I spent my vacation in Thailand. I visited a Buddhist temple where everyone was sitting on the ground in front of this immense statue of Buddha, so I did the same. But a temple guard came to me and explained that I had to sit in another position. In fact, I had my legs stretched out in front of me and the soles of my shoes were pointing towards the Buddha: this is totally inappropriate.

Then I left the temple, but again the guard felt the need to intervene. I simply walked towards the entrance door located opposite the Buddha statue, but in that way I was showing my back to the Buddha. I should have moved away from the Buddha walking backwards in order to avoid showing my back to him.

In many cultures, showing your feet or the soles of your shoes (considered the lowest, dirtiest part of the body) to someone is insulting. Therefore, in Thailand as well as in Arab cultures and elsewhere, do not sit cross-legged and try to keep the soles of your shoes firmly on the ground, or hidden. Pointing with the foot may equally be considered rude, as is showing your back to someone, in particular to someone of a higher social position (the King, the boss, etc.).

Is there any taboo attached to showing feet or any other part of the body in your culture (of course there is!)? Please explain!

A man from Morocco had made an appointment in a hospital in Antwerp, Belgium, for a chest X-ray of his twelve-year old daughter. As he came to the hospital in the morning with her, he discovered that the radiologist was male, and there was no female radiologist available. He refused to let the male radiologist take the X-ray of his daughter and left.

That same afternoon, an orthodox Jewish man came to the same radiology department for an X-ray. Now the team of doctors had changed, and the only radiologist present was a woman. The Jewish man refused to be approached by her and returned home without undergoing the examination.

Every culture has a ‘code of conduct’ that regulates contacts between males and females, and clearly this code is not the same everywhere. In traditional Muslim societies, contacts between a male and a female who are neither close family nor husband and wife may be entirely prohibited.

For orthodox Jews it is forbidden to touch in any way a female (including their own wife) who is menstruating. Obviously the Jewish man does not normally know what ‘time of the month’ it is for the female bank teller, sales attendant, waitress, doctor, etc. he has in front of him, so to play it safe he will avoid any bodily contact with her at all cost. With a female check-in agent at the airport for instance, he may throw his airline ticket and his passport on the counter rather than handing it to hear—for fear that she might inadvertently touch the tip of his finger.

In a city where there is a traditional Muslim and/or orthodox Jewish community (or any other community with special needs or taboos), should hospitals ensure that there are always two doctors, one male and one female, on duty in every department? Or should they specify the sex of each doctor when advertising days and hours of consultation? Or should they expect minorities to drop (some of) their taboos and adapt to ‘mainstream’ culture? Or is it preferable to encourage such minorities to set up their own hospitals and other services (schools, banks, …)?

For several years in a row we spent our vacation in Mauritius, that beautiful island in the Indian Ocean to the East of Madagascar and Africa. One day, after attending mass at the catholic Church, a family invited us to have dinner at their home that evening. We were obviously delighted and honored by the invitation which showed that the local people really started to accept our presence among them.

As is common in Belgium, we bought a small present that we brought with us to our hosts’ house that evening. We were warmly welcomed, but to our surprise our hosts turned down the gift we had brought, and when we insisted they seemed to become upset rather than anything else. We eventually returned home with our own gift, plus with food and gifts that the hosts had given to us at the end of the evening.

Some time later, we were able to clear things out with them and both parties discovered that the etiquette regulating invitations is very different in Mauritius and in Belgium.

In Western cultures such as the U.S. and Europe, generally guests feel honored to have been invited, and they also want to symbolically compensate for the trouble they are giving their hosts by bringing a small gift. But in many cultures, it is primarily the host who feels honored by the visits (announced or unannounced) he receives. Receiving many visits may be a sure sign of your social standing in the community. Frequently, then, guests will receive a gift from their hosts, rather than the other way around.

In addition, in many cultures (including Arab countries and several countries in Central and Eastern Europe), it is advisable to refrain from admiring an object in your host’s house to emphatically, otherwise your host may feel compelled to offer it to you as a gift.

Describe the ‘dinner invitation rituals’ in your culture: how do you invite someone, do you bring a gift and if so which gifts are appropriate, etc.

Three students were sitting around a table having a philosophical discussion. One of the students was in his late twenties and was from Jordan. The other two students were in their early twenties, one from Hungary the other from the United States. The conversation was lively and everyone was interested in what the others had to say. At one point in the conversation, the Hungarian student made the comment that she did not believe in God. The American thought little of the comment, even if he was not an atheist himself. But almost immediately, the Jordanian student became distance and cold to the Hungarian student. He addressed the remainder of his comments almost exclusively to the American. The conversation quickly came to close and things just were not the same any longer between the student from Jordan and the Hungarian student.

For many Muslims, God and religion permeate every aspect of life. Muslims have no difficulty accepting that people belong to religions different from theirs, such as Christians and Jews. Christians are referred to in the Koran, often in rather positive terms. It is easy to show that in past centuries, Muslim states have on the average been more tolerant towards Christian and Jewish minorities, than Christian states were towards Muslim and Jewish minorities.

However, many Muslims cannot understand that someone does not believe in God, as this takes away the very basis on which human life and society is founded. In business as elsewhere, many Muslims will avoid all contact with someone who claims to an atheist.

If you happen to be an atheist, what do you say and how do you act when you are on a business venture in, say, Egypt? Would you pretend to be a Christian? Or give an evasive answer when asked what is your religion? Or openly state that you do not believe in God (in which case, as said above, virtually no-one will accept to do business with you).

I met a Hungarian girl the first week I got here in Europe. When we introduced ourselves she kissed me on the cheek. It felt strange to me that someone I did not know would show so much affection. We met on two more occasions, and each time she kissed me.

Some time later I arrived back from a long vacation and met her again. I gave her a big hug, but she froze like a statue. The rest of the conversation seemed a little uncomfortable, although the next day things were back to normal.

Brad himself writes: ‘it seems that a kiss was to her what a handshake is to me; and a hug was too intimate for her, yet I feel that it is less intimate than a kiss’.

Codes of conduct that regulate touching, hugging and kissing behavior are obviously culture-specific.

Is there any way to know in advance which greeting rituals are appropriate in a given culture?

Who should adapt to whom? is Brad supposed to adapt to the Hungarian girl’s habits and expectations, or the other way around?

As a college student from Dallas, Texas, I went on a medical trip with several other students and doctors to the countryside of Haiti. While in Haiti, the medical team backpacked from site to site and administered basic medical care. They extended their services and medicine for free to the Haitians.

While traveling from site to site, many of the students felt uncomfortable with the fact that the Haitians offered them plenty of food and prepared it for them, washed their clothes, and even gave up their only bed for team members to sleep in. The Haitians were extremely poor and they were giving away all they had to the members of the medical team. Many of the students felt bad receiving these gifts. They wanted to help the Haitians and not receive things from people they thought ‘could not afford to give.’

Even the poorest people have their pride, and cherish values such as hospitality and reciprocating help (in fact I think that worldwide, poor people are on average more hospitable than rich people!).

It would have been rude and contemptuous for the Americans to refuse the gifts and services the Haitians offered. That would be demeaning to the Haitians and make them feel that they were really considered as helpless people who cannot survive without the help of rich Westerners.

Is there anything you could do to compensate for the food and services offered without the Haitians feeling slighted by what you would do?

I arrived in London and with some difficulty I made it from the train station to the underground (subway), with all my luggage.

When the train pulled up I quickly got in, but I was still not sure if it would go to the Bayswater stop where I needed to get off. Exasperated, I yelled out ‘Does anyone know if this train goes to Bayswater?’ Everyone on the train stared at me in silence, no-one answered my question.

Europeans are generally more reserved than Americans. If you address your question to a crowd, in particular, people may feel too embarrassed to answer. It would have been better for Andrew to ask the person sitting or standing next to him: ‘Excuse me, Sir, could you tell me if this train stops at Bayswater?’

Analyze a couple of related situations where you would need to adapt your behavior depending on whether you are in England or in the United States.

My (American) company was in the process of taking over a German firm it wants to turn into a subsidiary. The owner of the German company was selling out his personal stake in the business, and I had been the main negotiator with him.

It seemed apparent early on that the German man was hesitant to let go of his company and was reconsidering all the time. I mentioned to him that he was about to realize a large amount of money, enough to be set for the rest of his life. Still, there seemed to be some reluctance on the part of the German owner.

At one point I became so thoroughly annoyed and frustrated that I told the owner that he was being ridiculous, and I said that any person would be happy with the monetary arrangement. And besides, if he still was not happy with the current deal, then more money could be discussed. But the situation had to be settled as soon as possible. The German owner did not reply, but since this meeting the talks have been completely stalled, and it does not look like they will continue.

Americans tend to have a more calculative, less emotional relation with the company they work for or the business they own. In the story above, the German owner may have had a strong emotional bond with the company he founded, and he therefore found it difficult to give it up, even when offered a huge amount of money.

In such a situation, putting the owner under pressure is likely to be counterproductive. Maybe with patience and gentle perseverance, William could have convinced the owner to sell his stake.

More generally, Europeans tend to be less mobile than Americans, more reluctant to give up something they are used to (their house, their city, their job, …) even for something supposedly ‘better’ such as a bigger or nicer house, a better-paid job, etc.

What could William have said or done to make it easier for the German owner to sell his stake in the company he founded?

A student from Thailand who lives on my floor asked me to play tennis with him after we had discovered that we were both tennis-players. He even offered to pay for the court rental the first time. The first time we played, I beat him fairly badly. Over the course of the next ten days, I asked him to play three more times, feeling that I owed it to him. Each time he agreed and we set up a time for later that day, or the next. However, at each scheduled time, he was nowhere to be found.

Outright winning, even in a game, makes the other person lose face, and many people in South-East Asia (and also in Japan and to a lesser extent in China) will be reluctant to submit to such a humiliation a second time (in Japan, a supplier may play bad golf on purpose to make his customer feel good).

For the same face-saving reasons, it is difficult for a person from Thailand to turn down an invitation: that makes the invitor lose face. In Thailand, it is more polite, less face-threatening to accept an invitation and not show up rather than to turn it down; exactly the opposite is true, of course, in the U.S. and Europe.

How would you play a game of tennis with a Japanese or Thai partner when it appears that you are clearly the better player?

How can you invite a friend for dinner in Japan or Thailand and be reasonably sure that your friend is really accepting your invitation and will show up, rather than saying ‘yes’ just to be polite?

When I went to Paris, I was warned that it might be difficult for me to go to restaurants because I am a vegetarian. What I did not realize was how difficult it really would be.

We first ate at a fairly nice restaurant by the Eiffel Tower. I assumed I would just eat pasta or something. On the menu though, there was no pasta, and certainly no vegetarian dishes. Even the appetizers and salads had meat or fish in them. The only thing I saw I could order was a cheese platter, which I assumed would be a fairly large tray of assorted cheeses and maybe crackers to complement it.

When the waiter came, I inquired about vegetarian dishes, or the possibility of taking a special order. He laughed in my face! Not in Paris, he said. So I opted for the cheese platter. Well, the ‘platter’ turned out to be a very small plate with four small wedges of French cheese and no crackers. I had to go to McDonald’s for an order of French fries after we had left the restaurant.

In continental Europe (as well as in Africa, South-East Asia, etc.) it is difficult to get a meal without meat or fish. There are very few vegetarian restaurants in Paris, Madrid or Rome, and standard restaurants will not offer vegetarian dishes.

In France and in some other European countries, cuisine is a form of art. Therefore, asking to change the composition of an item from the menu is almost like saying to an artist that that you want her to repaint the sky a different color before you buy this painting from her: it is nearly unthinkable.

As part of lunch or dinner, in France, the cheese platter is something you have after the appetizer and main course, before dessert. It is not meant to constitute a meal in itself, therefore the portions are small.

Note: ‘entree’ (which, after all, means ‘entry’) is the first course or appetizer in French, not the main course (the latter is called ‘plat principal’)!

How can a vegetarian travel through continental Europe without starving? Develop some strategies for survival.

Since I arrived in Belgium I am always confronted with the face saving issue. As an Iranian, I was brought up in a country where it is polite to says ‘yes’ even if you don’t mean it.

With my Belgian friends I often say ‘yes’ or agree to do something when I don’t really want to. But in my culture we first serve others and then tend to our own needs. I talked about this problem to a Belgian friend and she says it is better to be open and say ‘no’ when you mean ‘no’ rather than saying ‘yes’. But I have difficulties doing so, and I have found myself on countless occasions sacrificing something in order to please someone else just because I can’t say no. In our culture we give a lot and Belgians don’t do this.

So I have often been hurt by my friends insensitivities—but when I tell them, they say it is because I am never straight with them.

This story exemplifies the difficulties a person coming from a high-context culture may experience when she moves to a low-context culture. Sanam has difficulty saying ‘no’, and the Belgians are too ‘insensitive’ (i.e., not used to reading contextual signals) to detect whether Sanam’s ‘yes’ means real acceptance or agreement or whether it is a mere ‘yes’ of politeness. Typically, people from low-context cultures complain that those from high-context cultures are not straightforward; conversely, people from high-context cultures complain that those from low-context cultures are rude and insensitive.

In cultures that are high on Individualism, sacrificing your own desires and needs to those of others is generally not highly valued (there are some exceptions): rather, you have to stand up for your own desires and needs and not submit to those of others. In more group-oriented cultures, it is natural and praiseworthy to subordinate your own desires and wishes to those of people around you.

Should Sanam try to adapt to the low-context communication style that prevails in Europe, and will she be able to do so? How do you rate your own capacity to adapt to another communicative style?

	©2002 Association for Business Communication	Dr. Betty S. Johnson Executive Director Association for Business Communication PO Box 6143, Nacogdoches, Texas 75962-0001, Telephone: 936-468-6280 Fax: 936-468-6281 Email:abcjohnson@sfasu.edu