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 Sat Jul 28, 2007 1:50 am Intercultural communication |
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"Now you're preaching," says the preacher.
| Jamie (K) wrote: | | I could give you scores of similar statements by Germans I'm close to. Am I supposed to take them as evidence that they are bitter and hate Americans? I would be an idiot if I did. |
I'm sure there are scores of similar examples in your head. See, you only choose negative examples. And now it was you who mentioned the word "hatred". Moreover, you are trying, as you phrased it, to project thoughts onto me that I do not have:
| Jamie (K) wrote: | Maybe you pride yourself on being so culturally adept that you don't have problems with people from other cultures, but you clearly do.
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I am very sorry, but I refuse to accept your polemic twists. You have no idea whether I am culturally adept or not. All of your generalisations only seem to reveal that you are trying to give rise to a deeply rooted conviction of yours. Every single example in this thread about your experiences with German characteristics is of a negative nature. You only vaguely allude to positive experiences by saying they were "pleasant", whereas you don't shy away from capital letters when quoting a conductor saying "sieben Uhr EINS".
There are generalisations you can make. And the German mentality in particular provides ample opportunity for those. But you should at least try to keep up a pretence of objective estimation. It is one thing to discuss cultural differences, but your whole attitude expresses nothing but a hewn in stone conviction.
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| Sat Jul 28, 2007 2:03 am Intercultural communication |
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| Torsten wrote: | | I think talking about problems from the previous week is not so much a question of culture as a question of attitude. In any culture people know that there is no use crying over spilled milk. Still, there is a certain percentage of people who would do exactly that. Obviously this percentage is higher in Germany than in the US because Germans do have a tendency to complain and harp on about negative things. |
The Germans who complain to me about this problem see it in a somewhat different light. They talk of Germans having a forward-thinking "doggedness" that keeps past problems at the front of their minds in order to prevent similar problems from arising later. Their American colleagues' treating resolved problems as "water under the bridge" makes them fear that the Americans will make the same mistake again and again.
| Torsten wrote: | | People who experience a "culture shock" when they travel to another country are probably rather petty-minded and have usually difficulties getting along in their own country. Those are the people who "major in the minors" instead of focusing on the real issues. I mean, when I go to another country I do expect to experience some differences, that's the very reason I'm going there, isn't it? If I want everything to be the way it is at home then why should I move somewhere else? |
You're talking about the American who expects there to be a McDonald's in the Amazon jungle, or the Bavarian who crosses the border and gets annoyed when the restaurant doesn't have H?selbr?u and insists on serving him Pilsner Urquell. Or -- and this really happened -- the American engineer who goes to Paris for company negotiations and gets furious when the restaurants there won't serve him Wisconsin cheese.
I agree with you on those people. However, real culture shock doesn't happen due to those things. Even people who are open to differences will get blind-sided by unexpected things that complicate their lives and don't seem to make sense.
One example: In some countries, if you need something that a store doesn't usually carry, the clerks and manager will refuse to special order it for you. They can order it, but they just don't want to. This may result in you having to take the train halfway across the country, because no store in your town will order the goods for any price, even if you pay them in advance.
Another example: In some countries, business promises are considered more binding than they are in others. This means that in some countries, when something is promised to someone, he still has to make two or three alternative plans, just to make sure he's not left high and dry when the deadline comes. When an American or a German lives in a country like this, it drives him crazy. No one delightedly says, "Oh! They keep their promises less often! How interesting!"
Still another example: In some countries, when a new maintenance man takes over in a building, he routinely changes all the locks, even if there's no reason that a Westerner would consider sensible. So a Western manager might not be able to get into his own office on a Saturday, because the maintenance man has changed all the locks and not given him a key. In my case, I had to live in an apartment with no heat for two weeks at Christmas time. The caretaker had gone on sick leave, and his substitute had changed all the locks. The substitute had also shut off the boiler, not provided any means for us to get heat, put his keys in his pocket, and then left on a trip. I don't think a foreigner who doesn't delight in this lock-changing custom could be considered closed-minded.
And still another example: In some countries foreigners get cheated a lot. This is because they assume there is rule of law and that they can go into any store or to any contractor and be treated somewhat fairly. Locals don't get cheated as much, because they have social networks built up and they go through those to get what they need. A newcomer doesn't have this social network built up, and he won't know that when he needs a computer he should go ask the architect, who will take him to the fruit vendor, who will take them to the baker, who will point to his flour supplier, which will lead -- after going through a whole chain of people -- to a trustworthy computer vendor. It takes time to get into a network, and the newcomer is not closed-minded if this situation drives him crazy at first. After all, it can even drive the locals crazy.
| Torsten wrote: | | What's wrong with making jokes during a meeting in which a solution for a technical problem should be found? After all, humour can be an excellent stimulus and often triggers new thoughts that help find the very solution you are looking for. |
Right. These Germans tell me it's the STYLE of humor that makes them misjudge the Americans' seriousness.
As for your remarks on young Ukrainians being optimistic despite tough conditions, you might be interested to know that some studies done in the US show that people's material conditions don't affect their personal and political satisfaction as much as whether they think they have opportunities. Some very poor people are actually quite content if they think they have opportunities in life. This has become an issue here, because there's a presidential election coming up, and many Democrat candidates (always millionaires themselves) often try to use envy and class hatred against "the rich" as a way to get votes. Researchers are trying to show that this tactic doesn't work, because people are less worried about where they are than about where they think they can go. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Sat Jul 28, 2007 7:05 am Intercultural communication |
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Speaking of humor, there are some types of humor that I heard in Germany that I didn't find funny or humorous at all -- at least not early on. I really couldn't figure out why my Swabian friends laughed so uproariously at certain jokes and comments. But after I'd been in Germany for a couple years, I one day realized that I was laughing along with jokes that I previously wouldn't have found funny at all. I'm sure the fact that my command of German (and Swabian!) had improved had a little bit to do with this, but I'm convinced that the main reason was that I had finally learned enough about German culture to appreciate the humor.
Culture shock definitely exists, but not everyone experiences it as severely as others. The degree of "shock" runs the whole gamut from occasional and mild to constant and severe. It can hard to predict who will deal with cultural differences well and who won't. And obviously, some cultures are more different than others.
One of the main reasons that I've posted a few times in this thread is that I suspect that Jamie is doing work in Detroit for the same company that I did work for when I was in Germany. Also because Jamie specifically mentioned German-American communication breakdowns right from the beginning. Since I lived in Germany for so long, I've had a bit of experience with this.
I often got hit with questions from my German students about, for example, whether the e-mail they'd just received from an American counterpart was really as annoyed as it seemed -- and if so, why. It was sometimes just a case of my student having worded something weirdly in their previous e-mail (i.e. simply a language issue). But there were also plenty of cases in which I needed to do a pretty thorough Q & A to figure out what was going on. There were plenty of times that misunderstandings appeared to be more a case of culturally influenced expectations rather than a problem related to grammar or the wrong choice of words. Obviously this type of communication breakdown does not occur in every sentence spoken or written, but it happens often enough that I don't think it can be ignored. So, along with learning how to say and write things well in English, I think that the best and most effective communication happens when both sides also learn about and understand the potential cultural pitfalls and how best to deal with them.
We can add differences in corporate cultures into the mix as well. I personally found it fascinating to experience the difference in corporate culture between two American high tech giants -- in Germany. The same sorts of differences that exist in the two corporate cultures in the US had been transplanted to their German subsidiaries. It was quite palpable.
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| Sat Jul 28, 2007 12:02 pm Intercultural communication |
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Hi Amy
I think you hit the mail on the head, when you say if people can learn or be shown ways to avoid or deal with these pitfalls. This refers back to your previous thread as to what International communication is about. Just as with any communication between native speakers it is about adjustment, a constructively critical approach, as well as reflection. If this can be achieved in a company as well as shown on any forum, then this assists them.
Likewise if we look at the point you made concerning annoyance. If we are to be honest how many courses that have a correspondence element really work on picking up on these subtleties in tone and to what degree of annoyance this reflect. I may include some work on this in my own courses, however I know from experience some of the type that purely concentrate on layout and "sentence frames". An ESL/EFL trainer has to be on the ball to have elements that are generative, or case studies, simulations. If a school does not have an effective monitoring system you have to rely on trainer integrity.
How can even a quite competent learner of a language know how we change our tone and what it means?
I certainly only really learn?t this from a very competent "tandem" partner of mine. There also is a dearth of information aimed at this level on the internet, and the effectiveness of this passive absorbance is also questionable.
I also likewise have been fascinated by certain legal/financial giants that have a mix of the worst of both German and American approaches, with very little guidance.
Often the perception of the so called seriousness of the Germans and the superficialness of the Americans form employees that have ingrained stereotypes from the offset. Any effective solution should be a happy medium and adjustment of style as well as more importantly perception.
Any global player should in my opinion be considering training how to gel structures together well. Also invest in intercultural communication.
But I am afraid it often comes down to employing cheaply or the power of the "buck".
After all pay peanuts get monkeys, and no point throwing good money after bad.
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| Sat Jul 28, 2007 12:37 pm Intercultural communication |
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| Torsten wrote: | | I think if you want to find out the true feelings a person has towards you, there is a system of communication that works no matter what that person's cultural background might be. You just have to ask the right questions and look for the right sings. In most cases you don't need many words, you can just feel what the person thinks about you. |
Tell me if you still believe that after you show up for lunch.
| Torsten wrote: | | If two people want to get along with each other and establish a relationship, they will always find the right means of communication. |
Yes, but it gets a little more complicated when two HUNDRED people are trying to get along with each other and establish a relationship -- especially when they aren't in the same hemisphere.
| Torsten wrote: | | I don't why I should be friendly to somebody one day and icy on the other. Maybe this happens if somebody has difficulties with their own personality or a tendency to forget things they did a day before. Also, why this distinction between "social" and "business situations"? If I'm interested in a person and I like them, I just concentrate on the person, not on the situation. |
This is the main question. Maybe you're different, but Americans have found that many Germans compartmentalize their business and social behavior to such a degree that the Americans think they're insincere. So you've got one side thinking the other is insincere because he's friendly to everybody most of the time, and from the other side someone thinks that someone else is insincere because he's friendly only to certain people at certain times. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Sat Jul 28, 2007 12:56 pm Intercultural communication |
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Hi Amy, Jamie, Bruce, Ralf, Stew, Tom and everyone else following this discussion! Many thanks for sharing your views on cultural differences and various styles of communication. All your contributions have provided a lot of food for thought and further debate. I'd be interested to hear how you would define the term "culture shock"? I know that Jamie and Amy have touched on this and I do have an idea as what you mean and that's why it would be great if you Stew, Bruce and Ralf could share your experiences too. What was it like for you when you came over to Germany? How difficult or easy was it for you to get settled here and what kind of cultural hurdles did you have to overcome?
Also, when it comes to discussing intercultural communication I often wonder if the problems that occur really stem from cultural differences. I mean, shouldn't we start by defining the term "communication" first? What does "good communication" mean to you? How do you establish and maintain relationships with other people? What kind of "social network" do you have? What are your principles in communicating with others? I think that people who experience a "culture shock" when they go abroad should have analyzed their communication habits better in order to find out how they come across. In other words: Misunderstandings happen all the time regardless of our culture or language. What I'm trying to say is this: Let's say, there is a misunderstanding between an American and a German, how do you know the reason for the misunderstanding is different cultures? There can be a whole host of other factors for that very misunderstanding.
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| Sat Jul 28, 2007 13:05 pm Intercultural communication |
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| Yankee wrote: | | Speaking of humor, there are some types of humor that I heard in Germany that I didn't find funny or humorous at all -- at least not early on. I really couldn't figure out why my Swabian friends laughed so uproariously at certain jokes and comments. But after I'd been in Germany for a couple years, I one day realized that I was laughing along with jokes that I previously wouldn't have found funny at all. I'm sure the fact that my command of German (and Swabian!) had improved had a little bit to do with this, but I'm convinced that the main reason was that I had finally learned enough about German culture to appreciate the humor. |
This difference in humor really exists. Here is an interesting article discussing it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1781004,00.html
There can be intercultural problems with humor also, and I've experienced them. My family has the English-style word-play humor, but from my father we also have a German style of humor that involves telling stories that begin plausibly but gradually become ridiculous. Americans don't engage in that second type of humor very much, and some aren't used to it at all. I have learned to be careful with that storytelling, because, while some Americans find it very funny, other Americans -- even very intelligent ones -- will go along believing the story until about halfway through, or even all the way through. When they finally figure out it was a joke, or I tell them it was a joke, they feel stupid. This hurts their feelings, and some of them think they were deliberately set up as chumps for the storyteller's amusement.
I agree that culture shock is real, and it's not only closed-minded people who suffer it. People who have only been to a place on vacation seldom experience it. It usually starts when you know you're going to have to spend quite a bit of time in a place. The other thing is that it can be much worse after the move home than it is when one moves away. I had horrible culture shock when I moved back to the United States -- much worse than when I moved to Europe. Absolutely nothing at home made sense to me anymore, and my habits and expectations were mismatched to my own society. In fact, I even drastically misjudged people's ages, thinking 25-year-olds were only 16. I also thought babies' mothers were their grandmothers. I wasn't functioning fully for about a year.
Another culture clash: When I was in my 20s, I worked in a factory owned by three very kind Sicilian brothers. One day a city inspector came in and told them they had to install ceiling fans. Two years later, they hadn't installed the fans, and I asked them why not. They replied, "We don't know anybody who sells them." I said, "You don't have to know anybody. You just find vendors in the yellow pages and get estimates." My bosses thought my solution was risky and imprudent, so they never did buy the fans. I thought they were insane. Flash forward 10 years. I've been in Eastern Europe for a couple of years, and suddenly I notice that I will only buy things from friends, or from friends of friends. I had adapted to cultural conditions without even knowing it. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Sat Jul 28, 2007 13:17 pm Intercultural communication |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | | This is the main question. Maybe you're different, but Americans have found that many Germans compartmentalize their business and social behavior to such a degree that the Americans think they're insincere. So you've got one side thinking the other is insincere because he's friendly to everybody most of the time, and from the other side someone thinks that someone else is insincere because he's friendly only to certain people at certain times. |
I don't differentiate between "social" and "business behavior". I'm self-employed and my hobby is my job so whenever I meet an interesting person I'm not thinking whether this is a "business" or "social" situation. Somebody who is friendly one day and unfriendly another might simply have an unbalanced personality.
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| Sat Jul 28, 2007 13:21 pm Intercultural communication |
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| Torsten wrote: | | I don't differentiate between "social" and "business behavior". I'm self-employed and my hobby is my job so whenever I meet an interesting person I'm not thinking whether this is a "business" or "social" situation. Somebody who is friendly one day and unfriendly another might simply have an unbalanced personality. |
When I wrote my last response to you, I was going to point out that you're an entrepreneur and would not behave the same as a corporate employee. For some reason I didn't. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Sat Jul 28, 2007 13:40 pm Intercultural communication |
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| Torsten wrote: | | Also, when it comes to discussing intercultural communication I often wonder if the problems that occur really stem from cultural differences. |
Here is a classic text that's used to demonstrate cultural differences in understanding:
| Quote: | | It was the day of the big party. Jennifer wondered if Tom would like a kite. She went to her room and shook her piggy bank. There was no sound. |
Show this to a group of people from different countries who understand every word of the text, and it's liable to surprise you. In one of my classes...
-- a Macedonian guy thought there was no sound because the wind wasn't blowing, so people couldn't fly kites.
-- a Lebanese woman thought that the party was a wedding, that Jennifer and Tom were "definitely not children", and that there was no sound because the guests hadn't arrived yet.
-- a Vietnamese woman shook her head and in confusion said, "I think this text has no meaning."
Keep in mind that all of these foreigners had excellent knowledge of the English language and understood every word. It was the culture swimming behind the words that they didn't understand.
Meanwhile, if you show the same text to some American students, then take it away, they will swear that the text says explicitly that there is going to be a birthday party, and that Tom and Jennifer are young children. I'll ask, "How do you know this?" and the students will insist, "The text said so!"
Here's another one. I think you helped me experiment with this one a few years ago, Torsten. It's from a song that came out circa 1998:
| Quote: | They put up a plant where we used to park,
That old drive-in is a new Wal-Mart,
The caf? is closed, where our names were carved
on that corner booth... |
Americans know immediately from the first line that this song involves a man talking to a woman he was in love with when they were teenagers, that they had lived in a small farm town, and that the woman has been away for many years.
However, Germans who have lived in the United States for as long as 11 years can miss all that until they get to the last two lines. They don't know what kind of drive-in is being talked about, and they think the caf? is a coffee shop. They usually think the first line means that someone planted a tree on a parking lot.
Communication breakdowns occur not always because of what people say, but also because of what they don't say. The reason they don't say it is because they think it's explicit from the context, but for a foreigner there's a good chance that some of it won't be. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Sat Jul 28, 2007 13:51 pm Intercultural communication |
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Hi Torsten,
I was finding the comments on this topic somewhat scary until you fortuitously breezed in with a breath of commonsensical air and pointed out it wasn't so much what happens when German meets American or when Czech meets Finn or when whoever meets who(m)ever but rather which personality/character meets which personality/character. To make a minor contribution to this discussion I would like to mention my first ever visit to Germany in 1955 - a mere 10 years after the second world war. I had brought with me the most enormous baggage of prejudices and misconceptions having grown up as a child in the war and made to have a healthy dislike of all things German. And there was I working in an office as a clerk surrounded by every age and type of German you can imagine. When I came home and thought about my experiences, I remembered the people I had met who had shown particular kindness and those I had met that I didn't like and didn't get on with and in all honesty in the intervening 52 years I have found similar types in my own country and in other countries where I have worked and visited.
Alan
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| Sat Jul 28, 2007 18:46 pm Intercultural communication |
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Hi everyone,
There is a lot of truth in Amy's, Jamie's and Alan's last contributions. Once you get used to a culture, your newly found understanding helps you appreciate idiosyncrasies you would have thought odd before. And you find it hard to fit in when you go back after some time.
The term “culture shock” certainly has a negative connotation. Talking from personal experience, I usually romanticise either Ireland or Germany when I haven't lived in either country for a while. So far I've spent about half my life in each country. But after being “back home” for a few days, I usually feel shocked when confronted with situations I hadn't experienced whilst I was away. Then, having to wait for a bus in Ireland that is more than a few minutes late (if it comes at all) is just as annoying as a pedestrian bumping into me in a German street without saying “sorry”.
The way Torsten put his questions, it seems he tries to make sense of cultural differences by identifying “a system” or “principles” behind people's habits. This is a very German approach. I'm quite sure that i.e. an Irish or Italian person would find this question hard to answer.
However, I think I know what Torsten is driving at. I think there are principles that can be observed, but most people do not follow them consciously. Keeping in touch with my friends and family is a thing that just happens without a bigger plan. At times I have to force myself to get in touch with people who moved abroad, but I wouldn't say that any of my friends holds a grudge if I don't contact them within a certain period of time. To real friends you can always get back to.
Yet, “culture shocks” still happen to me. I am shocked by things that are too alien to me or situations I have either never encountered before or not in a very long time. Having shared a flat with my very clean and tidy German girlfriend for a while, I find it shocking when I visit relatives in Ireland. I find myself wishing for i.e. dinner-table rules which I had previously resented my whole life. And after a few days it seems like there never had been any rules.
Ralf
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| Thu Aug 02, 2007 18:50 pm Cross-cultural jokes - lets lighten up a bit. |
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Greetings Amy, Conchita, Jamie(K), Yankee, Ralf, Stew, Torsten, Alan and all,
I?m looking forward to writing more in this Intercultural space.
I?m a bit pressed for time at the moment but I?ll be back soon.
Meanwhile, I would just like to throw in some humour from a
good cross-culture website called "Cultural Savvy".
The Pearl Harbour / Titanic joke is my favourite.
There is some good stuff on this Website so I would surf
around it a bit if I were you. Here it is :
http://www.culturalsavvy.com/stereotyping_examples.htm
Lots of fun. Speak / write soon, Bruce.
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| Fri Aug 03, 2007 15:19 pm Intercultural communication |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | Last week I had to give a cultural training seminar at a company where the employees in the American plant weren't getting along with those in a German plant. (Actually, it sounded like it was the other way around.)
One thing I realized was this: Just because someone comes from a different culture, it doesn't mean you didn't understand him.
The American employees were aware that Germans generally tend to be more abrupt and straightforward than most Americans are, so whenever an American felt insulted by something a German had said to him, his immediate reaction was to think, "Oh, he didn't mean to insult me. It's just his culture." However, some of the things the Germans said really were arrogant and insulting, no matter how you slice it, and I thought the American had understood the insult correctly.
So, I guess that part of "cultural understanding" is knowing when you really did understand someone, and not always assuming you have misunderstood him. |
Hi Jamie!
This theroy you got is interesting and I fundamentally agree with it. In fact I always believe that the people can communicating in any situations. Whatever which countries they came from or whatever which languages they are using. Because there are something feelings, logics, minds and emotions are naturally. In other words, there are some thoughts people having are similar.
For example, you will acorrd a consequences to find out a reason caused it. This is an common logic, similarlly, many human behaviors can also be understood using these commonsense even you are living in the different areas. Because those are basic qualities of humannature.
So, sometimes, just be nature to hung up with others is a better way. Frankly, the language is merely a tool. It can translate the info from one to another, but the logics and emotions could not be transfered by the language changing. Your minds would not be changed if you are to use a different language, right? Trying to use your heart to feel others heart you will find more feelings which we all need not to explain it by words speaking out=)
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