Remember a time when you went abroad and made some faux pas that caused amusement or dismay among local listeners? Knowing what exactly went wrong in this situation could help you understand cultural awareness. InterNations tells you more about cultural awareness and why it is so important for expatriates.
While
living abroad, quite a few people inadvertently miss some social cues among
their new colleagues, neighbors, or friends. They behave in what they think is
a normal manner – and oops! Suddenly, other people seem amused, irritated, or
simply confused.
You
may not be able to explain what went wrong or, to ask an even more difficult
question, why
a certain type of behavior would be considered wrong in your host country. You
did, however, notice that “normal” interaction and “common sense” failed you.
Perhaps you even ended up upsetting other people.
First Steps
Now
go a step further in your quest for cultural awareness: Start reading a brief
“how to” guide or “dos and don’ts” list for tourists, expats, or immigrants
coming to your country. You may be surprised or entertained by the descriptions
of your own culture and its basic etiquette.
If
you talk to foreign visitors and expatriates whom you know already well, they
may share their thoughts on living in your country: the stereotypes they had
before coming here; their first impressions; which differences confuse them;
what they find great; what they don’t like at all, etc. Again, the answers
might astound you and won’t fail to increase your sense of cultural awareness.
Of
course, clichés, personal impressions, and random bits of advice will only get
you so far. Now’s the point when you might want to dive a little deeper into
the theoretical background of cultural awareness, intercultural competence, and intercultural communication. These two articles
explain these theories in greater depth, so you might want to read them first
before continuing here.
Culture – a Basic Definition
First
of all, in the context of cultural awareness, we have to understand what
culture refers to. For this purpose, let’s simply define culture as all
the (often unspoken) standards and (mostly unwritten) rules that guide a
certain group’s behavior. Such a group can be a sub-set of the general
population (a sub-culture) or an entire nation – the culture of Hong Kong or
Italian culture.
Culture,
in this specific sense, is often compared to an onion with several layers. The
outermost layer of the “onion”, i.e. of a foreign culture, is what you can see,
hear, and touch: its artifacts, products, and rituals. The next layer of a
culture consists of its systems and institutions. Systems and institutions, in
turn, are based on certain beliefs, norms, and attitudes. These beliefs then
stem from the core of the “onion”, the most basic values of any culture.
Getting to the Core of Culture
It’s
that core of different attitudes and values that is both the hardest to get at
and the most influential element of all. And yet it’s to understand this core
that cultural awareness is all about. It’s very common to classify this core
according to several dimensions, e.g. the prevailing social attitudes towards
hierarchy and authority (called “power distance”).
Cultural
differences – which begin at the core of the onion and spread upwards and
outwards through the various layers – mean that the hidden rules of everyday
behavior might change as soon as you set foot on a distant country’s soil. In
seminars on cultural awareness, coaches like illustrating the emotional effect
of such a drastic change with the so-called Barnga simulation.
Playing the Game
The
Barnga simulation is often used in intercultural competence training. The
participants sit down at several tables in several small groups and start
playing a simple card game with a certain set of rules. Once they have learned
the rules at their table, they mustn’t speak anymore. As soon as they know
their rules and have played a few rounds, two people from each table move over
to a different one.
What
they don’t know, though, is the fact that the rules at every table are slightly
different. So when they start playing elsewhere, it will soon cause confusion
and irritation, even frustration and helplessness among the players. This is
what immersing oneself in a different culture may feel like – the
disorientation of culture shock. Being exposed to these
feelings in such a context may help participants to appreciate the importance
of cultural awareness and competence.
