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Would you agree with me if I were to say “Culture is a living form of idea that can be created or destroyed”?
Personally, I feel a culture can mould a person’s way of life, behavior and even making decisions. So I’m fairly sure there must be a person who started defining a culture and influencing people to accept it.
By doing so, cultures give us that unique sense of identity and not to forget, a fair share of conflicts as well.
This brings me to a scenario that my sister had faced when she had to be in charge of the welfare for Watoto Children Choir. These children are from Uganda and were here in Singapore for promotional reasons. She shared with me on her hesitance to approach them because she was afraid of them. Initially, they were just staring at each other with amounting awkwardness. Eventually, she initiated the first move with most of her interactions being gestures and facial expressions to convey her thoughts to them. Surprisingly, they manage to understand each other which really goes to show that despite having different cultural background, you can convey a message through fundamental body language.
Most often, I would find cultural conflicts arising from using the wrong gesture or term. Take for example, the Chinese would have find slurping noodles noisily as bad table manners whereas the Japanese, it’s a way of complimenting the chef that the food is delicious. The same gestures or words could actually be translated into very different meanings for each and every culture. Perhaps, all we need to do is just accept the difference and take initiatives to understand one another’s culture. That would leave us with no more excuses not to be able to have an effective intercultural communication.
Hey Zhing!
ReplyDeleteI agree that by understanding and being sensitive to the culture of others is important for effective intercultural communication! However, I dont think that just by mere body language that one can decode the message effectively. Words are still important to provide a more holistic, correct and concise interpretation of the message.
I agree that culture can be created. But to create a new culture sometimes means going against the norm. It has to be socially accepted and recognised to influence people too. And requires influential people to agree that the new culture will succeed before it can be passed on. If not the person who created the culture is just merely having his/her own opinions as he/her cant persuade others to adopt it.
Your blog is short and sweet. “Culture is a living form of idea that be can created or destroyed”-in this line it is “can be created…”. So be careful while writing the first paragraph. Avoid errors in it because readers may get a bad impression if they see an error in the first line itself.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree that culture can be created or destroyed. In Indian culture there were so many practices followed in the early centuries. But now most of them are destroyed because of the influence of the western culture. So the life of a culture depends on we people.
The situation you have chosen has also happened to me. When I was volunteering in Youth Olympic Games, I had to teach athletes how to fold an Origami. The athletes were from different countries all over the world. Some didn’t understand English. But still I had to teach them. So by using gestures and facial expressions I managed to teach them without just speaking. Even though they didn’t know English they would say “Thank you” finally. That gave me the biggest satisfaction and happiness. I was actually damn excited to interact with such people. It was a great fun.
Hi Zhing,
ReplyDeleteI agree that culture is a perception which is created by a certain entity and it can be altered. One example from my marketing module, L'Oreal in India actually manages to create a hair-care product market by altering the habits of Indian women to use more sophisticated and more expensive hair-care products from the initially natural hair herbs. They did that by creating hair-dressing salons in a massive scale.
Also, it is really interesting to hear about the Japanese use slurping sound to praise the chef. Indeed this kind of differences are pretty sensitive and only by the initiatives to learn that it can be overcome.
@gen
ReplyDeleteNo doubt words are important to convey the right interpretation, given a scenario where one can only speak malay and the other just tamil. Somehow they can still understand the gist of the conversation. That's what really amaze me :)
Good to see that you brought up social norms..I've actually built my blog post upon the concept of defying social norms :):)
Thanks for commenting!
@ Yazhini
Thanks for pointing that out.. I have to admit that I did not spent as much effort on this blog post compared to the earlier posts.
I've always wondered why the caste system in India cannot be eradicated. Why was this social norm not being influenced by the western culture. Its really sad to see people not being given the equal rights to education, job opportunities etc...
Interesting situation you've shared because it never fails to amaze me how we can still communicate even without speaking the same language :):)
@Adi
I've never seen it from that perspective so its really refreshing to see how a culture can be created through physical implementation!
Oh yes, I just found out today that Japanese people actually find handshakes as a rude gesture...that's why they always use bowing as a form of greeting :) Thanks for commenting
Hey Zhing,
ReplyDeleteI do share the view as you. To a large extent, culture could be a catalyst of conflict. Culture is something that people got themselves imersed with for almost half of their lives. Their values and emotions are entangled with it. I must say that it is not easy to learn to accept the culture as their belief and values might be a taboo to another culture. I guess that only by exposing to and understanding the significant of each cultural practices. I don't mean that learning other culture would mean that oneself would accept cultural difference. However, such exposure may help to communicate effective in context of intercultural differences.
@Sam
ReplyDeleteYou've brought up the entanglement of values and emotions into culture. I can almost imagine the complexity of a cultural conflict where so many factors come into play. Thanks for providing this additional insight!
Hey zhing,
ReplyDeleteYour blog is quite concise and nice to read.
I liked the way you have described culture in your own words.It is indeed a "living form of idea" that is different for different places and people.
I agree with you,sometimes using gestures can help in making communication easier.However,while using gestures we must be careful of not offending other person's culture.I witnessed a similar example as mentioned by you, of the slurping noise made by a Japanese and how it was misinterpreted by the Indian man.So,one must use the gestures wisely and have a basic knowledge of cultures around them.