研究生英语Lesson2CommunicationAcrossCultur.doc

Lesson 2 Communication Across Cultures
Text A Misunderstanding Other Cultures

There is a folk tale that comes to us from the foothills of the Himalayas. A man was trying to explain to a blind friend what colors are. He began with the color white.
“Well,” he said, “it is like snow on the hills.”
“Oh,” the blind man said, “then it must be a wet and dampish sort of color, isn’t it?
" No, no,” the man said, “it is also the same color as cotton or wool.”
“Oh yes, I understand. It must be a fluffy color.”
“No, it is also like paper.”
“Then it must be a crackling or fragile color,” said the blind man.
“No, not at all. It is also like china.”
It is very difficult for people to understand one another if they do not share the same experiences. Of course, we all share the experience of being human, but there are many experiences which we do not share and which are different for all of us. It is these different experiences that make up what is called “culture” in the social sciences — the habits of everyday life, the cues to which people respond, the automatic reactions they have to whatever they see and hear. These often differ, and the differences may induce misunderstandings where we seek understanding.
At the very beginning of a cultural exchange program, a French visitor came to the United States. He said to an American friend, “Why aren’t you Americans more frank with us?”
The American said, “Why? What do you mean?”
The Frenchman said, “You tell us that you are for free enterprise, but I have been traveling throughout the United States and I have seen that practically all the production — all the plants and factories — are nationalized.”
The Frenchman’s assumption arose from the fact that in France only buildings belonging to the French government fly the French flag. What the Frenchman analyzed was not the immediate perception. He analyzed the economic system, and what he saw he evaluated in his own way.
Misinterpretations of this type can take place at a variety of levels. They can take place at the level of understanding, at the level of ideas or values, and sometimes at the level of feelings. The most serious are those that take place at the level of feelings. Very often misunderstandings at this level come not from ill will, but from good will. Sometimes we hurt another person’s feelings without wanting to do it and without knowing that we are doing it.
Here is an example. A young Japanese student came to the United States, and he was overwhelmed by the cordial reception he was given. He said, “The American people are wonderful. They are so warm, so friendly — much beyond my expectations.”
Some time later it was told that while traveling in the West, this same young man had had dinner with an American family and had remarked that he greatly admired the country’s efficiency, organization, and accomplishment. But, he said, there was one thing he would never quite understand, and that was why Americans were so cold, so distant. His host was deeply hurt, and the visit ended on a bit of a sour note.
The point here is that both the first and last statements by the young man are typical. Very often, upon arrival in the United States many foreign visitors are astonished by the warmth and friendliness of the American people. But often after a few months they begin to feel homesick and lonely, and they blame the Americans for causing these feelings by being cold. Now, why is this? I believe it is simply a question of different rhythms.
Americans have one rhythm in their personal and family relations, in their friendliness and their charities. People from other cultures have different rhythms. The American rhythm is fast. It is characterized by a rapid acceptance of others. However, it is seldom that Americans engage themselves entirely in a friendship. Their friendships are warm, but they are casual — and they are specialized. By specialized I mean, for example, you have a neighbor who drops by in the morning for coffee. You see her frequently, but you never invite her for dinner — not because you don’t think she could handle a fork and a knife, but because you have seen her that morning. Therefore, you reserve your more formal invitation to dinner for someone who lives in a more distant part of the city and whom you would not see unless you extended an invitation for a special occasion. Now, if the first friend moves away and the second one moves nearby, you are likely to reverse this — see the second friend in the mornings for informal coffee meetings, and the first one more formally for dinner.
In some cultures friendship means a strong life-long bond between two people. In these cultures friendships develop slowly, since they are built to last. But people in American society seem to be much more mobile. Studies show that one out of five American families moves every year. Therefore American friendships develop quickly, and they may change just as quickly.
Besides, people are, in other words, guided very often by their own convenience. Americans make friends easily, and they don’t feel it necessary to go to a great amount of trouble to see friends often when it becomes inconvenient to do so. No matter how much they like you, they may not come to see you for years if it is inconvenient. In American society, usually no one is hurt by it. But in similar circumstances people from many other cultures would be hurt very deeply.
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It is only when we assume that other people do as we do and they assume that we do as they do that feelings are hurt. Often, for example, foreign visitors feel that the American family system shows them to be cold hearted and that they treat their parents badly. Their parents don’t live with them. There aren’t three or four generations in the household; no cousins, no aunts share our homes. The fact is, of course, that Americans aren’t cold; they just do things differently. They prize independence. Most parents in the United States don’t want to live with their adult children. This question also leads to a point of values. We often assume that our values are the right values simply because, for us they are the obvious values. An African ambassador in Washington, recently said to his American friends, “One of the things which has caused misunderstandings between your people and mine is that you Americans always speak of individualism as being good. We do not consider individualism good. You always oppose government to individualism. What we oppose to individualism is not the government, but the family, the clan, the small community of natural primary relations. We feel that an individualist is a lonely man.”
If you talk to a Frenchman, on the other hand, he will say, “Americans are not individualistic at all.. They have no sense of individualism.” To Americans an individualist is someone who takes care of his own life, who sets a goal for himself and goes to it. If twO young men decide that their goal in life is to make good in the hardware business, and if each of them does it independently, Americans would say that these are two individualists. The French call individualism something entirely different. They say an individualist is someone who is different from others. If there are two, people in the hardware business there can be no individualism. There is one too many.
However, in Mexico, it is the uniqueness of the individual which is valued, a quality which is assumed to reside within each person and which is not necessarily evident through actions or achievements. That inner quality which represents the dignity of each person must be protected at all costs. Any action or remark that may be inrpreted as a slight to the person’s dignity is to be regarded as a grave provocation. Also, as every person is part of a larger family grouping, one cannot be regarded as a completely isolated individual.
Different understandings, different senses of value, but nevertheless all views are perfectly legitimate as long as people understand each other.
It is usually expected that Americans and the British would have fewer problems in understanding each other, for they share a common language and may have little difficulty communicating with one another. But differences can also be found between Americans and the British. For instance, an American working in England was once invited to take tea with one of his colleagues, which was a purely social, relaxed occasion. Tea was served along with sugar and cream. As he helped himself to some sugar and cream, he sensed he had done something wrong but couldn’t be sure what the problem was. ‘What went wrong? Here we have to ‘look beyond the gesture of taking sugar or cream to the values expressed in this gesture: for Americans, “Help yourself”; for the English counterpart, “Be my guest.“
American and English people equally enjoy entertaining and being entertained but they differ somewhat in the value of the distinction. Typically, the ideal guest at an American party is one who “makes himself at home”, even to the point of, rearranging the furniture without being asked, suggesting the dinner menu, answering the door or fixing his own drink. For people in many other societies, including at least this English host, such guest behavior would seem presumptuous or rude.
What we have to realize is that, in analyzing problems of communication across cultures, it is all too tempting to look first for difficulties posed by language misinterpretation or assume some nonverbal indiscretion. But we have tried to suggest that the misunderstanding or misbehavior more likely resides elsewhere, in the subtler but consistent cultural patterns of behavior which become understandable when we appreciate difference in cultural values. Thus what we first need, in attempting to analyze any such situation, is not necessarily more language skills or more information about the mores of a particular culture, but rather an openness to alternatives to our own conventional behavior. If we appreciate the logic of our own actions, we can more quickly imagine alternatives equally consistent with other values.

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