Fostering Intercultural Communication

With the advent of our global society, it has become more essential to be aware of different cultures. No longer are the days where your workplaces as most companies have more cosmopolitan staff. Look at our local professors for example, they have Singaporean, Chinese, British, American, German and basically colleagues from around the world. If you like soccer , you will also see that the club soccer squads are now more cosmopolitan. Gone are the days where an English football club consisted of mainly UK players. For example, the Manchester United squad consists of international players from France, South Korea, Portugal, Brazil, Bulgaria, Mexico, Serbia and even Ecuador besides UK players.
Yet our professors and our favorite soccer players are able to work together and this is what we have to do as well at our workplaces.

Referring to our first blog, we had a case study on how intercultural communication can fail. We have looked at how the missionaries can create a situation in which the hymns got misunderstood because they were not aware of how tone in language was important in African culture. While the Africans basically just laughed it off, in real life the consequences are not always this innocuous. It would always make the parties concerned uncomfortable and makes them unwilling to work together. It is also important when travelling to learn the culture of the host country which will always make a good impression with the host.

It is also important to remember that culture is more than just language. Culture covers a lot of stiff like food and etiquette. What may be considered polite in one culture maybe considered rude in another. For example using an OK sign might be OK in America and parts of Europe but doing that in Brazil only leads to……well, you better get ready a sword.

One major aspect of difference between cultures us that Asian cultures tend to consider the good of the whole group and indirect whereas Western culture tends to be more individualistic and direct. For example, the emphasis on politeness is very strong in Japanese culture. Even in the Japanese language there are there are countless ways to apologize and elaborate verbal rituals that have been devised to avoid coming off as too direct or rude. There are also plenty of honorifics as well (polite ways of addressing people). Many Japanese begin written correspondence, for example, with the honorific hankei, which literally means "your enlightened worship." Bring nice is rooted in the Japanese tradition. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote: "The Japanese people are, by and large, the nicest and most responsible people in the world. Not the friendliest, not the happiest, certainly not the funniest, but the nicest." In the light of the recent debate about how ungracious Singaporeans are, perhaps we could learn something from this? While, this is nice and good, when the Westerners try to work with them, the Japanese will probably find them rude and brash if both of them do not understand each other. And that is so not a good starting point for a business partnership. (Maybe they should read Cultural Etiquette for Dummies?)

Coming closer to home, Singapore is also multi racial and we would hopefully have friends of other races as well. It is very important to understand the cultures of other races lest misunderstanding may result. For example take this following situation:
There are two friends (let's us call them X and Y). Y was observing Ramadan when both of went out together. During the outing , X was feeling hungry. X forgot that it was Ramadan. X keeps moaning that she was hungry and suggested many places for lunch. X was clueless on how upset Y was. Y left after the outing but after mentioning than it was Ramadan month. X than realizes that she screwed up and apologized to Y. Y accepts the apology but it was obvious from his body language that he was still upset.

Has X done anything wrong? I give you 2 minutes to think about it....and stop scrolling down.














I don't know about you, but I will be surprised if both X and Y were still close friends after this! There is no escaping the fact that X was very insensitive and did not respect the feelings and beliefs of her Muslim friend. She failed to put herself in her friend's shoes. The most damning thing about the whole situation is that it can be prevented all together if X were more aware of the practice of fasting and how it signifies to the Muslims.

To conclude, the ability of communicate across cultural lines is essential skill for everyone in today's global village so that friendly relationships can be maintained, whether it is business or personal.