Intercultural Communication and Travel

An interesting interview with Brenda S. Sprague, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for passport services in Sunday’s New York Times (February 3, 2013), Travel, p. 3 provides lots of insights for intercultural communication and useful tips for the traveler. Most useful is the suggestion to visit the website www.travel.state.gov. It provides a wealth of information on specific countries along with travel warnings. Today’s warnings, for example, were for the Philippines, Afghanistan, and El Salvador. Another useful tip is to enroll in STEP (Smart Travel Enrollment Program). This will provide you with information on the places you plan to visit as well as travel warnings and weather alerts.

I learned two other things from this interview. First, your health insurance will usually not cover you in a foreign country, nor will Medicare. And even if you will get reimbursed from your insurance company, foreign hospitals generally want payment upfront. In special cases, the government will give you a loan for an evacuation which you’ll have to pay back. According to Sprague this medevac can easily cost $100,000.  Second, if unrest develops in the country you’re visiting, the State Department will help get you out but you will have to pay the cost.

Communication Strategies: Recognize Differences

Intercultural communication is facilitated when we recognize differences simply as differences, not as inferior ways of doing things or as out-dated, but simply as different. Among the differences to recognize are: (1) differences between yourself and people from other cultures, (2) differences within the other cultural group, and (3) differences in meaning.
Differences between Yourself and the Culturally Different
A common barrier to intercultural communication occurs when you assume that similarities exist and that differences do not. This is especially true of values, attitudes, and beliefs. You might easily accept different hairstyles, clothing, and foods. In basic values and beliefs, however, you may assume that deep down all people are really alike. They aren’t. When you assume similarities and ignore differences, you’ll fail to notice important distinctions and when communicating will convey to others that your ways are the right ways and that their ways are not important to you. Consider this example. An American invites a Filipino coworker to dinner. The Filipino politely refuses. The American is hurt and feels that the Filipino does not want to be friendly. The Filipino is hurt and concludes that the invitation was not extended sincerely. Here, it seems, both the American and the Filipino assume that their customs for inviting people to dinner are the same when, in fact, they aren’t. A Filipino expects to be invited several times before accepting a dinner invitation. When an invitation is given only once it’s viewed as insincere.
Here’s another example. An American college student hears the news that her favorite uncle has died. She bites her lip, pulls herself up, and politely excuses herself from the group of foreign students with whom she is having dinner. The Russian thinks: “How unfriendly.” The Italian thinks: “How insincere.” The Brazilian thinks: “How unconcerned.” To many Americans, it’s a sign of bravery to endure pain (physical or emotional) in silence and without any outward show of emotion. To members of other groups, such silence may be interpreted negatively to mean that the individual does not consider them friends who can share such sorrow. In other cultures, people are expected to reveal to friends how they feel.
Differences within the Culturally Different Group
Within every cultural group there are vast and important differences. As all Americans are not alike, neither are all Indonesians, Greeks, Mexicans, and so on. When you ignore these differences—when you assume that all persons covered by the same label (in this case a national or racial label) are the same—you’re guilty of stereotyping. A good example of this is seen in the use of the term “African American.” The term stresses the unity of Africa and of those who are of African descent and is analogous to “Asian American” or “European American.” At the same time, it ignores the great diversity within the African continent when, for example, it’s used as analogous to “German American” or “Japanese American.” More analogous terms would be “Nigerian American” or “Ethiopian American.” Within each culture there are smaller cultures that differ greatly from each other and from the larger culture.
Differences in Meaning
Meaning exists not in words but in people. You can’t really tell what a person means simply from the dictionary definitions of the words used. Consider, for example, the differences in meaning that exist for words such as religion to a born-again Christian and an atheist and lunch to an Indonesian rice farmer and a Madison Avenue advertising executive. Even though the same word is used, its meanings will vary greatly depending on the listeners’ cultural definitions.
Nonverbal differences in meaning also exist. For example, a left-handed American who eats with the left hand may be seen by a Muslim as inappropriate. To the Muslim, the left hand isn’t used for eating or for shaking hands but to clean oneself after excretory functions. So using the left hand to eat or to shake hands is considered impolite. Similarly, a child who avoids eye contact with an adult may be seen in one culture as deference (the child is showing respect for the older person) and in another as disrespect or even defiance (the child is indicating a lack of concern for what the older person is saying).

Communication Strategies: Educate Yourself for Intercultural Communication

There’s no better preparation for intercultural communication than learning about the other culture and about how you think and feel about communicating with members of cultures very different from your own.
Fortunately, there are numerous sources to draw on in learning about another culture. View a documentary or movie that presents a realistic view of the culture. Read material about the culture by persons from that culture as well as by “outsiders”. Scan magazines and websites from the culture. Talk with members of the culture. Chat in international chat rooms. Read materials addressed to people who need to communicate with those from other cultures. Your online or brink-and-mortar bookstores abound with such books.
Become mindful of your own feelings, particularly your possible fears of engaging in intercultural communication. For example, you may become anxious about your ability to control the intercultural situation, or you may worry about your own level of discomfort. You may fear saying something that will be considered politically incorrect or culturally insensitive and thereby lose face.
A somewhat different type of fear is the fear that you’ll be taken advantage of by a member of another culture. Depending on your own stereotypes, you may fear being lied to, financially duped, or made fun of. You may fear that members of this other group will react to you negatively. You may fear, for example, that they will not like you or may disapprove of your attitudes or beliefs or perhaps even reject you as a person. Conversely, you may fear negative reactions from members of your own group. They might, for example, disapprove of your socializing with the culturally different.
Some fears, of course, are reasonable. In many cases, however, such concerns are groundless. Either way, they need to be assessed logically and their consequences weighed carefully. And, together with your greater understanding and knowledge of the culture, you’ll then be able to make more informed choices about your interactions with members of different cultures.

Communication Strategies: Reduce Your Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to evaluate the values, beliefs, and behaviors of your own culture as being more positive, logical, and natural than those of other cultures. Although normally thought of negatively, ethnocentrism has its positive aspects. For example, if a group is under attack, ethnocentrism will help create cohesiveness. It has also been argued that it forms the basis of patriotism and a willingness to sacrifice for the benefit of the group.
But ethnocentrism also can create obstacles to communication with those who are culturally different from you. It can also lead to hostility toward outside groups and may blind you to seeing other perspectives, other values, other ways of doing things.
Ethnocentrism exists on a continuum. People aren’t either ethnocentric or not ethnocentric; rather, most of us are somewhere between these polar opposites. Of course, your degree of ethnocentrism varies, depending on the group on which you focus. For example, if you’re Greek American, you may have a low degree of ethnocentrism when dealing with Italian Americans but a high degree when dealing with Turkish Americans or Japanese Americans. Most important to recognize is that your degree of ethnocentrism (and we are all ethnocentric to at least some degree) will influence your communication interactions.
There is no easy way or quick formula to reduce your ethnocentrism. Yet, a few suggestions may be in order:
• Learn about the other culture. The more you know about other cultures, the more likely you are to see value in other ways of doing things and in other beliefs. And, at the same time, the less likely you’ll be to think only of your own culture.
• Become mindful of your thinking whenever it concerns intercultural issues. Ask yourself if you’re being ethnocentric.
• Interact with members of other cultures while withholding evaluations.
• Talk with members of other cultures about their culture—simply as a way of understanding each other.

Intercultural communication

Take a look at "What Not to Say" by Sam Sommers in Psychology Today (June 2010)--it doesn't seem to be online yet; it's a different take on intercultural communication from that which appears in most of our textbooks. Along with the article is a sidebar by blogger Kristin J. Anderson who offers some suggestions on intercultural conversations. One of them I don't see in our textbooks: "let go of the fear of appearing racist."

Intercultural Communication: Gaining Weight?

Here's an interesting example of the differences in meaning for a simple comment about gaining weight between English and Japanese. This example can easily be related to bypassing and the differences between connotation and denotation.

ABCD: Stereotype

The term stereotype comes into the behavioral sciences such as psychology, communication, and sociology from the world of printing. A stereotype in printing was the mold or plate that was used to print the same image or piece of text over and over again. In his Public Opinion (1921) journalist Walter Lippmann used the term to refer to the “pictures in our heads.” These pictures or ingrained images in our head lead us to interpret what we see or hear in terms of these images. And so instead of seeing a particular migrant worker as an individual, you perceive this person filtered through the image you have in your head of “migrant workers.” Stereotypes are thinking-shortcuts; instead of concerning yourself with the specific individual, it’s a lot easier to simply apply the stereotype (the fixed image).
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy defines stereotype as “a generalization, usually exaggerated or oversimplified and often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “a conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image. The Media Awareness Network (www.media-awareness.ca) defines stereotype as “A fixed, commonly held notion or image of a person or group, based on an oversimplification of some observed or imagined trait of behavior or appearance.”
Although we often think of stereotypes as racial (and many are), stereotypes may actually refer to any group covered by the same label. If you can name the group to which an individual belongs, it’s possible to entertain a stereotype about that group and hence that individual.
Here’s a quick way to begin examining your own stereotypes. Consider the images that come to mind when you hear such group names as the elderly, lesbians, Republicans, grandparents, college students, or athletes. If the images that come to mind are vivid and clear cut, it’s likely that you have strong stereotypes. If no images or a varied group of very different images come to mind, then it’s likely that you don’t have strong stereotypes. Recognize too that stereotypes are, especially within the college environment, negatively perceived and so people are likely to minimize their own stereotypes at least when talking with others. Yet, stereotypes exert considerable influence on most people, even those who deny they have stereotypes.
Stereotypes—as the definitions cited make clear—are usually offensive; they have negative connotations. The elderly as absent minded, the athlete as dumb, or the mother-in-law as trouble maker—and you can easily fill in many others that are a lot more offensive—are examples that come readily to mind and that are negative. But, there are many stereotypes that are positive; the grandparent as all-loving and all-caring, the Asian student as dedicated and bright, and the African American as strong and athletic are good examples.
Three main problems that can result from stereotyping should be mentioned here.
First, stereotypes influence what you think about specific people who are members of a group. Because stereotypes are overly general, they frequently distort your perceptions of others, especially your initial perceptions. If you see a person through a stereotype, you’ll apply characteristics that go with the stereotype (illegal, loyal to family, dirty, hard working, and so on) but these characteristics may not apply to this particular individual. In this way you fail to perceive the individual accurately.
Second, you may fail to see the uniqueness in an individual if you only see him or her through your stereotype. And after all, meeting and interacting with other people are enjoyable largely because of the individual’s uniqueness. If you fail to see this, you’ll fail to enjoy and perhaps profit from this individual’s uniqueness.
Third, stereotypes—because they assume all members covered by the same label have the same characteristics—can often form the basis of (and often a misguided justification for) discrimination. If you can say that all members of X group are Y (and if Y is something negative), then discrimination in hiring, promoting, respecting, or learning from can easily follow. If all Martians are stupid or lazy or uneducated, then there’s little sense in hiring or promoting them and you certainly wouldn’t respect them or feel you could learn anything from them. General Semanticists, in their emphasis on recognizing uniqueness in everything and everyone, put it this way: “The more you discriminate among, the less you can discriminate against.” The more you distinguish among Martians, for example, the less you can discriminate against the group. The reason is simple: If you distinguish among members of a group, any stereotype will surely break down and be shown to be inadequately descriptive because you will see the enormous diversity within any group of people.
Stereotypes are relevant to all forms of communication but perhaps especially to intercultural communication. When you communicate with people who are different from you in terms of religion, nationality, ethnic background, affectional orientation, age, or gender, for example, you run the risk of interpreting them and their messages in terms of stereotypes.
With increased exposure to a wide variety of the members of any one group, your stereotypes are likely to breakdown. The reason for this is that through such exposure you’ll see the variations between and among individuals rather than the sameness that defined your stereotype. Once you see that gay men, for example, are as varied in their attitudes and values as are heterosexual men, you’ll have trouble retaining generalizations or stereotypes; you’ll see that there are just too many differences among gay men for any stereotype (despite Will and Grace) to seem reasonable.
Perhaps the best kind of exposure is through actual communication interaction. Reading about different groups or watching movies portraying group members will also help. And that, to my way of thinking, is one of the great advantages of a college education. It ensures that you’ll get this kind of exposure—to a wide variety of types of people (teachers and students) and to a wide variety of ideas about people, through lectures and readings.

Intercultural communication Taboos

Here's a great little article on intercultural communication with some excellent contemporary examples of the problems that can be created when a person from one culture violates the rules of another. The print article contained a great 4-part graphic: Physical contact such as shaking hands between men and women in public is taboo in Vietnam. Holding up your hand with the palm facing outward is offensive to Greeks--so watch out when you're hailing a cab in Greece. Putting a business card in your back pocket when you're the giver of the card is disrespectful in Japan. The thumbs up sign is considered obscene in Egypt. Unlike most articles cited in textbooks which are based on research, this article draws on intercultural watchers, consultants, and popular writers. It's a good complement. There are lots of excellent examples from recent history, for example,GM renaming it's Buick LaCrosse for a Canadian audience (since LaCrosse is slang for masturbation).

Richard Gere

So, what are we to make of Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shefty in public? As you know, Richard Gere—one of the most responsible HIV/AIDS activists—was in India and, in a parody of his “Shall We Dance” movie—embraced and kissed actress Shilpa Shefty. Some Hindu groups were offended and claimed this was public obscenity which, in India, can result in up to three months in prison, a fine, or both. So, if Richard Gere—clearly as knowledgeable and as culturally sensitive as any celebrity can be—can violate a cultural norm, what hope is there for the rest of us? And it also made me wonder why we can’t just recognize that incidents like this happen—not because someone wants to be offensive or culturally incorrect—because cultures are different and as a result conflicts such as these are inevitable and nothing to get so upset about. And it made me wonder why the media have done so much with this story—they seem to love to harp on such cultural issues which only seems to make them worse than they really were and are.
But, this incident also made me think of how it could be used in a communication class or in several classes: If I were teaching PR, I’d ask the students to write a press release for Richard Gere. If I were teaching mass communication (perhaps comparative media systems), I’d ask the students to analyze the ways in which the media in the West and the East handled the situation. If I were teaching public speaking, I’d ask students to write a speech of apology (goodwill) for Gere to the people of India. If I were teaching intercultural communication, I’d ask students to write about cultural differences in public displays of affection. If I were teaching interviewing, I’d ask students to “interview” Gere on this issue. If I were teaching small group communication, I’d ask students to discuss the issue as a problem to be solved/resolved.