Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Week 5/7-5/13: Methods of Discovery: Part 2
Intercultural communication stood our greatly to me. When I pick up my course textbook, I refer back to chapter 12, Intercultural Communication. The example/story of the Moroccan family dinner stuck to my memory, and I told a few friends and family members about it. I liked to think I knew much about the world and the cultural differences within a group. However, reading this small excerpt, I recognized how large the world is, and how much we do not know of one another. A simple gesture, a thoughtful comment, and a normal dinner setting question can make a massive impression on your new friend, or now enemy, without realizing each cultural characteristic of your actions. Each cultural universal is vastly different in the enactments of these activities. It has made me realize how I would enjoy taking further cultural classes in the future. I would appreciate and possibly visit more countries, and would only be beneficial to me to understand my surroundings.
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I agree with you that the world is such a large place that we often don’t know much outside our own American culture. Being Chinese myself, I had to adapt in American ways when I go out to eat at a restaurant. I remember when I was little, my parents would take me to Asian restaurant and it would be totally fine if you just yell out “check please” whenever you are done eating. In American restaurant, I learned that yelling out is considered rude and inappropriate. Different culture have different settings and I believe that it’s just all a matter of being open-minded and learn how to adapt to new surroundings.
ReplyDeleteI like that you chose to further discuss intercultural communication as it truly is something that affects us in our day to day lives especially because we live in such a diverse country. You mentioned that one of the biggest ideas in intercultural communication is the idea that not everyone is like us. Not everyone has the same thoughts, traditions, or beliefs as us and this, in turn, directly affects and relates to communication studies as a whole. If we keep the idea of having differences with others in mind and if we remembers to be considerate and accommodating to these differences I honestly believe that we should have no trouble communication with others.
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