Evaluating Intercultural Behavior
I pondered for awhile, thinking what made her ask this question before answering her, "Yes, she is still together with her boyfriend. Why is it regarding?”
She then told me that she was out with her friends at Lucky Plaza & they saw my sister's boyfriend kissing another woman. I was very shocked and I was thinking what I should do at that time. Well, my fellow readers, you must be wondering how this scenario has got anything to do with inter-cultural behavior. Fret not, I am not writing my journal :p
So let me cut the story short, it was a misunderstanding after all. What happen was my sister's boyfriend is an Indonesian and he was having dinner with his family that Sunday. The woman he kissed was actually his brother's wife. I was told by my sister that it is his family culture to greet each other with two kisses on the cheeks. Thus, it is very common and normal for him to be kissing her as a form of greeting. In the end, I was made the villain.
Back to the point when I was told of this incident, I had mixed feelings about it. I tried to keep calm and tell myself that I should only do my job as an effective messenger to convey the information to my sister. However, it was really difficult to not judge the situation at first. To me, kissing another girl in the public is a very clear signal for me to make a judgment. I fail to consider the cultural differences we may have. From this experience, it makes me realize that we should always try to give others a benefit of doubt. Things may not turn out to be actually what we perceived as. We should always try to be open-minded about matters. Furthermore, in order to communicate effectively, we should be more aware of our audience and be receptive to their behaviors due to the cultural differences we may have.
Here are some pictures depicting inter-cultural misunderstandings. Hope you like it!
Thanks for your time reading :)
Hi dear,
ReplyDeleteThe story was no doubt well-told, I understood what were you getting at, which concerned the cultural connotations of the kiss, and in Indonesia. You made a quiet error, realized better, and understood otherwise in a way that benefited your knowledge of cultural peculiarities. I really love that about you!
In fact, the kiss is one affection that always gets lots of interest in cultural topics. I thin you'd find that discussed not only in Indonesia, but definitely also in Europe, Middle East, East Asia, and the Americas and Africa. The kiss subject has a large variety of meanings across these different continents, and it'd always be a subject of keen interest among social scientists.
If there was anything capable of improvement, I'd say that your text contained many grammar errors, syntax as well. Besides, you used some words that were not quite appropriate for the ideas you were trying to convey, which in the end caused quite a bit of confusion in my comprehension of the text. But I'm sure I got what you intended, no more or less, that's all that mattered I supposed.
A very pleasant read indeed :)
Thanks for your comments, Caster. I am sorry for the grammatical errors made :( I was kinda in a rush to blog this post, hope you will understanding :)
DeleteThanks for the fun read, Yiqun.
ReplyDeleteI think your post points out clearly why we should not jump to conclusions easily, as more more often than not, it would be a misunderstanding.
I think the lesson to be learnt from your story applies to not just intercultural interaction but to daily life as well. It tells us that things may not seem the way that they are, and that even what we see with own eyes might not be necessarily correct. We would have to understand the underlying information to any situation sufficiently before we can make a judgement.
I guess this event is now a inside joke which you can happily laugh off :)
Zhi Qin
Thanks for your kind words, Zhi Qin. I agree with you that the situation I faced in my story applies to our daily life as well. This relates me to a verse in the bible(Luke 6:37), "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."
DeleteI think if we try to make a conscious effort to give others a benefit of doubt instead of judging them, I think it would build us to become a person of a better character :)
Hi Yiqun,
ReplyDeleteIt must have been an interesting experience! You are right, it is very easy to fall back on our own beliefs to help judge situations. We have to clear the air first by allowing both parties to explain what happened before we make the right decision.
I learnt something new too. I did not know that Indonesians greeted each other by kissing on the cheeks.
I liked the way you started off your story too. It seems strange initially, but it made it interesting and suspenseful! =)
Cheers,
S.Priya
Thanks for your reply, Priya.
DeleteI am relieved to hear that you are also unaware of this cultural practice. haha. At least I know I am not the only one.
Well, I am glad you liked my story. I was worried that it might be confusing to my readers as there might not be much "flow".
Hi Yiqun,
ReplyDeleteIt is actually my first time reading your blog and I enjoyed the post that you shared.
I particularly like your last paragraph where you mentioned we should be more open-minded, be more aware of our audience and the cultural differences between us and them. I think this is a great point. Generally, by having our audience in mind, we will be more sensitive to how we communicate with them by being mindful of the choice of words we use and the way we relay our messages across. Moreover we will be more conscious of our behaviour and attitude towards others.
Furthermore, you also pointed out that we should not make judgements too quickly as the actual situation may not be what we perceived them to be. Sometimes it might be hard to do so as we could possibly be influenced subconsciously by various factors such as the mass media and cultural norms. Though it may be hard to suspend our judgements, I think what is important is the need for self regulation to be aware of the thoughts we formed as well as the process of thought formation. By doing so, I believe it will make us think twice about jumping to conclusions too readily.
Thank you for sharing your experience with us :)
Thanks for your kind words, Carol.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that our perspectives can be shaped by our socialization, in the form of the mass media, our family culture, etc. I think that it is most important not to be ethnocentric towards others (judging other culture by our own yardstick). If we can do so, it would surely minimize such unnecessary mistakes.
Lastly, I'm glad that you enjoyed my post :)Thanks!
Thank you, Yiqun, for sharing this family "affair" with us in order to demonstrate the dangers inherent in misunderstanding/miscommunicating observed behaviors thanks to not having the proper context and/or cultural perspective.
ReplyDeleteGenerally, your story-telling is concise and clear, although I feel a few points needed further explanation. Here are my questions: what happened when you spoke to your sister? How did she respond? When did the "kissing act" become clear to you? What do you mean by "family culture"? I've been to Indonesia a number of times, but I don't recall seeing much kissing going on in public. I feel like this needs explained a bit more in the context of culture.
At the same time, you've stimulated some interesting feedback. I appreciate your time and effort!
Dear Brad, thanks for your feedback :)
ReplyDeleteI shall answer your questions one at a time. Firstly, when I spoke to my sister, she sounded rather calm & demands for the photo. However, I think she must be fuming and she called her boyfriend right away to find out what was going on.
The "kissing act" only became clear to me after a few days later when we were taking lunch together. From what I heard, as her boyfriend is from Manado, the North of Sulawesi province of Indonesia, this culture is predominantly common in of their community. She observed these kissing gesture when she visited his family back in Indonesia last year as well.
Of course, I do agree with you that kissing in the public is not commonly seen. Perhaps, they are much more liberal to do so in public places as compared to their usual family setting.
Once again, thanks for your questions. I hope you had a great time reading our posts. Cheers!