My Thoughts on Cultures of Different Shapes & Colors

Are you a straight-up person who tends to show what’s on your mind just the way you feel most of the time? Or are you somewhat hiding your true feelings and rather like to beat around the bush in a conversation? There is nothing wrong with either way of attitude in life, and it is not right to say one is superior or inferior to the other. It is just what we are and how we feel.

 

I remember the discussion I had with my professor and friends in the course of Sociolinguistics. When I talked about how irritated I felt with some rude people who did not apologize when they happened to bump against others by mistake while hurrying in a busy street or at a crowded grocery market, one Chinese friend in the class told me that used to happen all the time in a lot of areas in China. She went on to say that it was just common that people did not say sorry probably because they felt too sorry to put the feelings in words. Hmm….that didn’t sound like making sense to me, but I knew it wasn’t the right move to ask why or how with other nations’ culture.  

 

Another interesting aspect that I came to learn about is that Indians do not touch someone else’s kids on the head even if they want to give the children some compliments on their adorability or their great achievements. They might think it is rude to touch someone else’s face or head even in good faith.

 

I also heard a Japanese friend saying that they had two-tier attitudes: One is called “honne” (本音) which refers to how they truly feel or want inside, and the other is “datemae”(建前) are their opinions or colors on the surface in public. She said that is why quite a lot of Japanese people were viewed as two-faced or not wanting to get straightforward in terms of expressing themselves in a conversation. Well, but my close friend who happens to be Japanese is always honest, letting her hair down and showing me her “honne” without anything zhuzed up. 😊   How could we ever generalize and criticize one country’s culture?

 

As we saw in the movie Dances with Wolves, there is no culture “less” or “inferior” or “much to be desired”. There is no such thing as comparison with tribes, races, ethnicities, or cultures. We are all living in harmony, agreeing to permeate into one another without one having to acculturate to the others.

 

(picture source: https://skillroads.com/blog/cross-cultural-interviewing-overcoming-cultural-differences)