To Sonnet-- on Cross-culture Communications!
Dear Sonnet,
I might be the person on this forum who can offer your a piece of mind on cultural differences between East and West which will be helpful for your dwelling in
"the other land" per your words.
The cultural differences lie, first and foremost, in being frank and direct. Oriental people in general are very indirect. In most cases we need to "guesstimate
" what others think or how they feel or what they imply. What amazes the Westerners most is that we can almost 100% make a right guess and achieve a happy result in this indirect communication. The reason for that is self-evidently that we
live in the same culture experiencing same things and thinking in the same direction.
It would be gravely wrong to expect Westerns to do the same guess. They tend to
take things at face value. They say what they mean and mean what they say! Just
last month, I spent three days with our forum friend , Tim, in Dallas, USA. He took me to a very good Mexican restaurant. After the dinner, I just told him very
frankly that I did not fancy Mexican food. He did not feel offended at all and
tried not to take me for another Mexican food. Also in this trip, I stayed at the home of another American friend of mine. I knew they did not have “formal " lunch as we do in China even on Sundays. So, on Saturday evening, I just suggested that I would like to cook some Chinese lunch for myself and it would be great
if they wanted to join in and be fine if they chose not to. They chose to have coffee plus a little snack for lunch as they usually do. I just cooked a very nice lunch for myself and enjoyed it to my heart's content. Both of us were happy!
If I had been too polite or shy to ask, I would have ended up having coffee and
snack with them and starving to death!
So, in order to make your friend's family understand you better, you need to take initiative to speak out what you think, what you want and how you feel. Judging from your articles, your English is good enough to communicate with them effectively. Sometimes, you may feel you are tongue tied on some topics and do not know what to say. Well, do not mistakenly blame your linguistic capability and get
discouraged. It may be more related to the limited scope of your knowledge or unfamiliarity with another culture. Just try to think how much you can talk about
the subject matter in Chinese. If you can not talk much about it in Chinese, you are naturally only be able to talk far less in English. Sometimes, because they are too familiar with you, they tend to forget that you are a foreigner in their land and expect you to speak and think in the same way as they do. You need
to remind them that you are speaking a second language and you can speak perfectly well on the subject matter in your mother tongue if they could understand it.
More often than not, you are ignorant of many what they call common knowledge such as name of pop stars, sports, movies and even anecdotes of British royal family…. That makes you look stupid because even 6 year old boy knows these. Well,
if you are confronted in this case, you do not need to say timidly or guiltily that “I am sorry I do not know.” There is nothing to be shamed of not knowing
things that are not in your blood and you are not supposed to know. Certainly
no need to apologize. Just say confidently that “since I come from China, I do
not know.” Of course, you can catch up by watching more movies, reading more and talking to people more. But there is always a “knowledge hole “there. Once
I had a casual conversation with an American young kid. He asked me if I had watched this US movie or that US movie. After I repeatedly said” No, I have not.”
. He looked at me in a look suggesting I were dumber than buffalo shit! Then I
asked him suddenly “do you happen to know a very famous Chinese movie star by the name of Liu Xiao Qing ?” He said “never heard of “,“well, “ I said, “ almost 1.3 billion Chinese know about her and even most Asians know about her. Boy, you are dumber than half of the population in the world, you must be real dumb.” Of course, I said that half jokingly. We both went into laughter. Now this guy is a teacher in a US college and we still keep active correspondence. I am sure he does not look at the international students in his college through the
stereotype of his culture.
I know right now what you desire most is to try to be naturalized into UK society and culture asap. Well, since you grow up in China, like it or not, your root
is always in China. That root sets limitation to the naturalization process. I have witnessed so many Chinese immigrants to USA trying to be every inch like Americans. In the end they do not loss Chineseness in essence (thought they try very hard to do that ) and neither do they get any real Americanness. What become of them?
Being a confident "outsider "is a smart move. But it does not prevent you from respecting and learning good aspects of their culture and making yourself a brilliant Chinese living in England in harmony and happiness!
Dear Sonnet, Having lived abroad for a period of time myself, I understand how tough it is to live in a foreign land and I admire your courage to choose this way of living. The fact that you write quite often on this forum shows that you need to have a outlet to make yourself heard. That is exactly why I wrote quite a
bit while I was in Los Angeles way back in 2001. This forum provides you with such outlet and we love to hear from you from time to time. I have no doubt that
your experience in England is very valuable to our forum friends here both in terms of learning the language and Western culture.
I hope this humble piece of my mind can be of some help to you and I do wish you
everything plain sailing in the UK.
Dave
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