An Appeal to All who Risk Intercultural Slip-ups

By Raphael Doria

A long time ago, I went to kiss a South Asian girl that I knew on the cheek, but she suddenly moved her head back and said, “Uh! Disgusting!”

Perhaps Naon Jung  from South Korea experienced a similar faux-pas when another Brazilian guy winked at her on her first day in class in an international language school in Vancouver. Na On thought he was flirting with her and felt embarrassed: “I felt like my personal space had been invaded”. She was already tense because she didn’t speak English well at that time, and the Brazilian man’s gesture made it worse.

In an office somewhere in Toronto, Canadian of Indian origin always told Rob, a Scottish Canadian, that the assigned task was coming along in due time, but It wasn’t. Rob found out that his employee was having difficulties meeting the deadline.  Did he lie?

Teresa, a non-Jewish woman, was invited by the leader of an Orthodox Jewish Community in Toronto to teach Scottish dance, which is intrinsically performed by men and women. She invited the first couples to come forward, but nobody moved. They were all looking aside or pretending to do something else. “They are just shy,” she thought.

Months later, Naon and the Brazilian guy became friends and she asked why he had winked at her. His answer was that he realized her nervousness and winked at her in an attempt to make her feel at ease.

Later, Rob found out that his subordinate didn`t lie to him, but according to Indian culture, “one can`t give bad news to others”.

After plenty of time trying to literally drag people to participate, Teresa figured out that, in the Jewish Orthodox tradition, men cannot dance with women (how the Rabbi didn`t think of this is beyond me).

As a Brazilian, I can say that men and women frequently greet each other with one or two kisses on the cheek and try to be friendly by different means that would include smiling or winking at others. I am pretty sure that our “personal space” is much smaller than that of most Asians.  

We all have a sense that Asians are very concerned and respectful of others. “Not giving bad news” could be expressed in other ways like not refusing a kind offer even if you don’t want it or not criticizing an attitude even if you want to. We’re used to thinking of orthodox religions or very traditional groups as likely to have certain discrimination against women.

However, Gregorio Billikopf in his essay “Cultural Differences? Or, are we really that different?” a text extracted from his research “Party-Directed mediation: Helping others resolve Differences” (University of California) alerts us against such generalizations. In order to illustrate it, he tells us a funny story.

He was told that Russians are very polite people and show many courtesies to each other.  Once, he was invited by some Russian friends to dine out. In order to be polite, he offered a banana to a lady. When she accepted, he peeled it half way and passed it to her. The smiles on the faces of  those present made him feel that he had done the right thing.  

He told everybody he knew about that curious custom till he heard from another Russian friend that in fact, if you do that, it means you have a romantic interest in the woman. The danger comes when we act on some of these generalizations, especially when they are based on faulty observation.

For Billikopf, all cultural customs should be relativized according to one’s subjectivity. What affects an individual's behaviour and makes it unique is a myriad of aspects such as education, personality, past experience, social standing, specific region in a country, affection shown in the home and so on. 

Therefore, not only ethnic, national  or religious culture are involved in the construction of human relationships. In the end what we have is each subjectivity communicating with others, and in this interaction all sorts of misunderstandings are possible and actually prone to happen.

In this sense, we cannot affirm whether the Brazilian man was flirting. Who can guarantee that the Indian employee wasn’t afraid of losing his job. Who can say how many of the orthodox Jewish women and men wanted to dance but couldn’t, or on the contrary, they were happy that a such principle forbidding dance existed.

“Stereotyping can have intense negative effects…” says Billikopf, and I would add: to one side or other, I mean: if we prejudge others not considering  one’s ethnic or religious beliefs or even generalizing them or not considering the infinitude of factors that make a person unique.

In the end, the author gives us some directions towards a better relationship among people of different cultures: “ … receptiveness to interpersonal feedback, good observations skills, effective questions (to a variety of people), and some horse sense…” he concludes, “…is not that there is no cultural differences. These differences … are real and can add richness (and humour) to the fabric of life. 

My assertion is that people everywhere have much in common, such as a need for affiliation and love, participation, and contribution. When the exterior is peeled off, there are not so many differences after all.”

So why not try to step into another’s shoes before making a judgment? But please don’t take it literally!