AFS Intercultural Eyes: Culture and Place

Issue 29. July 9, 2008

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:57:55 GMT

The Comfort Zone

I'm in a different time zone today, on the West Coast of the USA, in Portland, Oregon at the Intercultural Communication Institute's "Summer Institute" which has just begun its annual round of training workshops. Flying in quite late on Monday night, I stayed at a convenient and comfortable airport hotel. Now I am staying in the dorms of Reed College, reminded only slightly of my life on campus so many decades ago. The narrow bed is exactly as I remembered it, but not much else. But it isn't my physical comfort zone I'm here to test. I want to stretch my perceptual comfort zone. I will be attending a workshop by Kichiro Hayashi on perceptual flexibility. I have been warned by ICI Executive Director, Janet Bennett, that this workshop does not use the learning style I am most comfortable using, and maybe exactly for that reason I decided it was time to do this.

Even coming to Portland from New York is a major shift in culture. Teenagers on the subway -- oops, the Maxi -- look strangely vulnerable and innocent to these New York-trained eyes, but I needn't worry that they are not quite tough enough to be out on their own. They will easily find their destination, I know. Our teenagers on the New York City subway may look a little threatening from this perspective. An entirely different set of assumptions apply here, even though the general USA culture provides a familiar space. I tried to make analogies and asked a colleague from New York who now lives in Portland to explain what neighborhood here might be "the Park Slope" of Portland so I could describe to another colleague where one of our AFS students was going to be living in New York next year. From what he could conclude, there really isn't a comparable neighborhood. Nor, when I walked around his neighborhood of Kenton, could I think of anything comparable in New York City.

Many of the mental categories I use regularly are not applicable in other contexts, and so the conclusions I draw may also not be accurate as my context changes. And the context does change from place to place, and it will change as I continue on my journey through time (see "Generational cultures"). So I don't expect to be comfortable all the time, but it should always be interesting.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research

AFS International

Issue 25. June 5, 2008

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:49:16 GMT

Leo Hitchcock, a frequent guest blogger here on Intercultural Eyes, has recently traveled halfway around the world. Back in New Zealand now, he sent in this report in which he ties his own visceral experience of two different "worlds" to some of the concepts of Edward Hall.

Worlds apart: Saigon cf. Scandinavia

Recently I visited Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), followed by Copenhagen (Denmark), and Kristianstad, a small town in southern Sweden – in the same week. It was such a contrast it was almost double-culture shock! First that Ho Chi Minh City was so different to Auckland, New Zealand, then Scandinavia being so different again – two ends of a spectrum, with Auckland somewhere in the middle.

What immediately struck me is the difference in territoriality and exploitation. These are two (of ten) cultural Primary Message Systems (PMS) that control cultural norms and values (Hall, [1959] 1981). Territoriality establishes personal, community, and societal territory, or the use of space, including the rules associated with personal space of, or between, individuals. Exploitation controls the rules and practices associated with the use of tools and the environment as extensions of societal and individual needs. In a way these two PMS have some parallels.

Territoriality

Ho Chi Minh City: Much commerce in Ho Chi Minh City is carried out on the roadside. Stores have ‘touts’ with the objective of luring people inside or to the store. Many hundreds of stalls are set up on the sidewalk itself, even right on the kerbside to lure the riders of the seemingly thousands upon thousands of motor cycles and scooters tearing about. Even motor cycles and scooters claim territory not rightly theirs, for example they will ride the opposite side of the road or the sidewalk to avoid heavy traffic and/or red lights. And unless they are stopped at a red light (but one still needs to watch for vehicles coming through), traffic does not yield at pedestrian crossings at all – one must ‘run the gauntlet’ and dodge the vehicles (mainly motor cycles and scooters) tearing past. One can buy anything (anything!) off the street – including little dogs (please don’t ask!), other animals such as little piglets, all kinds of birds including crows, and many, many things – some things I just did now know what they were. Getting into one’s personal space is not an issue to the determined tout. If one gets too close to a store, especially in the markets, one is physically grabbed by the arm and quite forcefully dragged into their space and ‘worked over’ for a buy.

Copenhagen & Kristianstad: There are market stalls, but not on the roadside as such but in designated market areas such as a town square, with goods for sale limited to curios, souvenirs, crafts, food, and the like. There are no touts trying to lure you to these market stalls, nor into the stores. Traffic - and pedestrians! - are almost completely law-abiding, observing all the traffic and crossing signals. In the cobbled shopping precinct areas, vehicles even yield to pedestrians – unheard of in Ho Chi Minh City! When one enters a store space, one is cheerfully greeted but not ‘set upon’, and then politely attended to once one indicates a purchase is a possibility.

Exploitation

One can glean from the above that exploitation of the shopper’s dollar is a primary objective in the markets of Ho Chi Minh City, and exploitation of the available land for stalls and extensions to stores is also prevalent. In one street I walked along the store front had been extended out so far that there was no sidewalk left to walk on, and stepping onto the road in such traffic is not to be taken lightly! However, everything is neat, clean and tidy, and ‘in its place’ in Scandinavia. It is also much, much quieter! I believe ‘bargaining’ falls within this PMS, as bargaining is exploitation of the shopper’s available dollars on the one hand, and exploitation of the seller’s margins on the other. No bargaining in Scandinavia, well, not generally anyway. In Ho Chi Minh City however, bargaining is the norm in many stores, especially in the markets, and even some taxis and other forms of transport. It is interesting haggling over a low cost item. The exchange rate is 16,000:1 $US. This means that one can spend several minutes haggling over the difference between 50,000 and 35,000 for an item, if successful thereby getting a reduction in the buy price of 15,000 – less than $US1 !


Oh, where’s the sidewalk gone?	Mmm, how do I get across here?

Oh, where’s the traffic?	Everything clean, tidy, and in its place.

Primary Message Systems

Territoriality and Exploitation are just two of 10 cultural Primary Message Systems identified by the anthropologist Edward T. Hall ([1959] 1981). It is within these 10 PMS that study abroad sojourners will experience cultural difference, and, probably, some culture shock. The others are:

· Interaction: Interaction lies at the hub of culture and everything grows from it. This represents all forms of communication including linguistic interaction.

· Association: Association establishes social networks within communities. Levels of status are established within this PMS. Hall, ([1959] 1981: 38-40) refers to this as the ‘pecking order’.

· Subsistence: This PMS controls nutritional requirements along with the rituals and rules associated with food and eating. This PMS also establishes the norms and ‘rules’ around status and manual labor.

· Bisexuality: Like food, a basic necessity of life is the reproduction of the species. This PMS establishes the rituals and rules associated with the differentiation of both form and function (bisexuality) of reproduction, and the genders, that is the rules associated with what men can and cannot do, and with what women can and cannot do.

· Temporality: Temporality establishes the rules associated with cycles and rhythms. For example; the division of society by age, mealtimes, and tempos of speech, all of which vary by culture.

· Learning and Acquisition: A basic activity of life, this PMS includes the acquisition of one’s own cultural PMS (enculturation), shared behaviours and ways of living, and the required knowledge and skills. It also includes acculturation - the acquiring of a new culture’s ways of living. This PMS includes formal, informal, and technical learning.

· Play: Establishes the rules around the use of humor, competition through games, and degrees of enjoyment.

· Defence: This relates to the need for defence against hostile forces of external societies, within society, within the environment, within nature, and within the individual. The bases for the organization and content of religion and of medicines and cures arise from the latter two.

Ref: Hall, Edward T.; [1959] 1981, The Silent Language. Random House: U.S.A & Canada.

Issue 21. May 6, 2008

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:35:31 GMT

Riding the Information Subway

I recently took a blogger's "What generation are you?" on-line test and discovered that my "real" generation should be GEN-X based on my internet use. I am reminded of those many times when I have gone to some well-advertised new restaurant, looked around and discovered that I was the oldest person there.

That's not so different from finding yourself to be the only foreigner waiting on the platform for the subway in an outlying part of Tokyo, for example. I remember some twenty years ago when I was visiting Tokyo and staying with an AFS family who kindly offered me a brief home stay. The daughter in the family asked me if I felt uncomfortable being the only foreigner in the sea of Japanese commuters. I thought about it for a bit, and realized that I hadn't even paid attention to my solitary status, being so focused on figuring out my route on the map and the fact that I fully expected everyone else to be Japanese. So, yes, I felt comfortable, and being comfortable is a good thing. But riding the subway in Tokyo comfortably isn't necessary a cultural immersion experience, even if my outward behavior looked very much the same as any other commuter there. I wasn't carrying with me the thoughts and preoccupations of other subway riders. I was still an American riding a train in Tokyo, heading back and forth to the AFS office for a few days.

On the other hand, the time spent with my hosts was key, even, or perhaps especially, when the language barrier prevented conversations. Non-verbal behavior became the key element of communication as when my host "mother" (really only a few years older than I was) demonstrated how to prepare and store the futon, how to use the Japanese style toilet, how to bathe. These were experienced hosts, who anticipated my needs and my potential misunderstandings. There is much to learn through observation in the midst of a family, and I was keen to understand as much as possible. It was exciting because so much was visibly different from my usual surroundings. It was comfortable because the family was always thinking of my comfort. I am not sure how well I was able to think of theirs.

I recently started reading a book by T.R. Reid about his experience in Japan and other parts of Asia: Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West. Written in the last years of the 20th Century, the book now seems a bit out-of-date, especially when Reid talks about the economic situation. Nevertheless, I still wanted to read this book because I remembered his humorous and insightful reports on the radio: of his experiences in Japan, of his homecoming to Colorado in the USA, and his subsequent posting in London as a correspondent for the Washington Post. I particularly liked the subtitle. He wrote this book very much for a US audience, and you can read a lengthy review of it by Dean H. Ruetzler on Hackwriters, which is also in itself an interesting account of one American's experience in Japan. Ruetzler winds up his review saying:

What is needed in reaction to all this is a philosophy where differences between East and West are not the focal point, but the similarities are. East and West need to drop smug self-righteousness in the correctness of "their way", and look how much they have already been influenced by, and are becoming "each other" on a daily basis.

This "philosophy" is very much typical of the AFS program alumni we have studied in our recent Long Term Impact Study, more so that the defensive posture of "smug self-righteousness" that Ruetzler describes. In the next Issue, I'll go into more detail about the research findings.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research, AFS International

Eyes on Rome. April 15, 2008

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:14:43 GMT

The Power of Place

Rome wasn't built in a day. This is something we say from time to time in the USA when something we're working on will take time. It's use seems so trivial as I compare it to the layers of history I am seeing now, on my first too short visit to Rome. My AFS colleague Roberto Ruffino, Secretary General of AFS Intercultura Italy, gave us a brief tour of a small portion of the thousands of historic sites here in Rome as we walked from the hotel to the restaurant. He pointed out a 12th Century house built on top of an open air theater from the times of the Roman Empire. We saw the remains of the earliest Roman street, now some three meters below current street level. Nearby, an old church and the last portion of a park from the era before Italian unification rises 4 meters above the street, which was the first commercial development -- quite new, really, from the 19th Century -- where the street was graded to allow horse carriages a smooth ride from the center of town to the newly built train station.

There are thousands of antiquities and works of art everywhere you look, yet these are just a small selection. Tourists come to see these monuments, but of course the Romans live their lives in this context.

Roberto once commented to me that in America there were still places where nothing had ever been built, where one could imagine that there had been no previous human footsteps. He understood a certain feeling of freedom that this might create, never stepping on the creations or the graves and ruins of your ancestors. This is not a feeling you could ever have in Rome. On this walk we imagined the burden of maintaining such an abundance of art and treasures. There is nothing you can discard, no place you can dig without turning up some ancient artefact, no unused space for your own new creation.

As a geographer, I want to add the experience of the place to the experience of the people. This brief experience of Rome, the place, helped me understand why I need to focus on this component of culture, which has too often been absent even from my own research on cultural differences and adaptation.

Roberto took us past the spot where the body of Italian Prime Minister Moro was found in a car back some 30 years ago: a new layer of meaning on an ancient landscape, less visible than the markers of 2000 years earlier.

As we continued our walk I noticed something else that I may or may not understand. It's just a store or a gallery, a space visible to the public in which two people were standing around a floor that is paved with old books standing with their spines up, closely nested, as if someone's enormous book collection pulled down on the floor so the shelves can be painted or cleaned and repaired.

But a stronger impression was that this might be a contemporary art installation in a modern gallery. I'm not sure which it was, but I found myself imagining what it would be like to be a 21st Century artist in Rome. Would you feel the competition from Leonardo da Vinci, whose works you pass daily? Would you draw inspiration from the ancient column stumps you pass on your way to your studio?

My stay in Rome is much too short to allow me to claim any great insight, but the cultural differences between Romans and New Yorkers are certainly discoverable in the diiferences I can see and feel between the two cities. The discovery of a new culture is largely a physical and a sensory experience more than it is a learning of patterns of behavior. You have to be there.

Bettina Hansel
Director of Intercultural Education and Research