Week 4 Wall
Communication across cultures is tricky. Do you have an experience of how you successfully or unsuccessfully negotiated a cultural boundary? Did you work out a “middle ground”? How?
Lost in translation.
Photo credit: John M. Unsworth, 2009
mosachoff, and 8 others are discussing.
nkular93 10:15 pm on September 22, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Communicating across cultures is indeed very difficult. You never know if what you are conveying or trying to convey is necessarily getting across to the other individual who does not share the same language or cultural background as you. And it is true that a lot of things can be lost through translation. If I look back I can remember a time where I was put in the same dilemma of trying to convey something to someone who could not understand my point of view simply because they were not familiar with it. I was trying to explain to my own mother how in order to really get to know someone and in order to decide whether you would want to get married to them that it was important to date and see whether you have common interests with that person. It was important to go out and spend time and become familiar with one another. I also tried to explain that sometimes there was a possibility of things not working and having to move on to other people. My mother just would not accept that way of thinking because to her it wasn’t necessary to date and go out and it was just unacceptable to date around with other individuals. Basically it was the idea of sticking to one person for the rest of your life. And honestly I didn’t blame her for her mentality. She is from India and in India there are a lot of reservations when it comes to going out and meeting people due to the fact that a stigma can get attached to your name because of it. Therefore, to her, it was unacceptable. Eventually after lots of persuading she started to understand my point of view. I had to explain to her that life here was different and that there was no need to be afraid of stigmas because of the fact that not a lot of people were familiar with each other as they would be in India. I also had to make her understand that life is not so straightforward and can not be predetermined by parents. Everybody is independent and doing there own thing. It was a very tedious task though because things like culture and values would get in the way. But eventually, after a lot of conversation i managed to get a bit my point across. This allowed her to loosen up and not be so stringent when it came to meeting other people and developing relationships. I can’t say that I’ve changed her outlook on EVERYTHING; she still thinks its better for girls to not go out a lot and to maintain a low profile etc etc; however, i can say that i made some sort of impact on her thinking and her way of viewing things. I made her more laid back and relaxed through conversation and by stating examples etc. I also tried to relate situations to people we knew and were both familiar with so that she could she what I was getting at. In some way, I managed to cross that cultural gap.
enorthwood 9:48 pm on September 23, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I think something that I began to learn this year is how different translations are, and how much translations are entirely up to interpretation of the person who is translating it. I think when it comes to cross cultural communication, which is something we fail to recognize that things don’t translate exactly the same, which the sign above reminded me of. To me, a famous example of this is the Qu’ran, which no matter what kind of Islamic or Muslim background you come from you always read the Qu’ran in Arabic because translating it into other languages forces the translation to become something completely distorted, and in order to truly understand the Qu’ran it must be undistorted. A friend from back at home in Toronto this past summer, Ada, is from Islamic faith when she, I and a friend of ours were in Chapters looking at books. My other friend pulled out a translated to English version of the Qu’ran and started making remarks about how the authors note was that this was ‘his interpretation’ of the Qu’ran and how he doesn’t see how anything couldn’t be translated to English and how it couldn’t be “that hard” to make an accurate translation. My friend, Ada, being highly offended by this began to voice her opinion about the obvious translation issues that come along with any language. Seeing this was becoming an issue and topic of debate between two of my good friends, we went back to my house where we all looked up one word in English on the internet, the continued to find that same word in other languages then looked up in dictionaries what they actually meant. This process across several languages showed many different broken lines and several different interpretations and the guy who made a comment about how it’s not very hard to translate something to English, had a little further understanding of how subjective this process is. I think the middle ground was created in the seeking of knowledge to prove a point about the way that translations work and it was clear to both people involved, including myself, how ignorant we can all be in understanding this fact. I think cultural boundaries are set up by ignorance, which makes communication complex for us. It’s not always that we don’t want to understand, but much about the fact we don’t want to listen to what other cultures have to offer our Eurocentric way of thinking.
alexwickett 3:39 pm on September 25, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This past summer, I went on a trip throughout Europe with three of my close friends. Being naïve students, we did extensive research on where to stay, what to eat, and what to see while in each country, but we did absolutely no looking into the cultures and customs of these other places. We had assumed that because we were staying in Western Europe, the etiquette and cultural practices would be the same as in Vancouver. We were wrong. The place we noticed the greatest discrepancy between our customs and theirs, was in Paris, France. The people there are much more standoffish, far less friendly, and generally more formal than here in Canada.
On one hand we were able to negotiate the cultural boundary because we made a friend who lives in Paris and he taught us the Parisian cultural norms. We learned that if we needed directions, to always approach someone in French, and wish them a good day before you ask for anything or especially, switch to English. We also learned that there was a certain standard of dress for dinner anywhere. We were unfortunately lacking on many of the appropriate clothes, but we were able to polish ourselves as much as possible and at least run a comb through our hair. We also learned that it was a sign of respect to Parisian restaurants to come looking presentable. We were able to somewhat successfully, navigate the French cultural boundary, but unfortunately there was no middle ground established. We were guests in their city; therefore we made all the concessions in order to fit in with them. Not only did they not go out of their way to even speak to us in English, but also they were viably displeased with us and would be rude and unfriendly wherever possible. I believe this was the case because unlike in the early part of our history, both parties did not need something from the other.
The French gave the Indigenous people gifts and adhered to their practices because they wanted to show that they respected the Aboriginals so that they would agree to what the French were proposing, in one case, a peace agreement. In another instance the Indigenous people tried to take up the dress of the Europeans, which also showed respect and acknowledgement of the European customs and practices. The Parisian people wanted nothing from us, or really nothing to do with us, so no middle ground was made; if we wanted something, all the concessions had to be made by us. It is unfortunate, but I do believe that people need to have an incentive of mutual gain first, before they go out of their way to show respect for other cultures. If one party requires nothing from the other, they will not go out of their way to acknowledge the other cultures practices.
kenthen 4:14 pm on September 25, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
In my own culture, I am a secwepemc native from the interior Salish. One of the things i enjoy to do is to tell stories from the Secwepemc people. Some have even gone as far to title me a storyteller and I’m not sure if i am comfortable with such a prestigious title such as this. However In my travels i have come across many differing chiefs, scholars, elders and people that have enjoyed me perform and to tell of the stories of our ancestors. however at this one event i tried to recreate a story titled, “The Story of Snina'”. This is a simple story of a young mother in the pre-contact days who has a bratty son and when puts him out in the night to trick him into behaving by telling him if he doesn’t do as such Snina’ will come to get him. Which she does and the young man grows up to to trick snina into releasing him and for her actions she will only be able to convey the bad news of when someone passes away. Its a simple story of moral and creation as told by our ancestors. So i tell this story in the English language through the character of coyote who is the trickster, but coyote is the character i tell all my stories through. A chief in the crowd didn’t enjoy the way i told the story because as he put it he only learned it in the Secwepemc language. So he told of how the way i told it too much was lost in translation and that in essence what i was doing was a bad thing. I was no better than the priest that came along and took artifacts and personal belongings years ago, nor I was I any better than the people who came along years ago and took some of our stories and made them into short comics that were seen to be disrespectful. thus here i was caught in a cultural boundary within my own culture! I stopped telling stories for a short while and really considered my actions and behavior until finally i went to see some elders and asked if what i was doing was indeed a horrible thing. I was told that the story tellers of our past told the stories as a way of creating an atmosphere or to teach or to tell of news and that the exact translation was lost even in their times due to creative changes. They went on to ask me if i tell them in a good, kind and respectful way in which i reiterated with a sound yes. The elders I spoke to understood that while the chief may have had some anger at the situation, some tobacco and a short conversation with him might clear the air and to also tell him of my desire to learn from him as well as to be treated with the same respect that i show him. So i did just that, I went to him told him of my conversations with the elders, how his speech made me feel and that i respected and honored him as a chief and if he were willing i would learn from him. We agreed and compromised that in some ways we were both wrong and that together we would learn, we are now friends.
millyzhu 9:17 pm on September 26, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I come from a Chinese background, but because I immigrated to Canada at an early age, I was not able to learn Chinese to the point of being able to read a newspaper completely. As a consequence of this incapability, I have a difficult time speaking to Chinese elders and my parents, especially when I want to tell them something or share an idea or opinion. When I want to tell my parents something interesting or funny that happened to me, I have a hard time conveying my story because my vocabulary is so limited. Because of the lack of Chinese knowledge, I sometimes end up ruining the story or just giving up. However, I am currently learning Mandarin right now and using that as a bridge to cross over to be able to speak fluently and to communicate easier with my parents. Even though my parents can somewhat understand my fragmented Mandarin, it still does not solve the problem with communicating with other Chinese people, especially elders. I worked for a friend’s mother one summer, and one of the requirements was to be able to speak Mandarin. Although I was able to somewhat get by with my simple vocabulary when we were conversing, we still had difficulty explaining and understanding each other when it came to work and the vocabulary used for business. Nevertheless, I tried my best and when there was something I did not fully grasp, I would either ask her to use a different word to explain it, or use translation programs on the computer. In order to cross that barrier of language, I had to use different means to do so, such as finding another way around it, or using what was at hand (ie. technology).
daverob1 11:57 pm on September 26, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I work in a boxing club and everyday I come across various cultures and persons from all over the world. There is more often than not cultural and language barriers to be overcome. The positive part of this situation is that boxing is a known common interest in the initiation of every relationship here. The obstacle of a verbal language barrier must be overlooked. Speaking in a form of demonstrative sign language becomes in common. I have coached many persons over the years where throughout the entirety of our relationship verbal conversations have never taken place. It is funny because this has not generally effected the development of skill or the understanding of what is being demonstrated to what is being learned. There is a sign-language to boxing that if demonstrator and student agree to listen to each other communication is possible. It may not sound like much but boxing is a full body activity and the hands must be coordinated with the feet and without language to describe what is expected teaching is different. The funny thing about it is I feel the relationships developed in this way are no less descriptive or explanatory than the relationships where I communicate verbally. There is no one situation that stands out to me because it is a daily practice and as a person who speaks fluently in two languages I speak in the communication and language of boxing and English. I think a person can know how to speak a language without ever communicating well in it. I think I know how to communicate well with persons when commonalities and interests are worth trading. I’ve always found it interesting that the economics involved in the development of relationships regardless of language barriers has never come to be misunderstood.
angieL 2:44 am on September 27, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Vancouver is known for its cultural diversity. Simply just living here has provided me with a lot of opportunities to connect and interact with different cultures. For someone who was born outside of Canada, I remember it took me a while to get used to all the hugging, which seems to be so prominent in Western mannerism. Although it has always been obvious to me that the act itself merely displays a sense of friendliness and politeness, when it is exchanged at parties and functions with people who barely know each other, it still seems utterly pretentious and excessive to me. It is not because I dislike physical contact, but before I moved to Vancouver, I would never imagine myself hugging people other than my family and very close friends, simply because there was no such expectation to do so in social interactions. It was a little awkward at first, but I pushed myself to do it and eventually got used to it. In this example, there was not really a “middle ground”; it was either you adapt to this social behaviour or you don’t. I guess if I was really repulsed by the idea of hugging, I could just tell people that it is not in my culture to hug so much and I don’t think anyone would have forced me to. But then I don’t want to appear unfriendly or cold, or feel like I have to explain myself as to why I am “different” each time, so I voluntarily gave up negotiating a cultural boundary in this case. My reason for doing so was simply because I wanted to facilitate new social relationships and intergrade into a new society as smoothly as I can. Like what we went over in the lecture, the indigenous and the French both adapted to each other’s cultures in forms of clothing and communications as ways to establish social bonding, trust, and more importantly, liaisons. I believe every little effort you take in order to understand or just imitate another culture will not go unnoticed. When the indigenous representative attempted to dress like more French-like to facilitate the negotiation, although the French laughed about it, I believed the friendly gesture made them more at ease knowing that the indigenous people were trying to understand and respect their culture.
cprimus 1:29 pm on September 27, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I’ve both found and failed to grasp middle ground with my coworkers at different stores for the company I work for. I want to share the example of a lack of shared understanding, and will avoid using specific countries, cultures, and names.
It might seem somewhat uncommon for a Caucasian woman to be discriminated against, but I was. I work as a customer service rep in a male-dominated industry, and had no female co-workers for a year and a half. I was the only Caucasian working at the main store in Vancouver for 6 months. When I first started working at that store, I decided that although I was friendly, I would give my new coworkers a chance to warm up to me, because maybe it was “a cultural thing”. They didn’t. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt that it wasn’t because of my gender, but when two new employees were hired, both Caucasian males, and were immediately assimilated, I knew that something was amiss.
I wanted to fit in and be included so I baked cookies, bought plants to liven up the office, wore a fake smile in hopes to win them over to no avail. As I became more aware of my exclusion, which was sometimes blatantly hurtful, I realized that despite what they actually thought of me, I could not respect people whom I felt no respect from. I had tried to be tolerant of them, and I tried to do things to please them, but I was out of energy and ready to move to a different store.
Guess what my doting boss – who comes from the same country that most of my coworkers come from – told me when I came to him in tears one day? “Baby girl, it’s a cultural thing”.
mosachoff 4:12 pm on September 27, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I went to middle and high school in Singapore, a diverse island, and city-state in the heart of Southeast Asia. The country’s population can be divided into two groups: Singapore citizens (who make up 62% of the populations and other residents such as permanent residents, foreign workers, and students (38% of the population). Within the group of people who are Singapore citizens, there are three distinct cultural groups: Chinese, Malay, and Indian. Singapore has a diverse and unique cultural composition that I was fortunate enough to have experienced while living there. As a Canadian, the cultures that I interacted with were often vastly different from my own and were at times puzzling. A common occurrence for me where I needed to communicate across cultures was interacting with taxi drivers and providing them with directions. In Singapore taxis are subsidized by the government to minimize the number of cars on the road and as a result are much more affordable than cabs in Vancouver. Taxi drivers came from many different backgrounds from Mainland Chinese immigrants who spoke little to no English to wealthy businessmen who would drive a taxi in their spare time to earn extra money. If you were lucky however, you would hop in a cab and be greeted by an older Singaporean man who had been driving cabs for forty odd years. These individuals predated Singapore’s independence from Britain and were distinctively Singaporean by their use of the creole language Singligh. As soon as you were greeted you would know that you might need to respond in Singlish. Because it is English based, the language is quite simple to pick up and can be sort of feigned by foreigners like myself who only had to change their accent and structure of their speech. When giving directions to a destination the driver was not sure of, I would provide directions like “can turn left here ah. After go straight all the way and can stop”. Along the way I would also make small talk saying “so much traffic is it” meaning “there is a lot of traffic”. My experiences were for the most part successful in communicating across cultural and language barriers in this way as well as a lot of fun. I was successful through adaptation to the local culture as opposed to the reactions of other expats who found the coarse and blunt nature of the language offensive and unintelligible.
the1strange2part3of4town 4:32 pm on September 27, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
To state that communication between cultures and languages can result in miscommunication is commonly accepted at face value. The reasonings behind the occurrence of lost-in-translation communication as seen in the agreements in Acadia covered in class, I see as being a result of a power-struggle between cunning trickery and good-faith. Successful cross-cultural communication would be the result of finding a “middle-ground” between opposing agents where both sides obtain a mutually beneficial agreement. Furthermore, in finding a “middle-ground,” I’ve found that a precedent or status quo is just as important as establishing prior to any kind of negotiation between people, groups or institutions. In my experience, when communicating across cultural and linguistic borders, the above factors are important to consider in order to avoid miscommunication.
As full-time student that has a part-time job, I find that, though I may not be communicating across cultural borders with my boss, my work-relationship with my boss crosses borders that separate us based on our priorities. My priority being schooling before work, and his priorities being centred around the success of his small business. I would argue that a small business owner and a full-time student live in different “worlds” in a sense where the only overlap is my employment. Therefore, in transitioning between summer mode to school mode while keeping my job required careful communication between him and I so that our symbiotic work relationship could continue. In trying to figure out a schedule that worked for the hand-full of employees and I, a miscommunication occurred resulting in me almost being let-go because in our negotiations, I wanted at least one weekend day off to study. My boss is profit oriented, like the early European settlers and traders, and I need an income to which my services and skills can be traded, like trappers. Luckily, through our negotiations, a mutually beneficial outcome was reached for both parties. I attribute this success firstly to the establishment of a status-quo, which was my summer work schedule. I had good-faith that I would be able to keep my job while working only 1 day on the weekend, though that was not the case; herein lies the power-struggle. Rather than exchanging a weekday shift for my one of my weekend shifts, a middle ground was reached where I would work 2 days on the weekend and keep my job in good-faith and loyalty rather than losing my job all together and finding a new (and probably less desirable) employer. Though I am not seen as expendable, nor do I see my boss as cunning or disloyal, this cross-cultural (small business owner vs. full-time student) communication could have had ended badly for both parties as a result of a miscommunication. I need a job, and my boss doesn’t want to hire and train another employee was a middle-ground that was reached between us. There were trade-offs on both sides, but successful communication was key in negotiating while the establishment of the summer status-quo prevented a miscommunication and an non-beneficial agreement on my part, such as my loss of employment. Lastly, a miscommunication as noted can be a result of a power-struggle. The maintenance of successful communication I have found in this instance and many others, is the result of symbiotic relationship where both sides or parties accepts that the other is integral for continued success of the status-quo or in finding a solution to a problem; rather than one party dominating the other for one-sided benefit (i.e. me being too much trouble and not worth negotiating). Hence lastly, accepting the noted factors that contribute to successful communication rather than miscommunication, mutually beneficial agreements are also integral in maintaining successful communications and relationships wherein this prevents domination and submission.
Tina Loo 6:19 pm on September 28, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Some general comments on Week 4 :
Many people in the class brought up the fact that UBC is a very multicultural campus in a culturally diverse city, so that learning how to accommodate oneself to differences is something we have to do all the time. There were some great examples of how people react to differences – everything ranging from reacting with unease, frustration, and sometimes with aggression and bullying to making an effort to learn and adapt, whether through trying new foods, learning new words, figuring out new customs, or sharing (whether it be food or a love of football). And sometimes, as at least one of you pointed out, all the efforts to make a middle ground fail….
Your stories led me to think that the key to making a middle ground is a mutual interest and commitment in doing so. The French and Indigenous nations that met at Montreal really wanted the same thing – trade and above all, peace – to the extent they were willing to be hostages in the “enemy’s” camp. Most of us don’t engaged in treaty negotiations, but we do have to find a way to get along in the midst of different cultures, and doing so successfully seems to be premised on an ability to get beyond our fears and to be open to new experiences, to let go, to a certain extent, of some of the ways we do things. This begins by recognizing that the way we do things, the things we think are “normal” aren’t necessarily seen that way by everyone!