Culture Bumps - Examples of Cultural Differences

The pot calling the kettle black

2014-08-20T15:28:00.001+01:00

While I stayed at a hotel in Nepal, I met a nice American girl. We started chatting and soon became friends. One day we were having dinner and watching a movie in the hotel's restaurant. Many of the hotel's Nepali employees also wanted to see the movie, so they were standing right behind us with cups of tea in hand. As often happens in Asia, they drank their tea out loud. My American friend found this so disgusting, she turned to me and said in a clear voice: "Seriously?! That's so gross!" All the while she was eating her food using her left hand. In Nepal, this is considered impolite, as the left hand is reserved for cleaning after defecating!

Ee (female), Finland

Vagina hunting in Mozambique - A linguistic faux pas

2013-10-31T00:28:00.000+00:00

A few months ago I was talking with two of my Mozambican neighbors and the subject turned to the topic of a recent rat infestation in our housing compound. Excitedly I mentioned how I was on a killing spree and had caught seven rats (with a trap) in the last few weeks. Basically translated in Portuguese, I said: “Eu já mataram sete ratas na minha casa.”

I instantly knew I had made a faux pas because immediately both my friends started laughing hysterically. Between uncontrollable giggles, my friend Sonia yelled “RATO not RATA!” and then she gestured to her crotch.

So that is how I learned what the colloquial term was for vagina. I had basically told my neighbors that I had surprisingly found and assaulted many of them in my house recently. Then I lost it too. When I had finally composed myself and apologized in full, I took a moment and reflected on another related event.

My boyfriend recently came for an extended visit and along with other misadventures, he participated in the rat hunting. In the morning we’d inspect our trap to see what we’d caught. When we found a victim, I’d make him take the bag with the carcass to the trashcan by the front gate. In an effort to discourage local kids and curious neighbors from going through our trash (which is normal here) my boyfriend would point to the bag and say in Spanish, “No abra este. Cogí otra rata anoche.” Which in Spanish means not to open the bag because there is a gross dead rat inside, but in Mozambican-Portuguese that means, “I got some last night.”

Blissfully unaware of his crude comment, Merritt would walk back to the house feeling proud that he had made a few locals crack up with his broken Portuguese, saying he was confident they wouldn’t open the bag.

And I bet he was right.

Camille (female), United States

"Are you the manager here?"

2013-10-15T19:11:00.000+01:00

Last year I had the opportunity to work at an international luxury hotel in China. I worked in a restaurant of the hotel which had two enormous glass walk-in wine cases. As the wine bottles had been taken out and put back in quite often, they were no longer perfectly arranged by country, brand, red/white, etc, which made finding the exact bottle for a guest time-consuming. I offered to the restaurant manager (a native Chinese) that I or my colleagues and I could rearrange the bottles in order as they once were, to make finding the right wine easier. He snapped at me: "are you the manager here? It's fine the way it is." I was so shocked that what I thought was a good initiative to improve productivity was immediately shut down and not appreciated. I was also surprised that he had appeared offended by my suggestion. I vaguely knew what it meant to "save face" in China, but it was not until then that I learned just how important it was. By directly suggesting a way to improve something in "his" restaurant, I had made him feel as if I thought he wasn't running an efficient operation and/or should have thought of this bottle-rearranging idea before. It was even worse that I had done this as a subordinate, as Chinese are hyper-aware of rank in the workplace. I was very careful from there on out to find very subtle, indirect, "face-saving" ways of bringing my ideas to the table.

Lauren (female), United States

How not to name your cat

2013-09-30T18:55:00.000+01:00

Growing up in New Jersey, we adopted a Siamese cat. An aloof, beautiful and somewhat regal feline. My father dug into the encyclopedia (you know, those books that filled shelves before Wikipedia and Google existed), and discovered that the kings of Siam (Thailand) were named Rama. And so we named our cat Rama, which seemed so fitting a name.

Many years later I had the chance to live in Thailand. One day in the office, I was telling my colleagues about our cat, and I thought they would be impressed that we had bothered to look up the royal lineage in Thailand. Instead, they were horrified that we had named a cat after their monarch. They viewed this as a defamation to equate an animal with the monarchy.

In Thailand it is a crime to insult the king, and many languish in jail for publishing negatives stories, photos or opinions.

I was completely embarrassed by my cultural gaffe, and needless to say, I kept my cat story to myself after that.

Jon (male), United States

That's what I thought

2013-09-23T23:45:00.000+01:00

I was working in Cambodia for an NGO. My superior was a young, easy-going Khmer man with whom I had a great relationship. One day, I went to check some information with him, and when I received the answer I expected, I said "Ok, that's what I thought."

For me, this was an expression to show that I had thought about the question myself but out of caution wanted to confirm my response, and that I was in agreement with his decision. However, he took the "Ok, that's what I thought" to mean something like "I already knew that, your contribution is worthless." Moreover, another Khmer coworker present confirmed that she'd have taken the same meaning from it as my boss did.

I appreciated my Khmer coworkers for having the courage to explain to me something that I was doing to make them uncomfortable. They were generally pretty easygoing regarding cultural differences between the team members of different nationalities, so I believe this was something that was particularly important to them, as it motivated them to speak up.

S.B. (female), United States

"Your Internet or your life!" - Or how to shock the Balinese

2013-09-23T11:57:00.000+01:00

"In my 1.5 weeks since moving to Bali it had been one of the worst days yet, and I STILL didn't have internet. Getting anything done in Bali often requires transporting a large distance with no guarantee that, when you get to your destination, you're actually going to get the thing done that you needed to get done.

I had already tried to get my beloved internet connection from Smart Fren two days prior, but they had decided to close early (happy thoughts, happy thoughts). Finding this out after driving 45 minutes from Nusa Dua to Sunset road in heavy traffic made it all the more "sweet". So, two days later, I decided to nail 4 birds with one stone with a big errand day. This would involve driving to all ends of the South side of the island, and I thought myself very clever for having such a plan.

Needless to say, about 2 out of three of these errands so far proved to be frustratingly fruitless, but at LEAST I could still head over to Smart Fren and close out the day by collecting my beloved internet connection. As I headed over I thought of the lovely time I would spend alone in my home, huddled in the glow of Facebook, Google, YouTube, and... well you can use your imagination. I wouldn't have to do anything for days! You call it an addiction, so be it! This would be exactly what I needed to finally ease into my home and into this new culture.

I walked into the store with a 20 kilo backpack full of the days' groceries and findings, and I plopped it on the floor and readied myself for that lovely little stick.

"Halo! I am looking for modem!"
The cunning Smart Fren female clerk replied, "Sari, Pa, no activation today".

No activation today.

Suddenly a rush of despair, defeat, and disgust came over me. My arms went limp, I made the SLIGHTEST "ugh" expression, and my motor key, hanging from my wrist, made a sound SLIGHTLY louder than a tap when it hit the glass table top. This is all it took for the clerk to GASP and jump up in her seat as if I were sticking a gun at her, demanding she empty out her pockets. I can't tell if this was her genuinely reacting to the incident, or if she was being dramatic in order to deal with another impatient foreigner, but at first glance it appeared that Indonesians might have an ultra sensitivity to the vibe in the room. I was being a whiny child.

Needless to say, I was immediately aware of my change in attitude, and I handled the rest of the interaction in a more gentile fashion. She promised me that she would call me when I was able to sign up for the service, and she also gave me a number to text just in case she forgot to call. I lopped the 20k monster on my back and left without victory.

Should one have a reason to be upset in matters like this? Do we, as humans, have the right to the services a situations we expect? Is it "their" fault when things don't go quite the way we're used to? I don't know, I'm trying to figure that out. In the meantime I'm looking close into a possibility that there's a way to move through this life without having our great expectations be so great. Bali is a wonderful place to practice for this goal in mind, but how far should we take it? Should we damn efficiency and progress? No. We need to find a balance.

And what of my internet? When the lovely clerk never called me to tell me to sign up and didn't return my texts, I decided to put this balance into practice. There's nothing wrong in giving support to the system that you prefer, and shunning the system that you don't, but we can do it calmly.

I am now a proud user of the internet service provider "3". Capitalism at work!"

Jordan (male), United States