Cultureshifts

understanding without language

I was asked today how I can get along in so many different cultures. The man asked "how many languages do you speak?" My answer to him was very similar to this article in The Korea Times...

When it comes to communicating across different cultures, understanding the language may be just the beginning.

A leading intercultural communications expert said that the ability to ``read between the lines" and understanding non-spoken expressions in various cultural contexts is also an important part of communication, one that's often overlooked when studying foreign languages.

According to Park Myung-seok, professor emeritus at Dankook University, the English-education curriculum in Korean schools does not reflect this fact nearly enough. Park has written several books on the topic of intercultural communications. Most recently he co-edited a book, titled ``Communicating Nonverbally: An Introduction to Nonverbal Communication."

Professor Park told The Korea Times that ``successful communication between people across cultures requires not only an understanding of language but also of the nonverbal aspects of communication that are part of any speech community."

Citing research data from the late American anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell, Park observed that in ordinary two-person, face-to-face conversation, verbal components carry only about 35 percent of the social meaning of the situation. Nonverbal communications, on the other hand, make up more than 65 percent of the conversation, he said.

read the rest of the article here

intercultural training overview

wondering what an intercultural trainer does?

culture shock in BCBusiness

Earlier this year I took a course with Mackie Chase at UBC's Centre for Intercultural Communication. In a round table discussion with other BC business leaders she talks about the role of culture in the workplace.

BCBusiness: What kind of trends are we seeing today in workplace diversity in B.C.?

Mackie Chase: People are talking so much about labour shortages and looking ahead. It seems like in every sector, you talk to people who can’t fill places. What I’m hearing from the work that we do at the centre is that it’s not unique to Canada and that, more and more, we’re going to be in competition with the rest of the world. One exception is the United States, and they have a higher population replacement that we do.

BCB: B.C. is known for its ethnically diverse population. How does that relate to this labour shortage?

MC: It’s creating lots of challenges. One is that we have a wealth of people power that we’re not tapping into very well. We’re good at making gatekeeping regulations, but we’re not so good at looking at alternate ways of gatekeeping: bridging systems.

BCB: What sort of danger is there for businesses and for organizations if they don’t address these issues?

MC: We’ve seen that in Paris and in lots of places in the world where people get more and more isolated and feel that they’re being held back and aren’t being integrated. We don’t have a very healthy, safe society when people are feeling frustrated and angry.

for more of this article...

Medical students and ethnic diversity

Medical News Today has a post commenting on an article in the Journal of the American Medical Assoc (JAMA)

Under the belief that diversity exposes students to a broader field of ideas, experiences, and perspectives, most medical schools in the United States explicitly try to keep their student bodies racially and ethnically varied. The schools also believe that diversity in the classroom better prepares student to provide services to the multicultural American population. However, little research exists to support the claim of educational benefits from diversity in medical schools.

One paragraph from the journal article states: "Medical schools may need to actively foster positive interaction among individuals from different backgrounds to derive the benefits of diversity."

for more of the post check here...

Burlington, ON introductory seminar

The Burlington Post ran a brief article on upcoming seminar to be held at the Holiday Inn on October 2.

retaining customers of other cultures

RISMEDIA, June 19, 2008-Studies have shown that it costs up to five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing customer.

In our research, we have found that multicultural consumers either refuse or switch service or products because the level of bilingual, cultural, or community-friendly service fails to meet their expectations. There is often a disconnect between the perceived quality of service delivered and what is expected.

While language is usually the biggest obstacle to reaching the multicultural consumer, translation is not the only solution to the bigger service delivery problem. One report found that customer service representatives often do not speak adequate Spanish and therefore do not understand the inappropriate customer communication that is occurring. The negative impact on organizational and brand reputation from poor customer service can take many years to recover from.

Given that ethnic diversity in the U.S. is far more reflective of the global landscape, it is even more imperative for marketers to fully understand cultural differences, community influence, language treatments, and purchase drivers and to integrate them into their everyday marketing strategies and tactics.

Reaching the multicultural consumer requires providing reliable products, prompt and responsive service, front-line staff that are empowered to resolve problems, knowledgeable staff, empathy with the customer, and an organization with a sense of community trusteeship. While these are mainstream “must-do’s,” they are much more profound with the multicultural home buyer.

Multicultural marketing is no different from mainstream marketing in that marketers must research, plan, develop, and execute their campaigns based on feedback from their targeted audiences. Multicultural markets are just another specialty market. What may be appealing to one culture might have the opposite effect on another. To be effective, multicultural marketing strategy requires understanding the psychographics of these sub-cultures.

Being perceived as a friend to the multicultural community is just as important as the service you provide. Building relational equity only enhances your bottom line.

Multicultural business plan

news item in TheStreet.com (business blog) about Asian American guy targeting AA market for book publishing.
more here...

North American Health Clubs

I always have wondered why people from other culture are not proportionately represented in the gym memberships in North America. Is this because the concepts of wellness and health is different with Asian and other cultures?

Intercultural film database

Films (movies, if you prefer) often show interaction between people from different cultures, and they can be a great resource for anyone interested in studying or teaching intercultural communication. They don't show reality, of course, and in earlier times commercial films more often got other cultures wrong than they got them right. In addition, they often had an ideological axe to grind.

That hasn't changed completely. Modern films also tend to have a political message that they want to put across. But two things are a little different today. Firstly, there is now a greater commitment among film-makers to go for ethnographic consistency and accuracy. Secondly, there are more directors who are interested in intercultural situations. This may be because they themselves come from a culturally mixed or different background, but often it is because they are aware of the potential in an intercultural plot for exciting conflict, subtle interaction between characters, and the poetry, magic and colour of the unfamiliar.

these comments introduce the work of the Intercultural Film Database at the U of Hildersheim in Germany. Dozens of films are reviewed/analyzed for their intercultural characteristics and specific descriptors as used by the intercultural communications field.

Russell Peter's cross cultural business encounter

Indo-Canadian comedian Russell Peters describes a sales encounter in a Chinese store.

video link