Culture Builds A Barrier in An Intercultural Commnucation

When communicating with someone from different culture, inevitably there will be some obstructions in conveying the correct message to the other party. We are, after all, talking about difference in culture here.

Culture will affect our communication in five different ways. They are Perception of reality, Understanding of Role Relations, Goal-oriented Behaviors, Sense of Self, and Language.

When someone who has different perception or different interpretation of reality, it will result in differences in opinions. Sometimes, if you are the only one who has different view in a group of people with same mindset, communicating will be hazardous. I will take my own country, Indonesia, to compare with Germany. In Indonesia, coming late for an appointment is our daily bread (not for me though...). Some people even comes an hour late for an appointment with their business associate (atrocious, I know)! But for the Germans, time is extremely essential. If you are late even for only 5 minutes, they might not tolerate your tardiness and will leave without you. So, imagine when a tardy Indonesian guy has a meeting with his crush, a German girl who has a no-nonsense attitude in regard to punctuality. Poor guy...

Second point is the differences in understanding one's role in a society with certain culture. It affects how you behave towards other, considering their age, rank and position in the circle you are in. For instance, the Japanese geishas. Take a look at these pictures.

This picture at the left is of a geiko and a maiko making their round in a street in Kyoto for a festival called Hassaku. Geiko is a term for addressing a senior or a full-fledged geisha, And Maiko is for addressing an apprentice geisha who is training to be a full-fledged geisha under a geiko who is considered as their own "sister". Did you see how the maiko walks slightly behind the geiko? (Maiko is indicated by their elaborate kimono and hair pins) This is a symbol of status which lets us know that the one in the front has higher rank than the one at the back. But look at the picture on the right hand side.The younger sister walks side by side with her older sister. There's no differences at all in their position when they are in public. If those sisters are in Japan, especially in the Gion district where most geishas dwell in, the younger sister might be viewed as impolite. Differences like this might cause some misunderstanding between the two culture.

Third, differences in goal-oriented behaviors. What did you conclude from these two comparison? Asians often put eduaction as first and foremost. Parents and teachers expect the children to study seriously and no playing when in class. While in the Western culture, studying is usually accompanied by having fun. What they want is for their children to have fun in growing up. I'm not saying that Asians education system is not fun, I'm just making an example out of the stereotype. The same in communicating. Some people whose culture adopts pragmatic principle might differ from those who don't. They may communicate only when there's some benefit while others communicate just for the sake of communicating.

Fourth, differences in image or sense of self. It is how and what your culture expects you to portray yourself, how you build your personality and image. Typical Asian culture expetcs the females to dress and behave more conservatively. While Western culture gives more freedom to the women. I know that changes had been made and Asian cultures are much more lenient now towards the women's image but there's still some that keep this expectation, for example the Middle-East countries. If people who doesn't know the expectation of how one dresses in the Middle-East and they go there wearing revealing clothes (picture on the right), they might be ostracized because they are considered as 'bad girls' in the local culture, although they didn't mean to.






Now, we come to the last point, differences in laguage. Let's take a look at this joke from a frend in Indonesia. (Relax...I will translate... :> )




One day, there's a British man who rides a bicycle to a department store in Indonesia. He parked it in front of the store and went inside without locking his bicycle. When he came out of the store, he found that his bicycle is no longer there. So, he asked a man named Donny who stands near the spot where he had parked the bicycle.


British guy: "Did you see what happened to my bicycle? Did you see who took it away?"
Donny: "Yes, he use to table square-square. Worth he fast-fast go without any wet expire."
British guy: "What the?!"




Okay, so what Donny meant to say was "Yes, he use checkered shirt. No wonder he goes away quickly without any greetings at all." In Indonesian language: shirt = kemeja [ ke=to, meja=table]; checkered = kotak-kotak [kotak=square]; worth = pantas [pantas = no wonder -->can also means worth]; quickly = cepat-cepat [cepat=fast]; greetings/small talk = basa basi [ basa(h)= wet, basi=expired]. So, you see how languages can be a barrier in communication?