This scenario occurred while I was doing my final year project at polytechnic with a Singaporean classmate as well as two exchange students from Ireland and Africa. One day, our Singaporean classmate invited us to her family reunion dinner for the Chinese New Year‘s eve celebration.On that day, when we visited her house, my Singaporean friend introduced us to her family members. I noticed that her father was staring at my Nigerian friend disapprovingly and I realized that it was making my friend a little uncomfortable. I was puzzled as to why this is so since this was our first meeting. Later, I found out that it was actually because my Nigerian friend was wearing a black-coloured dress and it is a Chinese belief that black tend to be associated with mourning and inauspicious and thus should not be worn during joyous occasions such as Chinese New Year. This is a customary belief for the Chinese. However, this belief may not be shared by the Irish or African people and thus, it could be a practice which they may not be aware of. When we were having reunion dinner, I also noticed that my foreign friends had difficulty in using the chopsticks. This is probably due to them being more accustomed to using forks and spoons instead of using chopsticks like Asian people. From this dinner, I became more aware that Chinese traditions and rituals are very carefully observed in everything from food to clothing during the Chinese New Year and various people have different ways of doing things and beliefs under different cultures.
To communicate effectively with different people from different countries, we should always observe and understand different intercultural norms, behaviors and beliefs. Moreover, we can learn and find out the cultural norms from local people and reading the literature. This will help us to avoid misunderstanding each other and to improve our communication skill.
4 comments:
Understanding different cultures is indeed important in such scenario because it may lead to misunderstanding and conflicts. Some chinese get offended when people wearing black come visit them, especially during Chinese New Year. This is especially common among the elderly. I feel it is also a form of respect we must have for the different culture and through interaction with different people from different culture, we will thus be able to understand and allow us to communicate more effectively with the others.
Most of the foreigners usually faced such culture differences. I was once invited chinese new year reunion dinner. One of my local friends suggested me to buy orange as present. My friends' parents seemed very glad when i passed the orange to them. We should understand different coultures. In order to avoid misunderstanding and miscommunication, we should always explore and observe before hand.
Understanding each others culture and believe would definitely avoid conflicts and enhance the relationship between people of different nationality and religion. If I'm not wrong, the Chinese believe that wearing red color during the Chinese New Year would bring prosperity to them. And this has been inherited from our ancestor.
We should understand and accept different culture pratices no matter if we are the host or the guest. As the host, one should be gracious and understanding that people do commit faux pas. In the event if they do, one should seek to be forgiving and make the guest as comfortable as possible. Your local friend's efforts of sharing the festival joy with her friends is to be commended. It would have been better if she had preempt this situation by warning you and your friends of certain taboos. On the other hand, as guests, your friends and you could have done some preparations before the visit to avoid such awkard situations. These are merely some of my suggestions that people could play at different roles. Hope they can help anyone and everyone should another invitation be extended to or by a foreign friend. =)
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