How to Handle Intercultural Communication - from an Idahoan
Idaho's Landscape
China's Landscape
I would love to have a vacation in China for two weeks or less, but I would personally struggle a substantial amount if I was moving to China for an extended period of time. If I lived in China for a year or more, I know I'd have a lot of cultural dissimilarities to adapt to, no matter how uncomfortable these changes may be. I would expect to have social, work life, and general living challenges in adapting to Chinese Culture. As I mentioned in my previous blog posts, Chinese work habits revolve around keeping the peace. Their practice for bringing up ideas to a superior should be handled in an out-of-office gathering. This is unlike the American culture of uncomfortable growth meetings during working hours. I would have to remind myself that my main goal of work relationships is to preserve the name and reputation of the company. In my previous blog post, I also mentioned how their main religion or worldview was based on Confucious and his teachings. It would be a great challenge for me to adapt to those personality traits that're expressed in daily life. In being a fairly strong Roman Catholic, my attitude is slightly different in terms of will and a higher power. I would do my best to adapt to both of these separate cultural differences by making some good friends that would help me and keep me in line, both in my work and personal life.
In shifting gears to intercultural ethics, intercultural ethics is how you interact in an intercultural environment while being self-aware of and how you may affect the other person. One component to manage ethical components in intercultural exchanges, according to our textbook, Communication Between Cultures by Larry Samovar, is having respect for others. This means, not ignoring someone, respecting someone's boundaries, and being an advocate for helping in exchanges for Chinese American relations, specifically in my case that is. We can internalize a lot of accidental micro-aggressions, so we must be careful when interacting with individual people in order to not stereotype :) * thumbs up emoji *
There can be some strategies I can employ to stay connected and engaged with Chinese culture, while still maintain my studies in United States. I can update myself on current events and news by subscribing to news channels from China, and I recommend this to you as well. I can also keep up to date or maybe get creative with it by trying to learn Mandarin on Duolingo or any one of those language learning platforms. After this blog assignment is complete, I will still stay connected to Chinese Culture.
Would you be able to adapt to Chinese Culture?
Yes! - I think it's fascinating
Ehh - I am unsure.
-AL