I'd like to share this idea with you: It's very difficult to step back from our cultural conditioning and look at our own culture with fresh eyes, clarity and impartiality.
And what I mean by this is that if a foreigner says something we don't appreciate about our country/culture, immediately either we take it personally and badly or we deny it or, as a last resort, we try to find a reason or justification. We are seldom able to say: "Wow! Thank you. You just opened my eyes on something I could have never seen by myself." Or: "Yes. It's true, we do this and I now understand it can be weird, or totally non sense, or misleading for a foreigner."
We stick to our culture as if it was the only part of our identity and we miss the opportunity to broaden our mind. Why do we feel this necessity to "defend" something? If someone says something about our culture, why can't we just say: "You're right. That's true." And that's all. No judgement, no denial, no attempt to camouflage.
That's something that stirs my curiosity.
On the other side, I experienced how you feel when someone else looks at your culture from the outside and things you had always taken for granted start to become sort of "unconfortable". That's always the same point: we don't want to feel unconfortable. May I suggest this post? Stepping out of our comfort zone: That's one of the most exciting experiences. Feeling lost. Lost in translation.
So, that short experience I was talking about. Here it is: I was watching an Italian movie with British friends, when suddenly I realized that I was not watching that movie as an Italian, but as a British myself, or somehow as a foreigner. Scenes that would have felt right to me at other times, felt weird at that point, because I was watching the movie with them. The family relationships depicted in the movie, the way the two brothers interacted, the way the parents interacted, as well as all the values that that movie was conveying started to be weird to me. "This is not good", I thought, "if they see this, they are going to think that the Italians are this and this and that". And than I thought: "But the Italians ARE this, and this and that." And I felt a little ashamed. But than I thought: "You know what? Let's stop with fake movies for export market, this is REAL, it might sound ridiculous, it might sound weird, it might sound too Italian, but this is just the way we are! I didn't dare to ask my friends what they thought about the movie. Of course they told me it was great, but which British person would really tell you what she/he thinks, since in Britain it's not polite to say something negative?
I'd love to really, really (with no understatements and two-way meanings) know what the British think of that movie.
E.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
The slightness of British difference
This is a short post about how trying to be polite can be very confusing for someone from a different culture.
It took me sometimes to realize that. I'm in England at the moment, attending some courses and I've asked different questions to my teachers. Three or four times it happened that someone or myself said something completely unrelated to what the teacher was explaining and she said: That is a slightly different situation.
And again: That is slightly different from my example. Or: That is slightly different from what we are doing here. Therefore, I recorded in my mind that what I said or my colleagues said was similar (that is what slightly different means) to the teacher's examples. For three weeks I thought I was, and my colleagues were, almost right. So I kept the two alternative examples in mind as both possible.
For three weeks. Until, I finally understood! It was an epiphany for me!
In England, when you say something completely out of topic, your interlocutor will say that it is slightly different from what she or he meant.
So, if you come, like me, from a culture where you "call a cat a cat" (beautiful French saying that goes: Appeler un chat un chat, meaning call things with their real name) you could be puzzled. Politeness can be misleading, because you don't understand what people really mean, and if they really mean what they are saying, included in an academic environment where you wish to clearly understand as much as you can and go back home with consistent and meaningful information.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Polite or not polite, this is the question, politeness can mean something starkly different in different cultures, and here I am arguing that it can even be confusing and cause problems.
All this is fun! But... be careful!
E.
It took me sometimes to realize that. I'm in England at the moment, attending some courses and I've asked different questions to my teachers. Three or four times it happened that someone or myself said something completely unrelated to what the teacher was explaining and she said: That is a slightly different situation.
And again: That is slightly different from my example. Or: That is slightly different from what we are doing here. Therefore, I recorded in my mind that what I said or my colleagues said was similar (that is what slightly different means) to the teacher's examples. For three weeks I thought I was, and my colleagues were, almost right. So I kept the two alternative examples in mind as both possible.
For three weeks. Until, I finally understood! It was an epiphany for me!
In England, when you say something completely out of topic, your interlocutor will say that it is slightly different from what she or he meant.
So, if you come, like me, from a culture where you "call a cat a cat" (beautiful French saying that goes: Appeler un chat un chat, meaning call things with their real name) you could be puzzled. Politeness can be misleading, because you don't understand what people really mean, and if they really mean what they are saying, included in an academic environment where you wish to clearly understand as much as you can and go back home with consistent and meaningful information.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Polite or not polite, this is the question, politeness can mean something starkly different in different cultures, and here I am arguing that it can even be confusing and cause problems.
All this is fun! But... be careful!
E.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Ulysses reloaded
[Please, give us feedback about this post, the author asked for it!]
I read
the Odyssey for the first time when I was 20, but in many ways it was
like reading a known story: fragments of it had permeated my
childhood since I can remember. Fewer things can stimulate the
imagination of a youngster more than epic fights against mythological
monsters or avoiding the traps of mischievous divinities, all
embedded in the long and winding journey of a hero who eventually
returns home in triumph. Sure enough, Homer could have been the first
Hollywood producer. However, the Odyssey is not just for kids: it
portrays so many aspects of the human condition that one can relate
to it still today. When I left my home country 7 years ago on a
postdoctoral grant, I was also filled with a thrill for adventure not
unlike the one that drove Ulysses to join the Trojan war.
Once
you leave your home country, you immediately realize the world is
swarmed with modern Ulysses, already back home or still in transit.
And with the present crisis looming on us, more and more people will
be forced to join this condition. The toils of these modern Ulysses
are certainly not as glamorous as the ones afflicting the original
hero, but equally important (and painful...): finding an apartment,
opening a bank account, wrestling with stubborn bureaucrats or trying
to learn the local language are just some of the everyday battles one
has to fight.
But
let me come back to the Odyssey. One of the things that always
fascinated me about the book was that it was not clear (at least to
me) whether Ulysses truly
wanted to come back home. Of course he says so vehemently, but
whenever he has the chance he invariably misses the shot: he acts
foolishly, annoys the Gods and is being pushed away from the right
path over and over again. If we reflect on the fact that he spent 10
years (ten!) wandering around the Aegean Sea while continuously
missing the way home, it is just ridiculous. Even as a kid I smelled
something fishy. This had to be done on purpose, otherwise Ulysses
was the worst sailor ever!
Likewise,
in the course of the last 7 years I have asked myself many times
whether my changing countries every 2 years is part of the journey
home (as I’ve always been claiming) or I’m just running in
circles in fear of making that final step. To be honest, I haven’t
figured it out yet, but what I've lately been observing in many of my
friends staying abroad is that the need to hit home is a rather
sudden call: one has been restlessly wandering the world and
realizes, almost overnight, that this seemingly random walk has
somehow always been the long journey back to Ithaca. And it works
like a biological clock: they urgently feel the need to get home,
right there, right now. I'm not at that stage yet, but I would not
bet a dime with you that things won't change in a year, or maybe in
just a matter of months: I've seen too many hardcore travelers turn
back home on short notice not to be cautious. Like with a leaking
faucet, your sink might be overflowing before you realize it.
But
here comes the crux: what is home? Sure we all have our Penelopes
somewhere (family, friends, memories), and the time we spend away
from them is slowly but firmly weighing on us. But for how long can
we still call a place home when we are away? Is there a threshold or
we can always emulate Ulysses’ comeback, seemingly restituting
things as they were before we left?
Can we spend years away and still expect to come back unscathed?
Neither the feedback I get from different returnees nor my own
experience sounds like Ulysses's comeback. Not at all. As the years
I've been away increase every short visit home is more and more
painful: I've gradually lost touch not only with people but also with
cultural background; in my family everybody got kids, and so grown-up
by now that I completely missed their childhoods; all my reference
points are stuck 7 years ago; etc. It's like waking up from a
coma... Unlike in the Odyssey, our Penelopes back home have not sown
a tapestry at daytime to unsew it at nighttime. The tapestry has been
always growing, to the point that now we can barely recognize it. Do
we belong there anymore? Is there a place one can still call home?
The
same dilemma applied to the original Ulysses, though. Only that
Homer, wisely enough, stopped the epopey at the right time and spared
himself the pains of telling the readers what happened afterwards.
However, other authors thought about it. Interestingly enough, all
these sequels show an unadapted Ulysses that ends up leaving Penelope
and Ithaca, never to return. Our modern Ulysses would step in here
and probably add: indeed, what is the point in staying when your
Ithaca does not exist anymore?
I
don't know the answer, but maybe the problem is to view things in
terms of journeys and destinations. Much the same way we cannot trail
back to our childhood, that place we used to call home is not there
anymore, it's gone forever. The safety net it once represented has
faded into a (potentially dangerous) memory. Live with it or be ready
for bitter disappointments. I can easily picture Ulysses back in
Ithaca longing for the past, feeling emotionally detached and seeking
only the company of the surviving members of his crew. As modern
Ulysses we should avoid running into the same pitfalls... However,
while writing this post I became aware of the term Ulysses
syndrome, used in psychology to
identify disorders affecting, especially, immigrant population who
cannot adapt to new cultural and geographical environments. As one of
my italian friends (also a blogger here) says: "once
you get into the Intrazone you will always remain there. You just
have to accept it". I agree, and
in it we can still choose to behave like the original Ulysses and cry
over spilled milk or else adapt and switch gears to always make the
best of our changing situations. Good luck to all of you in this
endeavour!
by O.C.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Cultural flavors from distant lands
It was my first week in the US. I was walking my two big dogs in the park close
to the river, when I gave a shot: “Good morning,” I said, practicing my
rusty English, and that old black woman greeted, and stopped to talk to
me. Her name was Rose, and she told me about when she arrived here
thirty years before, and how it had been difficult to her at that time
making friends in a white neighborhood. She stayed there standing for an
hour talking to me, a white person, giving me some tips, and stopping
people who were passing around, just to introduce me to them. I was a
lucky guy.
Never before in my life had I lived abroad, so far away from home. Now I’am forty years old, I found myself living in a small little town in a foreign country. Sometimes, I still feel as if it were a dream: I quit my job, I left my house, and most important, I left my family and friends to start a new life in a different land.
I used to live in abig city, drive for two hours a day from home to work, stuck in the traffic, and work around eighty hours a week; that was the price of living in an expensive big city. I made good money; I cannot deny, but I was tired of that life. I wanted to experience something different.
Now here I am, living in a little town, biking, walking, taking the bus with my backpack, and knowing people from everywhere, from distant places. It has been a great opportunity to get to know different cultures, different ways of living and thinking, which sometimes it is hard to understand and rationalize about; however, those experiences have opened my mind and enhanced my understanding of cultural differences. It is always rewarding filling out that our lives’ blanks. Everyday is a new chance to do or learn something. Everything. That’s why I’m here: to not despise any possible innings of learning. Learning about people, places, costumes, languages, sounds, tastes. Yes, cultural flavors from distant lands, from intricate minds. I really enjoy talking to people, listening to their stories. Learning from them. It can be surprising and wonderful to have those experiences, and I think everybody should try it at least once in his or her life; then, the world might be a better place to live, with less prejudice and bigotry, broadening the people’s minds.
by E. De Maria
Never before in my life had I lived abroad, so far away from home. Now I’am forty years old, I found myself living in a small little town in a foreign country. Sometimes, I still feel as if it were a dream: I quit my job, I left my house, and most important, I left my family and friends to start a new life in a different land.
I used to live in abig city, drive for two hours a day from home to work, stuck in the traffic, and work around eighty hours a week; that was the price of living in an expensive big city. I made good money; I cannot deny, but I was tired of that life. I wanted to experience something different.
Now here I am, living in a little town, biking, walking, taking the bus with my backpack, and knowing people from everywhere, from distant places. It has been a great opportunity to get to know different cultures, different ways of living and thinking, which sometimes it is hard to understand and rationalize about; however, those experiences have opened my mind and enhanced my understanding of cultural differences. It is always rewarding filling out that our lives’ blanks. Everyday is a new chance to do or learn something. Everything. That’s why I’m here: to not despise any possible innings of learning. Learning about people, places, costumes, languages, sounds, tastes. Yes, cultural flavors from distant lands, from intricate minds. I really enjoy talking to people, listening to their stories. Learning from them. It can be surprising and wonderful to have those experiences, and I think everybody should try it at least once in his or her life; then, the world might be a better place to live, with less prejudice and bigotry, broadening the people’s minds.
by E. De Maria
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)