This is really funny. Catherine Tate plays an interpreter that had to stand in at the last minute because the professional didn’t turn up. All of us hold prejudices and stereotypes, and this short video shows us some of the subconscious ones.
My apologies if you find this offensive. You know who to call to prevent yourself from getting into a similar pickle.
It’s almost a truism that liberally-minded, progressive people of the world make an effort to understand and appreciate other people’s cultures, no matter how different they might be from our own. We might find practices ranging from arranged marriages to initiation ceremonies among Papuan tribes people a little strange, but we would not, heaven forbid, stand up and denounce them as “wrong”. To do this would smack of cultural arrogance, imperialist hangovers or worse.
Does this mean, then, that everything deemed to be part and parcel of any culture is acceptable?
I think we have to distinguish between cultural practices and cultures in their entirety. No, we should not dismiss any culture in its entirety as “wrong”. There may be certain aspects of the culture which we find distasteful, but that does not justify our dismissing it out of hand; anthropologists have taught us to see that people with cultures which seem quite alien to us may actually lead happier lives than we do. When it comes to cultural practices, however, I would suggest that we might take a different point of view.
Culture is not static: very few cultures in the world are exactly the same as they were 200 years ago. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, it would have seemed entirely normal to most people within our western culture that children would labour in factories, that people would be sent to the other side of the world for stealing a loaf of bread, or hanged for poaching. Our culture has moved on from that, and most of us are happy to see that it has. Closer to home, cannibalism was once part and parcel of the culture of certain Pacific nations, including New Zealand – it no longer is; the culture has moved on.
Undesirable practices can be eliminated from cultures without the culture in its entirety turning to dust. And perhaps there are today still certain cultural practices which we really should not be tolerating. The problem, though, is how we determine what is “undesirable”.
We come back to cultural arrogance. We might well denounce some “primitive” initiation ceremony, yet perhaps the practitioners of such ceremonies might well denounce certain aspects of our culture, possibly the materialism and greed which threaten the stability of the earth. Which of the two cultural phenomena represents more of a threat?
I think there are criteria which might help us to determine whether we can, and perhaps should, denounce certain cultural practices with a clean conscience. For example, if the practice clearly results in permanent physical harm, if it is inflicted upon children or anyone against their will – then I think there is a clear case for condemning it. A case in point is female genital mutilation, practised in certain African cultures. In this instance, the criteria just mentioned clearly apply, and I think we can say this practice is wrong and should be stopped. That does not mean that we condemn lock, stock and barrel the cultures espousing it, but it does mean that this one aspect of their culture should disappear.
This is fine, but what actually do we say in response if we asked to change one of our cultural practices and stop destroying the planet?
Yes, it must be election time again. And once again it’s time to pick on the Asians.
Why is it that it’s always Asians and Arabs that get picked on? How come no one’s calling for Pacific Islanders to be sent home? Is it because they are bigger and hence more likely to win a fist-fight?
I expect comments like those made by New Zealand First Deputy Leader Peter Brown to increase in frequency as the general election approaches. Of course migrants need to integrate. It goes without saying. Why else would they come to this faraway land and leave their friends and family behind if they had no desire whatsoever to integrate? In any case, effective settlement does not depend on immigrants adopting a new set of values and behaviours and ditching their own.
It must be a 2-way process. Most migrants are not interested in building “Asian mini-societies”. I think those who do have no choice, having been rejected by the host community. Browsing through the Herald reader responses to Peter Brown’s comments, I think I can safely say that the sad fact is a significant number of locals believe Asian migrants should drop everything they believe in and adopt “Kiwi” ways of life – whatever that means. I have come to the conclusion that when locals say you have to “be Kiwi”, in reality the message is “be like me”. One respondent said “with the influx of immigrants from different ethnic groups, our culture and values are changing. It seems, so as to not offend these newcomers, our public Christmas celebrations have been watered down!” Another: “Silly that we let so many people into this country that can speak little if any English at all”.
The fact is most migrants can speak English, and can speak it well, some even better than locals. If we measure the desire to integrate on the basis of language ability, my guess is 90% of migrants speak good enough English for most jobs. However, 90% of born-and-bred Kiwis speak only one language well, ie English. So who’s not really wanting to integrate here? Of course you would argue that this is an English-speaking country, but doesn’t the fact that most Kiwis can’t speak any other language and have little desire to do so a sad indictment?
I feel a little uncomfortable writing this, seeing I have many good friends who are of New Zealand European or Maori descent, and I can’t say that they have ever told me to be more Kiwi in a derogatory way. OK maybe sometimes, when I express my dislike for vegemite or weetbix. It would be most unfair for me to tar all Kiwis with the same brush, in the same way that those people who have responded on the Herald website have concluded about Asian migrants.
Many Asian migrants are sick and tired of all this rubbish. They don’t want to be treated in this manner anymore. Especially not in the new New Zealand, where 1 in 4 residents was born overseas.
This could explain why Asians and other immigrants are swinging to National in this election at twice the rate of any other group, according to a Herald survey. Of 38 “Asians and others” asked, 21 said they voted Labour last time, and only 8 are staying with the party this year. Whether this is fair, I don’t know.
But I’ll be Kiwi now and just call it like I see it.
After the serious post on Singapore vs NZ from earlier this week, on a lighter note, allow me to share some interesting things about Singapore.
Because everyone’s so stressed out, but not too inclined towards anything overly strenuous (nocturnal activities aside), the number 1 national pastime is SHOPPING.
There are people everywhere…but after a while you get used to it. BUT if you come from Australia or New Zealand and value personal space, then there could be some challenges. You need to try taking the MRT at peak times, just for the heck of it.
There’s a significant concentration of malls along the famed Orchard Road. This is where most people (locals and tourists alike) go to engage in the national pastime.
There are some things that Kiwis would find strange. For example, head along to the Louis Vuitton store at Orchard on a weekend, and you find a perpetual queue of people waiting to get in.
You may be wondering: Why would people be patiently queuing to get into a store that sells two thousand dollar handbags? Welcome to Asia. This is where LV makes most of their money. People are extremely brand conscious. Whether you’re in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai or Bangkok, this seems to be the case. Far more than in any Australian or New Zealand city.
Same thing with the Gucci store. Chocka…
The other thing about having a concentration of well-off people demanding super-niche products and services is that you can see some quaint stores serving small numbers willing to pay high prices.
Perhaps by saying you sell better toys you could justify charging $480 for teeny weeny toy boxes in which the kids could use keep those thousand-dollar gold chains and pendants mummy buys every year.
Well, if you love shopping and really want to experience what it means to be in a real rat race, consider an alternative OE in Singapore / Hong Kong / China. You know who to call if you need to learn some Chinese beforehand 
It is a truism to state that, as companies wishing to operate successfully in the global economy, we need a global perspective. What is perhaps less widely appreciated is that a key part of that perspective is a real understanding of the people we are working with. We have to see our partners, our staff, in the way they would like us to see them, namely, as rich and complex human beings, who are at once individuals, but at the same time moulded in the light of the culture in which they grew up.
In today’s world, we probably come into contact with people from different cultural backgrounds almost every day. We perceive similarities: we are all human beings. We also perceive differences. But what do we make of those differences? We can, if we choose, see them as a problem, even as alienating; we can pretend they don’t exist; we can treat everyone as if they would really like to be just like us, if only we gave them the chance. Or we can see these differences as fascinating, enriching, real but not off-putting, a key component of who people are and would wish themselves to be; and then, in the process, we also begin to understand a little more about ourselves.
If we take the positive line, we are half-way towards making a success of cross-cultural relationships, business and personal. Where we come in as cross-cultural consultants is in filling in the other half, in offering you a shortcut to specific information and skills which could otherwise take years to acquire.
I came across a brilliant ad the other day. Depicting the story of a young Chinese boy, Tan Hong Ming, in love with a Malay girl. This got me thinking about writing an entry about cross-cultural relationships.
I have a number of friends involved in a relationship with someone of a different culture. This is becoming increasingly common in Auckland, where 1 in 4 residents was born overseas. There are many reasons why people choose to go out with someone of a different culture. When I’m in my “un-PC” mode, I start asking friends how they feel about going out with someone from a different cultural background. I’m curious. I sometimes wonder how people talk with one another if they have significant language barriers. A relationship with someone who speaks the same language is challenging enough, let alone one with someone who doesn’t. As it is, there are already two major languages one would have to learn in a relationship. The language of the other gender (yes means no, no means maybe, maybe means yes etc) and the love language (service, words, gifts, touch, time) of your partner.
Coupled with the cultural and linguistic differences, I can imagine it would be pretty difficult. I’ve never gone out with a girl who’s not Chinese, so I can’t speak from personal experience.
At one point, every one of my colleagues at work had a Kiwi partner (some of you know that Euroasia staff tend to be foreign-born because of the business we’re in). So periodically we get talking about how this came to be. I’ve also dealt with clients who would go to great lengths to learn the language of their partner. (Banana in a Nutshell is my recommended film on this topic).
Now that I’ve justified my lack of formal qualifications in sociology/psychology , let me share some personal observations on this matter:
Lest I be accused of perpetuating stereotypes and advancing ethnocentrism, let me say ultimately, every one of us is unique, and I’ve met many people who do not fit the stereotype.
My conclusion thus far? Love is colour blind 
What are your thoughts?
Not an issue you normally think about, is it? From LA to NY, it’s all pretty much the same, and not vastly different from ours!
This is certainly true – to a degree. But one thing I discovered on a recent trip is this: outside the main tourist spots, a lot of people are totally unfamiliar with varieties of English other than the range on offer within the United States. When people in small communities in Utah were suddenly confronted by a question asked in my strange dialect, there was often a moment when they looked as though they’d been confronted by some alien who’d just landed, as aliens always do, in the desert down the road. Even after that initial moment had passed, there was still often a longer period of incomprehension, and I was sometimes obliged to translate what I said into something more familiar to American ears (I know they call the toilet the “restroom”, but you’d think they’d at least recognise other ways of saying it…)
And this was just the native speakers! The USA is now home to more than 40,000,000 people with Spanish as their first language; there will soon be more Spanish speakers in the USA than there are in Spain. Although most of these people also speak English to varying degrees, they are even less familiar with non-American varieties of English than the Anglos. When I told the Hispanic car hire guy that I wanted the car until “the seventh of May”, he didn’t get it until I managed to come up with “May seven”!
When it comes to potential for linguistic crises, the USA may not be the most worrying of destinations, but there is in any case an easy way round some of the problems: when the people you are speaking to are obviously Hispanic… just speak Spanish! Not only will you be understood much more readily, but you will instantly win new friends. Just a few cheerful words in Spanish can set you apart from the majority who don’t really want to know, and it’s almost guaranteed that a little conversation will follow on.
The USA is a great place in which to practise your Spanish. You can watch Spanish-speaking TV wherever you go, and even be amused by their version of Desperate Housewives (“Amas de casa desesperadas”) if you’re finding the original is getting just too improbable for words. Pick up a Spanish newspaper to catch the Hispanic line on Hillary Clinton. Read the bilingual notices that you see around the place. When speaking, you do also have a safety net, in that if you do get stuck, the chances are that your English, however strange its tones, will be generally understood as well!
Buen viaje, amigos, en los Estados Unidos…
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