Cross Cultural
This week we welcome another contribution from Adam Finlay. Thank you Adam! :-)
Last week you sold me on working for myself.
This week I’d like to discuss something far more practical. 
I recently attended a cross-cultural awareness workshop, and enjoyed it so much that I thought I’d share.
Dr Fiona Swee-Lin Price specialises in cultural diversity management. She’s written a fascinating book called Success with Asian names: a practical guide for business and everyday life (available from Amazon for around $20).
Did you know that the seemingly common Sikh surname ‘Singh’ is actually a gender marker that Sikhs traditionally use as a surname for all men? It means ‘lion’.
The equivalent traditional marker for all women is ‘Kaur’. It means (how charming) … ‘princess’.
Or did you know that, traditionally, a Vietnamese woman’s name contains ‘Thi’ while a man’s contains ‘Van’?
Perhaps these are trivial examples, but the importance of getting someone’s name and mode of address correct is actually rather a Western obsession. We (in the West) generally believe that remembering someone’s name and pronouncing it properly is a sign of respect.
According to Dr Price, however, Asian cultures generally place more emphasis on status and relationship. It’s often fine to address someone by title alone (e.g. teacher, ‘guru’), and a person’s name may include family relationship markers that we don’t include in Anglo-Saxon names (e.g. Malay names typically contain ‘bin’ or ‘binti’, meaning ‘son of’ or ‘daughter of’, followed by the father’s given name).
I don’t know about you, but I reckon a little bit of cultural awareness goes a long way in this country. And, as globalisation shrinks society and populations grow and disperse, so it should.
I say ‘xie xie’* (an approximation of ‘thank you’) to the Chinese folk at my local shopping centre (with varying success, as Chinese tonal pronunciation is tough).
And I said ‘namaskar’ (‘goodnight’ in Hindi) to the bloke at the servo (gas station) the other night.
I took a risk assuming he was of Indian origin. But I also made him smile; and he me with his obvious delight.
What about you? How does your business cater to all-comers?
Xie xie for playing.
*Pronounce ‘she she’, but with a short ‘e’ as in ‘bet’.
Adam Finlay
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Thanks Adam,
As I travel to Hong Kong, Singapore and China on business many times a year and have done so for 15 years there is certainly a lot of cultural knowledge that can make or break business relationships. In fact I have seen many people destroy all chances of doing business within the first 5 minutes of a meeting.
Here are a few examples:
- Present business cards with both hands. Receive their card the same way and take a moment to look at it even if you know the details on it. This is about respect. Never write on their card or frisbee yours across the table to participants sitting out of your reach.
- Watch where people sit. The most senior person will not take the head of the table. The one doing all the talking will (usually a second tier manager) take the position of authority. The most senior person will not usually say much but make sure you address much of your conversation to him/her.
– Being aggressive and pushy is just seen as rude. You may see this as a legitimate business tactic but culturally it’s a big mistake.
- Do not make any assumptions about the women present. Besides being very 1970’s and clearly not appropriate in China and particularly Taiwan many women are the owners or Managing Directors of the company. They are fierce. Underestimate them at your peril.
- Be prepared for small talk and don’t be in a rush to ‘cut to the chase’. This is very important. Discussion about family and personal interests is used to judge the person and their values before business is discussed. If having dinner it is unlikely that business will be discussed before coffee is served. Don’t try to force the pace.
- A good topic of conversation is where their children have been educated (if they have older children). Education and prestige of University which will inevitably be in the US, UK or Australia is a sense of great pride.
- If you are in their country allow them to pay, in Australia you pay. Always send an email thanking them for the meeting and summarising the key business points.
- Be prepared for the first orders or dealings to be small. They will tentatively enter a relationship that will set the path for the future. Accept small dealings as a start and work on them as if they were much larger. DO that and they most likely will be.
Win them over and they will open their business to you and work hard to meet your needs. There are many traps for inexperienced players. A long term relationship can be very beneficial to your bottom line.
Wow! Two great articles for the price of one! I’ve realised that I’m even more ignorant than I had realised, but I’m happy to play catch up. Thanks for the tips Adam & Malcolm.
I second you Stephen. Thanks Malcolm, for a range of great tips.
I think that open attitudes like these will become essential as globalisation comes to our front doors.
I’m happy to admit I know little, but a little goes a long way.
Thanks for your great insights Adam
And Malcolm – thank you for adding yours!
Awesome Gents
Not being well traveled at all, I can only gratefully digest what has been lavishly laid on the table.
Though I am not well traveled geographically, I like to think that I have to some small degree tried to compensate by being interested listen to folks from far away lands to see how others tell stories…movies are particularly rich in this department…and I tend to go for the basics.
One significant difference that I have learned from both stories and people is the following which I learned from a Thai friend with whom I once shared a house. When learning a little of each other’s customs and languages, I pointed out the window and asked ‘How do you think that in your mind?’. I was pointing to a red car. He said that he saw it as ‘car red’. He also said that he found this the most useful observation of all when it came to learning English and ‘The Way of the Round-Eyed Trouser Wearer’ (as I used to refer to it
).
A similar and often ignored/unknown/overlooked fundamental diametric of perception (and arguably therefore, values) exists between how us ‘faded Western round-eyed trouser wearers’ and Australia’s Indigenous folk see and even be in the world. We reckon we dream when we sleep…It is my understanding that to the guardians of this land and the spirits thereof, this is the dream. We think that ‘walkabout’ is like being ‘off with the fairies’…au contraire. I reckon it is us that haven’t even begun to consider ‘waking-up’. Example: We’ve wrecked the entire planet in a couple of hundred years, and refuse to learn from people that lived here harmoniously and continuously for 60,000 years…
These may seem small, but they are to me the largest and most fundamental differences and when acknowledged make vast fertile plains upon which respect can thrive and propagate more easily and meaningfully. In music, one might refer to it as finding the right ‘Key’?
Anyway, that’s my 2 bob’s worth on this one…and thanks guys…great stuff
Many thanks
Cheers
Stephen G
Hey Stephen. You’ve touched on an interesting cultural difference of linguistic syntax. The way language is constructed influences the perspective of the speaker. Even people who become fluent in a second language tend to ‘filter’ their perspective through the framework of their native language.
Also, it is interesting to note how different cultures treat things in a totally different way to the way we take for granted. Your point about dreaming is interesting – for instance the Pirahas people of the Amazon basin view their dreaming as a real experience that is is not different from other immediate experience during their waking hours.
I’m not sure we can ever fully understand another culture, but I feel it is important to try. It’s good to see that folk here seem to feel the same way.
Good onya Stephen H…and thanks…you always inspire…
It always cracks me up how much energy us ‘Western Round-Eyed Trouser Wearers’ expend on trying to determine whether or not our experiences are ‘real’.
Do you know what was in the Tower of Babel? Reference points. That’s what our civilisation does. It endlessly invents reference points. Then we invented ‘constant and never-ending improvement’. So now we improve them on an industrial scale and at an imperative minimum 3% annual growth rate.
Why? Because that’s our version of ’self-realisation’. That’s the only generally agreed way we can determine that we actually exist. Because we don’t believe our own experience, we calibrate it off everyone and everything else. And because ‘they’ don’t believe their own experience either, nor anyone else’s, well you can see the result? Paperwork and pollution.
We live in a giant feedback-loop of illusory and ever-changing reference-points. I believe Herman Hesse referred to it as ‘The Hall of Mirrors’, Dante and ‘The Inferno’, Mary Shelley ‘Frankenstein’, etc, etc, ad ‘Climaticus Changem’.
And then of course, after all our suffering, and exploration, and years invested in Education, the exceedingly simple becomes simply unacceptable…so then only a cataclysmic event can shock-us into dropping our pre-fab, ISO-Standard, Clinically Proven pre-conceptions long enough to touch a feeling. A moment of clarity, when we see and know that all of our thoughts and feelings…that everything we have ever experienced was and is real.
We then begin to reflect on that moment from the point of view of who we think we are, to determine whether or not it was real. The only way we know how to do that is of course by calibrating it off everything and everyone else. Then we start writing self-help books, giving workshops, establishing humanitarian/social change/evangenlical projects, Blogging
, and try to become ‘Messiahs’ out of a ’self-less’ desire to help/save/rescue others (whether they like it or not), and the industrial strength denial process starts all over again, as we struggle to turn our moment into a belief, in the hope of one day making it real.
The Pirahas, our Indigenous Elders, the Child you just ignored because it can’t possibly know, the Dog you just ran over because it doesn’t have a Soul…are they struggling to figure out if their dreams are real, if their experiences are real?…or can they hear and feel themselves breathing and everything beyond that is an unequivocal bonus? ‘It’ couldn’t be that simple could ‘it’?
What is ‘fully understanding’?
Cheers
Stephen G
Wow. I don’t check in for a day, and there’s a full-blown philosophical debate going on here. Great conversation, SG and SH. We’ve broadened the cross-cultural discussion from simply learning how to be polite in other languages, to questioning the dominant paradigm! And all in a small business blog.
But you’re right, SG, the dominant paradigm is worth questioning. And a bit of cross-cultural awareness and receptivity is a great way to break the ice.
Yep! An interesting topic you picked there good Sir
And good ol’ Stephen H never fails to get to the heart of things. So it’s his fault…I just responded to him…;-P
And indeed! Had we as ‘cultures’, opted for more ice-breaking sooner, perhaps there would be less ice-melting now?
Always a pleasure gents
Cheers
Stephen G
Having a Greek background I know for a fact that all Greeks are very impressed when someone tries to speak their language to them. They will love you for ever, try it next time when you visit your local Fresh Fish or Fish n’Chip shop.
Whilst I don’t think its a prerequisite to doing business, its a nice thing to do and if relationships count for anything in business, its a great way to build relationships.
Thank you, Arthur; that’s a great perspective. The Greeks seem to be fading out in my area, but I’ll see if I can hunt down a remaining [what’s the collective word for ‘Greeks’?) or two. Best regards, P.
I’m glad the Greeks are impressed, CA. It’s a whole new world of pronunciation for me to learn, but I’ll give it a go! Thanks for your perspective.