Last summer, my 65+ year-old father collapsed his way toward me in the airport arrivals hall. He had just flown all the way to Europe from the United States for the first time ever to visit me at home in Sweden. The stress of flying alone (my step-mother has refused to fly since 9/11) had him in tears when he finally spotted me. Cortisol leaked out of his eyes.
Jetlag cruelly laid him low for much longer than I had anticipated, so when he’d recovered sufficiently to go out and discover our small city, I took off in a gleeful flash. He took off more slowly and less gleefully. He only asked over and over again why Swedes are so cold and rude. “They don’t even look at you, much less say hi!” I tried explaining that to a Swede, intruding on a stranger by saying hello is apex disrespect. He wasn’t buying it.
Fast forward to this summer. My family and I took a road trip down to the Netherlands, where our first stop was in the vicinity of Giethoorn. During our few days boating and biking, every Dutch person we met greeted us. I wasn’t sure how to respond. What was this unbidden friendliness? Did they want something from me? How should I know?
I laughed at myself when I realized how Swedish I had become. No one should expect to fully take on a host country’s habits, but I had evidently decided this one was worth the price and adapted even more than I was aware of. Now a type of reverse culture shock interrupted my holiday with a friendly “Hello”. Clearly, my profession in intercultural communication notwithstanding, I still can and do get surprised, unsettled or even at times irritated by aspects of other cultures.
This is normal! It never ends and it’s the most natural thing in the world to feel initial discomfort at difference. Humans unconsciously process an astonishing amount of information and one of our strategies is to identify patterns and stick to familiar ones. Familiar patterns and behaviors indicate safety. Safety is good. Safety makes us feel, well, safe. So it makes sense that when people behave differently than our recognized pattern, our initial reaction is ‘no’. The trick is mastering how we manage that initial reaction.
My poor dad couldn’t find his way to accepting the Swedish point of view and honestly, I get that. He was dealing with way too many new impressions and situations to relinquish that fundamental signal of friendliness and therefore safety. I have years more practice than he does at challenging my own conceptions of what is appropriate.
Juxtaposing the two of us illustrates one of the most important points about intercultural communication: cultural competence is a skill we can learn. If we have never, or rarely, exposed ourselves to other cultures, like my father, then it can be really difficult to be open and accepting. With time and the right attitude, it gets easier and more fun. So I quickly realized that I had a chance in the Netherlands to let my culturally innate friendliness shine. I smiled and nodded at everyone I met and felt great about it.
How do you manage your first reactions in intercultural situations?
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