Intercultural Management

This week's topic- Adminstrative garbage and "Intercultural Management."
- Monday we turned in some documents. Really, that's it. We got to school at 9:30, stayed until 11, had until 2 to come back. Then we turned in a small handful of papers (perhaps a 1/5 of what we were told we would need) in order to obtain a student ID card and health insurance. We even had Tuesday off! However, my sore throat from Saturday night had turned into a really awful cold, so I basically spent the whole day in bed. The short trip to the grocery stores up the street pretty much zapped all of my energy. Thus we had salad with salmon, potatoes, and tomatoes for dinner.

-Wednesday began our week of "Intercultural Management." For whatever reason, this class is taught in English, even though we're at a French university and had just spent the past week having French crammed into our exhausted little brains. We played mindless little ice breakers, but they were somewhat entertaining. For example, we walked around "speed dating" style and asked people about themselves for a minute. We also fell into each other's arms to establish trust. Then we played a game similar to one we'd played in our "Living and Working Abroad" class in Boston. There's an Eastern and a Western culture with different values who have to trade or interact. I was part of the Western culture, and our objective was to get an Eastern culture whose entire religion/way of life centered around a pot to give us said pot for a museum. Afterwards, we talked about our feelings during the game and someone from "my" culture immediately shouted out "The stupid Easterners wouldn't give us the frickin' pot!" I was appalled. Sure, we might all think those thoughts at times, but who are we to call someone else's culture stupid? Wouldn't you be extremely offended if that was you people were talking about? Anyway, that same person was in my group later in the afternoon when we were supposed to design an ideal village. I, as usual, took the role of the scribe/unofficial group moderator and started asking people what kinds of structures they wanted in our village. It was actually a rather humorous discussion. One of the boys wanted a strip club and a bar. All of us are fans of alternative energy, so we forbade cars and chose bicycles as alternative methods of transportation, and also implemented the use of solar energy. All of the other groups also included a beach, a river, and a mountain in their village. The same person who called the Eastern culture stupid also tended to shut out other people's ideas and simply talk louder over them to get their own point across.

We went out to a bar that night and I had an interesting chat with a French girl and a German boy about how wrong stereotypes are on an individual basis and how frustrating it is when someone just shouts out their first thoughts without thinking about them and how they might affect other people. That evening was fun, and the games we played during the day weren't exactly fun, but they were at least lighthearted and encouraged some level of cooperation.

Today, however, we started off by talking about differences, which are always divisive. Power distance among cultures, perceptions of time, etc. Then we filled out a form ranking how much we would tell people around us about certain issues. For example, how much would you disclose information about money to your parents? Friends? Perfect strangers from another culture? Then we had to compare answers. Turns out that the French are much, much more "expansif" (i.e. frank with everyone they actually know) about everything. Especially about sex. For example, the French girl in my group said that it would actually show a lack of respect for her to not tell her parents she was sleeping with someone because her parents had raised her and taught her how to behave. I personally wouldn't want to know details about my children's private lives to that extent. A lot of the differences, however, rather than being appreciated as just differences, ended up being points of attack. For example, a lot of the Chinese kids in our class wouldn't tell their parents about work/school problems, financial problems or sex, and got interrogated by the Europeans as to why. We went to lunch 20 minutes late as a result.

We came back after lunch to an afternoon in French and had to then make a list of 3-4 characteristics about our own cultures. This was intended to be a sort of defense against the stereotypes that we'd listed about everyone the day before. The Chinese, again, got absolutely torn apart. This, combined with that fact that they don't seem to understand/speak French as well as some of the Europeans (and were encouraged to speak in English, leading to confusion about which language we were really supposed to speak), made me feel awful. Until I got up there and had to do the same thing. First of all, I was basically told by the other American girls that I had to do all the talking because they refused to speak in French. So I started bringing up our points: the American Dream- individualism that means you've "made it" if you have a car, a house, you've married well, and have good friends. Next I talked about the fact that we're hesistant to "deranger" someone (it's kind of like bother, but on a more serious level, more about that in a moment). Then talked about nationalism, both the fact that we're a nation based on a Revolution and the fact that nationalism has increased for better or worse since 9/11. I was already embarrassed just being up in front of a group and having to speak in French without any real back-up. And then the questions began. What do you mean by deranger? That is to say that if you tell me about an idea you've had and I don't agree, I wouldn't say "You're absolutely wrong! How could you think that?" but instead might say "Hmmm... That's interesting that you feel that way." So someone in the audience says "Well how are we ever supposed to trust your country if you don't tell us the truth?" I tried to make a joke out of it by saying that I would write to Pres. Obama asking him to be very frank in his discussions... But I was mortified and felt like I had to defend my country and customs/characteristics that I certainly didn't come up with myself. Our teacher then asked about healthcare. I don't know much about it, but I tried to explain that to me it seems like wealthier people with health insurance want to keep the current system, whereas middle class/poorer people w/o it or with poor coverage need an overhaul and that it's creating a big debate in our country. Again, with the attack- why can't you just agree to provide coverage for everyone? It all got to me so badly that I left the class in tears (albeit quiet, discreet ones) and spent the break being extremely frustrated. Our poor professor came over when I went to the bathroom to compose myself and asked if I was upset because he'd forgotten us. He'd gone through the other nationalities and was going to let us break until someone reminded him about the Americans- ironically the same kid who had forced me to do all the talking for our intercultural presentation on goal setting. I explained that I was uncomfortable talking in front of a group like that who help very, very different opinions than me in a language in which I'm not fluent. He said he thought I'd done a good job and was interesting, and I said "Thank You" (because that's the American way- say thank you even if you don't mean it...) and eventually went back to class.

I suppose the day was so frustrating because this is the first time while I've been here that I've really been angry with anyone, especially the French. The Germans, actually, sat and at least listened. But with each group presenting I could see the very opinionated, albeit interesting, French girl whispering to her countrymen. That and the way in which questions were designed to bring down another culture's ideals and values... Americans are supposed to be the ignorant, bigoted and generally critical of other cultures whose ways are not our own. However, today/yesterday made me realize that disliking differences, even attacking them, is an ugly trait everywhere.

To end on a happier note: We had ice cream on the way home after a lunch of an apple and diet coke because our 20 min late release resulted in a lack of sandwiches. We also got our bank cards and checkbooks and I have no prior obligations this evening so I will finally, maybe, catch up on some sleep. :-)