Cross-Cultural Competence Assignment (Self-reflection)
Cross Culture Presumptions My cross culture experience started from my journey in the Netherlands. It is my first time essentially living in a foreign country over 6 months. When I first met Dutch people, I was surprised by how directly they talk in their interactions. At first, I thought that their way of thinking and talking were just because of their personalities. However, as I am more intergraded into the local life, I then realized that it is the Dutch Culture that people talk directly to each other. Initially, I felt very offensive and uncomfortable by Dutch people’s direct response, as mainly opposed to the culture that I came from. On the other hand, as a Chinese, I tend to express …show more content…
To my surprise, it's not true that German have no sense of humor. Especially, the German teammate we are working with is very creative and easy-going, but yet she took the team assignment very carefully and proactively, for which she was always the first person to initiate meeting and solve disagreement timely and actively in the group. As a matter of fact, it came to my notice that sometimes people put too much emphasis on the overall impression of things, while ignoring the differences among individuals, which leads us not objectively to observe another culture. In addition, ethnocentrism that is in accordance with the national culture, values and norms, will eventually lead to cultural conflicts, due to the fact that it usually becomes hard to understand and balance such as people's behavior, communication style and social customs cultivated in other cultures. As one of the objectives of the Living Diversity team assignment, in addition to the four stages of individual “Experiential learning cycle” theory, I have completed a full cycle of Concrete experience of receiving culture shock and trying to accept those unusual behaviors and experiences happened to me, Reflective observation of trying to understand the surrounding environment on a daily base, Abstract conceptualization of establishing my own Dutch culture theories-in-use …show more content…
Cultural development is always resistance, the degree of accepting new things in the cultures, depending on the degree of how people are interested in replacing old things with new things. In general, people are most likely to accept those interested small changes and little destruction would be made. Secondly, during the progress of solving social problems in the process, people will try to borrow ideas and information from other cultures that are considered useful. And it will be adjusted so that it meets the needs of social development. Thus, by constantly learning and raising awareness of cross cultures, it will eventually produce a wide range of behavior patterns. Nonetheless, it will still retain a fundamental feature of the national
Cross Culture Presumptions My cross culture experience started from my journey in the Netherlands. It is my first time essentially living in a foreign country over 6 months. When I first met Dutch people, I was surprised by how directly they talk in their interactions. At first, I thought that their way of thinking and talking were just because of their personalities. However, as I am more intergraded into the local life, I then realized that it is the Dutch Culture that people talk directly to each other. Initially, I felt very offensive and uncomfortable by Dutch people’s direct response, as mainly opposed to the culture that I came from. On the other hand, as a Chinese, I tend to express …show more content…
To my surprise, it's not true that German have no sense of humor. Especially, the German teammate we are working with is very creative and easy-going, but yet she took the team assignment very carefully and proactively, for which she was always the first person to initiate meeting and solve disagreement timely and actively in the group. As a matter of fact, it came to my notice that sometimes people put too much emphasis on the overall impression of things, while ignoring the differences among individuals, which leads us not objectively to observe another culture. In addition, ethnocentrism that is in accordance with the national culture, values and norms, will eventually lead to cultural conflicts, due to the fact that it usually becomes hard to understand and balance such as people's behavior, communication style and social customs cultivated in other cultures. As one of the objectives of the Living Diversity team assignment, in addition to the four stages of individual “Experiential learning cycle” theory, I have completed a full cycle of Concrete experience of receiving culture shock and trying to accept those unusual behaviors and experiences happened to me, Reflective observation of trying to understand the surrounding environment on a daily base, Abstract conceptualization of establishing my own Dutch culture theories-in-use …show more content…
Cultural development is always resistance, the degree of accepting new things in the cultures, depending on the degree of how people are interested in replacing old things with new things. In general, people are most likely to accept those interested small changes and little destruction would be made. Secondly, during the progress of solving social problems in the process, people will try to borrow ideas and information from other cultures that are considered useful. And it will be adjusted so that it meets the needs of social development. Thus, by constantly learning and raising awareness of cross cultures, it will eventually produce a wide range of behavior patterns. Nonetheless, it will still retain a fundamental feature of the national