Blog #5 - Post Service

          Reflecting on my time spent with this magnificent family from Burma, I found a lot of themes across my encounters. The most prominent aspect intercultural communication was our language barrier. Going into the experience, I did not realize how hoard it would be to simply communicate “yes” and “goodbye”. This really opened up my eyes to how truly difficult it would be to be forced to leave the place you have known forever. This lack of communication almost felt paralyzing at times and it was very easy to become frustrated. When this happened, I would simply think of a new way to do the activity or change activities entirely and try again at a different time. Also, to combat this problem, as a group we would work on connecting our words with our facial expressions and gestures. This way, the family was also learning. Every time I went into the house, I reminded myself to leave my ethnocentric way of thinking behind me. I have been realizing how prominent this problem is in America ever since. We expect everyone to be like “us” and if they are not, they are weird or less than. I think this is a big aspect in which everyone can focus on and grow positively. Once the problem is recognized, it is easy to adjust and to be more understanding. I think the biggest difference in our cultures could be related to John Hall's cultural taxonomies theory. I think the Burmese culture is more high context, compared to America who is low context. Here we do not like things to be taken for interpretation. I saw this difference most prominently in our greetings. As we said goodbye, we would try to say "goodbye" and express our gratitude for allowing us to come into their home. The family would simply smile at us as we left. This could be attributed to the language barrier, but I can see there is more to it. In the culture they come from it is not as important to talk all the time, they are more comfortable with silence. 

            This experience has already started to shape my interpersonal and, especially, intercultural interactions. I have been exposed to some cultural diversity in my life, but since I came to college my interactions have increased greatly. Now, I try to make sure I say hello to everyone, no matter his or her race or ethnicity. I didn’t realize my problems with this till I started learning about these concepts in this course. In the future, I want to become comfortable enough to really go out of my way to form connections with these people whom I do not know. I think if I begin to do this, I will learn a lot from different cultures. I also want to be a person who is comfortable to talk to anyone. I do not want to go along with America’s ethnocentric way of thinking, I want to challenge this thought process. The experiences we were able to have through World Relief are indispensable. I enjoyed being able to assist this family in such a simple way. In the future, I would like to do more work along these lines.