Communicating with People from Different Cultures

I enjoyed reading the article Ten Commandments of Intercultural Communication, it has some great basic information about communicating with people from other cultures. There are many situations where you may need to utilize this information. Cultural diversity is something that companies these days are striving for; it is not uncommon to have employees from several different cultures working together. You could also benefit from this information if your career requires you to travel for work, if your company works directly with other companies, or even in our everyday lives – at a gas station or the grocery store.

I used to work as a server/bartender in a small, family owned, restaurant. The family that owned the restaurant was from Mexico. I have had plenty of Hispanic friends, but they were all born in the U.S., I had never known anyone that had moved here from Mexico. Some of the cultural differences were surprising.

One of the Ten Commandments mentioned was etiquette rules, or manners (Hahn, 2005). I used to open the restaurant at 8 a.m. I am not a morning person and generally avoid as much conversation as I can. When the cooks would come in to work, I would continue to do my job, getting as much prepped and ready for the rush as I could. After a while, I found out that I was unintentionally being offensive and rude. In the town the family moved from, it is customary to greet everyone with “good morning” or “Buenos Dias”, even strangers and people they disliked. Not greeting someone is considered offensive. After they told me this, I did my best to greet them every morning when they came in.

 

Another one of the Ten Commandments I noticed while working in the restaurant was status symbols (Hahn, 2005). In this family’s culture, men are seen as superior to women. This was difficult for me to understand and caused conflict on more than one occasion, but I did my best to withhold judgement. I worked with this family for almost four years (long enough to be considered part of the family) so I had seen many situations where the wife was not treated in a way that is culturally normal here in the U.S. When it was time to eat lunch, the husband would sit down and wait for the wife to bring his food. She would bring him a plate of food and then go to the bar to get him a drink – when he had everything he needed, then she would sit down to eat. It took a long time to understand that this is their culture and she does not mind serving her husband, that is her duty and she is happy to do it.

When dealing with people from different cultures, it is very important not to judge them based on their differences. What seems completely crazy to us could be normal behavior to them. Just remember, to someone else, our behaviors may seem bizarre and incomprehensible too.

 

Hahn, M. (2005, December 30). Ten Commandments of Intercultural Communications. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?Ten-commandments-of-intercultural-communication&id=120247.