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Becoming Culturally Competent
Learning Cross-Cultural Sensitivity
We’ve traveled and worked all over the world. Sometimes foreigners like us, occasionally unintentionally, can leave their hosts heads spinning. But it does not have to be this way.
The path to other awareness
We’ve learned cross-cultural sensitivity the hard way by trial and error. I’ve lived in four different countries (a citizen of three). My wife Kris has lived in three. But still, cross-cultural adaptation continues to be a challenge.
When and how to bow to locals in Japan, ways to greet strangers in Mexico without appearing rude, and a million other potential social gaffes have always challenged us.
Unfortunately, we’ve also watched other North Americans behaving badly.
That’s one theme in the book “The Ugly American.” Here visitors from the USA are portrayed as self-absorbed, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless, and ignorant of local customs.
During our several years in Mexico, we would often spend a month or two visiting other states. While vacationing in Michoacan, we encountered a cross-cultural breakdown in communication that we thought was worth noting.
We were eating lunch in a local restaurant in the town of Patzcuaro. The…
