Here's a post that I just posted on my class' discussion board. Cindy is one of my classmates and Slimbach is Richard Slimbach, the author of 'World Wise: Global Learning for the Common Good,' a text that we are using in my course on culture.
Living in a foreign culture seems to have a knack for amplifying my shortcomings. My reactions here skate from 'host-culture bashing' to running with the 'natives' with a dizzying fickleness. There are only rare days when I can feel truly confident about how I have interacted with the people in my host country. Most days leave me wondering how I could have phrased things better or how I could have reacted more gracefully in a given situation.
Even when I try to have the best intentions in an interaction, I find myself questioning the validity of these intentions and wondering if the other person is baffled as to why I would have considered my intentions to be the most appropriate. When I try to see life from Chinese shoes, I find that even the method I use to tie those shoes is backward, and I stumble around with the right foot in the left shoe. There is always something that I could have done better.
As I discussed this with my supervisor, she pointed out that we receive copious amounts of grace from the people here, and that most people understand that even if our intentions are skewed from time to time, they recognize that we come with the heart of a learner. I think that living cross-culturally presents many opportunities for guilt to take-hold in our hearts, but this is arguably just as destructive as entering a culture with the reckless and destructive ignorance that Slimbach is working so hard to combat in his book. Cindy, I'm glad you brought up Slimbach's words on retreating from the community because I think it pertains to this situation as well. It is tempting to go into solitude out of guilt for less than perfect cultural interactions, but it is only by honestly and transparently accepting our mistakes and embracing the grace of the community that the most transformative and freeing learning can take place.
I recently had a wonderfully rich conversation with a Chinese professor from Sichuan University in Chengdu. When I asked him how I could better connect and learn from people here, he quickly answered that learning and using language is the best way to demonstrate respect for the people here and that language breaks down the wall that separates me the outsider from my hosts. When I use even a little bit of Sichuan dialect, it expresses that I am here to live alongside the local population.
