Sunday, September 27, 2009
Intercultural Communication
I first went on a volunteer trip to Chiang Rai in 2005 to teach English to village children at a boarding school. During the trip we had plenty of time to interact with the children there. I must say I learnt a lot about their culture during those times. You may not know that Thais hold their king in high regard and insulting the King is a criminal offence. Although I was aware that the king is highly respected in their culture, I underestimated the extent of it. I was playing with the children when the ice-cream vendor came along, and I wanted to try their local coconut ice-cream. I clumsily fished out some coins and one of the coins dropped. Instinctively I stretched out my foot and stepped on the coin to prevent it from rolling away. The children around all dropped their jaws and gave me disapproving looks. I was very puzzled but quickly picked the coin and paid for my ice-cream. I found out later from my team leader that stepping on a coin was tantamount to kicking the king in the head as it bears the king’s portrait. It also extends to stepping on banknotes and licking stamps, which are fairly common practices in Singapore. Although it is tempting to just bring all my usual practices over to a new culture, I realised that I am in a foreign land and I should be more sensitive to their culture.
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Hi Zheng Yang,
ReplyDeleteLike you, while I do know that the Thailand population hold their king in due regard, I believe that I would have reacted in the same manner as you did because to us, that is the most instinctive response. Hence, I would think that the blunder you have committed is understandable. However, it is important to learn from this incident, that is to be extra mindful of our actions, behaviour and what we say so that we would not appear offensive to the other cultures. This is especially important when we are in a foreign land which we have little understanding of.
All in all, I believe that this incident has deepen your understanding of the Thailand culture after having experienced it for yourself.
Regards,
Xin Wei
Hi Zhenyang,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this on your post which will remind me not to step on their notes when i visit Thailand in future. i guess your reaction to stop the coin rolling is a common reaction for everyone. i wonder what the Thai do if they want to prevent their coins from rolling off. This story also tells us that the Thais are respectful of their King which mean that we must not " PREY PREY" with stuffs that got to do with the Thai King.
Gail
Dear Zhengyang,
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't know about this if you haven't told us. I'll pay more attention when I visit Bangkok next time!
Anyway, I think it is inevitable for such incidents to happen when we are in a foreign country with a different culture which we have little understanding of. But still it's not very pleasant to commit such mistakes, especially if they are offensive to the other party. Hence, we need to bear in mind not to make the same mistakes again.
To prevent causing misunderstandings in a foreign country, we could research on the culture and other relevant issues of the country to gain more understanding before going there.
Cheers,
Chai Yee
Hi Zhengyang,
ReplyDeleteThrowing ourselves in a foreign land and trying our best to fit in is indeed a challenge. For your case, you're lucky that there's no "Strict Thai Police" around to catch you when you're stepping on that small, poor coin. To us, it may look fine as there's no law in Singapore that restricts from stepping or kicking coins and dollars. But to the Thais, it is BIG thing.
I suppose there's only so much that we can do to go with the flow of these foreign cultures. We can read tons of books on them but at the end of the day, it's through first hand experience would we then open up our eyes and heart to the differences in their cultural behaviour and lifestyle. It's only then that we start to truly appreciate the essence behind the development of their cultures.
Cheers,
Ariff
Hi Xin Wei, Gail, Chai Yee and Ariff,
ReplyDeleteThank you all for commenting. I think that Chai Yee mention a really good point to, “research on the culture and other relevant issues of the country to gain more understanding before going there,” which is very important. Although in this case I did do my research, I failed to observe how the locals behaviour in a similar situation. As this is a fairly common incident, I could have asked the local children why they would rather bend over and use their hands to stop the coin from rolling away instead of simply stepping on the coin. This would have prevented the incident from occurring. Therefore I believe it is pertinent to do your research, observe and ask to enhance intercultural understanding.
There is usually a reason for a particular behaviour in a culture and even though the particular action may seem weird initially, we will be only able to understand the rationale if we peer deeper into the culture.
Once again thank you all for commenting and hope you will not repeat my mistake the next time you go for holiday in Thailand.
Sawadii Krap,
Zhengyang.