5/22/2021 W05 Blog: Culture Miscommunication

K. Lenore Rivera W05 Blog: Culture Miscommunication


We should all be careful with judgements and assumptions. This will aid in reducing or avoiding cultural miscommunication completely. When I was living in international grad school housing in Knoxville, TN, USA we had a good friend from China who was a member of the church. We went to his residence to give him a birthday "cake" once because I knew his birthday was the day before mine. This cake was just a giant rice crispy treat in a heart shape. We put a candle in it, sang him happy birthday, and made him blow it out. He was SO surprised. He told us that he had never really celebrated his birthday before like that. I told him. "You probably already have eaten something like this before."  I assumed he had eaten rice crispy treat before since it is made of rice and he is from China where I know they eat rice. He told me he had never seen a dessert like that ever before.  Double shocker for me. I made the false assumption that he knew what a rice crispy treat was.

 

So here is a quiz for you! 

What would best explain this double surprise for our Chinese friend?

A.) Birthdays and candle blowing are only celebrated outside of the home for the Chinese people.

B.) Birthdays are only celebrated every decade for the Chinese people. Besides, Rice Crispy Treats are never to be heard of because marshmallows are not sold in China.

C.) The Chinese do not celebrate birthdays very often and in some regions they may never make a big deal out of them.

D.) Chinese people never sing Happy Birthday and believe it to be unlucky to blow.

The correct answer is at the end of this article. To learn more about these kinds of assumptions you can read https://immerqi.com/blog/chinese-birthday/ . It is a brilliant idea that a company and/or organization places ads where they teach about cultural diversity. Sometimes the jokes from ads may come from this type of commercial and we need to be cautious. Here is a good example of what I am speaking of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALWwK7Vz4gY . This cross-culture campaign is praiseworthy and well-done for this bank.  

Miscommunication causes a lot of problems and issues in society. Miscommunication is always a big possibility. People from Latin America, for example, try to not hurt people’s feelings. As a result, they may be misinterpreted.



The best answer is C. Great! You did it!


Comments

  1. UnknownMay 22, 2021 at 10:19 PM

    Lenore, I enjoyed your article. It was so interesting. I agree that we should be careful with judgments and assumptions. By the way, we eat rice every day like Chinese people. And I love rice crispy:-)

    Hisako

    ReplyDelete

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