NEWSFLASHES

How good are your multicultural skills?

When you are living abroad, you always rely heavily on your empathy and adaptability. The five multicultural skills (Cultural Empathy, Open-mindedness, Social Initiative, Emotional Stability and Flexibility) may be able to help you.

Cultural empathy
The Cultural Empathy multicultural skill will help you to have empathy with the feelings, ideas and behaviour of people with another cultural background. You often wonder: Why is she saying that? Why is he acting like that? What is going on with that person? Personal traits may be the reason behind this but culture can also be of influence on how someone thinks and behaves. In a restaurant in Japan while sitting on a tatamimat and enjoying Japanese delicacies, the waiter knelt down next to me to take my order. I come to realise that it is not deemed polite from the Japanese culture perspective to address a customer from a different height while if he sits on his knees, the difference in height is no longer there.

Open-mindedness
It is very commen in Dutch culture to tell another person what you think of something (an individualistic society). In many Asiatic countries, however, the interests of the group are often put above individual interests (a collectivistic society) and it is not polite to have others lose face. To say “No” is viewed in these countries as losing face and will be avoided for this reason. When a Japanese person answers with “Hai”, he is only indicating: “Yes, I heard you”. He has not said yes or no and loss of face is not involved in any way. You will respect these values and standards that belong to a different culture and you will take them into account with the Open-mindedness skill. This, however, does not mean that you have to take over these values and standards. Your own values and standards have made you into what you are through your upbringing and development. You cannot simply forget about this.

Social Initiative
Do you find it easy to approach others? Do you often take the initiative to start a conversation? Then you have a high level of Social Initiative. Some expat partners feel unsure and will be hesitant in calling others or in going to a gathering especially when they have recently arrived. Thoughts such as “Who is really looking to meet me?”, “They are already so busy” or “I do not master the language sufficiently” are irrational thoughts that further raise the threshold. Positive experiences (someone responds cheerfully to your invitation to come and have a cup of tea) will give you self-confidence and will make it easier to make contact with others.

Emotional Stability and Flexibility
You will experience new and sometimes difficult situations when abroad. Situations that defy logic in your book, that you experience as being laborious or that are very time-consuming. Your Flexibility skill will support you to deal with this and your Emotional Stability will ensure that you remain calm and collected during all of those stressful situations that you may encounter. Continuously, you need to make use of your Flexibility and Emotional Stability: when dealing with people, when arranging daily things and when accepting that things will not go as you are used to during daily life.

How can you develop your multicultural skills?

• Decide for yourself what your strong and more vulnerable multicultural skills are and why you believe this is so. Becoming aware of your strong and vulnerable skills may clarify an issue and may give you more grip on the situation.
• Are you happy, sad, angry, irritated, surprised, fearful or disgusted by an event? Investigate and name which of the five multicultural skills are related to this (more than one may apply). Becoming aware how often and which multicultural skills play a positive or negative role in your daily life is what it is all about.

Source: Wereld Expat Magazine
Publication date: 12 February 2009

More news