ACTUALITES

Cultural Iceberg: A Metaphor For Transitioning Into A New Culture

Picture an iceberg in your mind. Imagine, you are on a ship sailing towards an iceberg that is off in the distance. What exactly do you feel as it looms ever larger? Are you primarily occupied with the visible part or do you also wonder about what lies below the surface?

There are many different metaphors used to describe culture. A tree with its roots, melting pots and salad bowls, culture as a house, and the iceberg, just to name a few. My favourite one is the iceberg where only the tip is visible and most of its immense mass is hidden beneath the surface of the water. Just as the captain of a ship has to be aware of the underwater part of the iceberg to avoid disaster, we as visitors to other countries have to be aware of the hidden part of culture to minimize frustrations and misunderstandings

We can prepare ourselves for the visible part of culture in a new country. It is the part of culture that can be taught and researched. We can learn to speak the language, study a country’s history, art, music, and observe mannerism and dress. We can learn the rules for new games and so on.

The hidden part of our culture, on the other hand, is mostly in our subconscious, because we absorbed it from childhood on. It is handed down to us from generation to generation and is that part which we know instinctively, but would not be able to explain to others. We could also say, it is the "thinking" and "feeling" part of culture: habits, assumptions, attitudes, desires, values, tastes, etc.

Now, if we are in a new culture, our customary evaluations and interpretations are likely not to be on target because we see everything through our own cultural glasses. Imagine yourself in a new city trying to get around with a map from your own hometown. It would not take long for you to get lost and completely frustrated. But this is exactly what we do if we interpret everything we encounter in our new environment through our own cultural glasses without taking into account the vast hidden part of the new culture.

When we experience an encounter in the new culture that puzzles us, the most common reaction is to judge it through our own cultural glasses. We might wish that things would be different, more the way we are used to. I want to propose an alternate approach to our initial gut reaction. Instead of immediately and instinctively judging a situation through our own glasses, we might first just pause and notice what is happening and then realize that this is a cultural learning situation.

The anthropologist Edward T. Hall says:
"The great gift that the members of the human race have for each other is not exotic experiences but an opportunity to achieve awareness of the structure of their own system, which can be accomplished only by interacting with others who do not share that system" (Beyond Culture, pg. 44).

The fact that you reacted is telling you that you have the opportunity to learn something about your own culture and about yourself. What an opportunity for personal growth and new insight! You can compare two different approaches, that of the new culture and of your own culture. This gives you a choice, where you can decide what is the best fit for you or you can even take the best from both sides. You have converted a gut reaction to a new situation, which could have been negative, to a real win-win situation.

Source: Expat Woman
Date of publication: 5 November 2009

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