How to 国際交流? (異文化理解・国際交流講座等)

Hey guys, I want to do a little soudan.



I am planning my next 文化サロン. In my previous 文化サロン, someone put down "国際交流の注意点について" as a topic that s/he wants to me to do in the future. Also another request I got was "外国人とのコミュニケーションをとる方法について."



If I do take on this topic, it will probably be something like "異文化・国際交流の基礎" (Well, I would probably debunk/lecture them about the idea of "gaikokujin" first before anything)



A big smile, an open mind, no stupid or offensive questions are some of the chuitens I have off the top of my head. Non-verbal communication is big when language is a barrier so I'll probably throw in a charades segment in the lecture.



What are some of your cross-culture communication tips? What would you do for a "the basics" kind of lecture?



Somewhere in the back of my head I think they just need a general lecture of "how to chat people up." Is that a skill that Japanese people lack in general without the aid of alcohol?

I've made a presentation basically about "more culturally sensitive/effective ways to communicate with your ALTs" to a group of HTs/JTEs in Japanese before that was well received. I went through the ppt file I used for it and tried to pick out the points I think apply here, too. The part of the presentation I think goes for what you want is the "insensitive comments" section. Basically whenever I said, "Don't do this/avoid saying this," I always made sure to first explain why I imagine Japanese people often say/do the thing in the first place (basically, "I know you don't have bad intentions"), then why a non-Japanese person may find that insensitive or irksome ("but from this perspective, it seems like~/people can interpret it in this way"), and finally suggest something else to do or say instead ("so here are some alternatives you can try").



I divided it into a few sections:

① Life in Japan/Japanese Culture

- great chopstick use/Japanese ability! → I know trying to be polite/use お世辞/make the conversation more comfortable for everyone but → taken as a false/stupid compliment (either flat-out untrue or if you are good, you have to deny or explain), also told this a thousand times → try asking about places they like locally, things about their hometown, if you're going to compliment them do it about something specific and true

- "we Japanese~"/日本人は普通こうしない/etc → what's 「普通」and what's 「常識」? What are these based on? What is your 相手's 普通 and 常識? Basically I tried to make them think and suggested they explain things/why they do them in detail.

- making assumptions about what a given person may or may not know about Japan/Japanese language and culture



② Personal Matters/Private Life

- physical appearance (especially sizes and weight -- even if it's "positive" praise)

- dating/love life, "types," etc

- What's "private"? Different definitions depending on who you are, where you're from, how you were raised, etc.

- try talking about "things" instead -- clothes, accessories, what people have already said in above comments (normal questions like what movies/books/music do you like)



③ Non-J's Native Culture

- any and all variations of 「外国では～ですか？」and「外国人は～ですか？（～そうなんだ）」are NG

- bc there's no country called 外国

- even within 英語圏 the cultures of each nation are really different, even within a country there can be a lot of 強い地域性 (bring up 方言 maybe?)

(An example I like to use here is that in most of the Midwestern U.S., where I was raised, you ALWAYS take off your shoes when entering a home unless given express permission to keep them on. Shock and awe, someone in ザ・外国 takes off their shoes. But my relatives who live on the east coast? Shoes on. Always weirded me out when I went to visit them. 同じアメリカなのに！)

- making (bad) assumptions about a person's country and in particular saying so

- an individual is a representative of their country, yes, but 個人 does not equal 国民

(Ie, "I like natto." "Oh, so Americans like natto!" Uh, no. You can say something like, "When did you first try natto?" "What do you like to put on your natto?" etc.)

- always use the name of your 相手's country; if you don't know, say something like 貴方の国



And then I wrapped it up by taking about assumptions/stereotypes (思いこみ、憶測、固定観念、十把一絡げ、例外の存在)

Especially with assumptions/憶測, I talked about the conscious and unconscious ways they can happen. (Conscious like, "Well, if it was me, I would..." because the person saying/doing the thing isn't actually you. You need empathy here/相手の立場に身を置くこと. Unconscious as in, the culture(s) in which you were born/raised, general life experience, and personality -- and point out the latter two are very different for everyone, even the supposedly homogenous Japanese population. But the supposed homogenous Japanese population is a topic for another day.)



A lot of the feedback I received said that they really liked it when I used personal examples from my own life. I often didn't write these on the powerpoint, but after I went over the initial points -- "and an example of this point that happened to me was..."/"my best hulemdo in elementary school had parents who immigrated from China, so I used chopsticks at her house"/"I take off my shoes at home, but my relatives in a different area don't and that felt weird to me"/etc. So feel free to put in personal anecdotes that illustrate your points! Your audience will probably remember better that way.



When asked what I would personally like to be asked about (as I had discussed how hard it was for me to say, "Generally, Americans do ~/American culture is ~" because there are so many cultures within the blob that is "America" or ザ・外国), I said that I liked it when people asked me about my family and hulemdos (and if that fails, my hometown or uni town). And this is actually true. (Ie, "What does your family do for Christmas?" is a much easier and fun question for me than, "What do Americans do on Christmas?" The former involves me telling cute stories about decorating a tree and finding a plastic pickle; the latter involves a, "First off, there are plenty of Americans who do not celebrate Christmas for reasons x, y, and z, and I think it's important to know about that, and then there's the secular Christmas vs religious Christmas, but I suppose in general the secular Christmas goes like this..."-type answer that is long and that people rarely want to hear.) So I think I will put this in the presentation if I give it again.



Anyway, I hope this helped spark some ideas!

(Also, I agree with avoiding money, politics, and religion if you're not sure where your 相手 stands about discussing those things. I personally enjoy talking about history, which can very easily lead into politics and religion, so I try to be careful....)