Cultural Misunderstandings of our group and language lesson 4

 

Our fourth meeting was held on the roof of Lee's building. Lee offered us some soda, meanwhile we talked about the weather in our respective countries. This turned out to be interesting since each of our countries had specific characteristics of their own. Switzerland is hot and dry in summer, cold and snowy winter. However, the weather is subject to quick alterations, thus unpredictable. Germany is likewise hot and dry during the summer, the temperature doesn't drop much. However it rains a lot and the humidity is high in winter. Croatia is famous for its Mediterranean climate, with warm summers as well as cold and occasionally snowy winters, though not as cold compared to other european counterparts. Korea is especially hot and humid in summer, and cold, dry, in the winter.  

All members of our group possess a different background. Therefore, each member had unique experiences of cultural misunderstandings. First, Lee encountered cultural barriers in class. When Lee first came to the Netherlands, he thought that foreign students are very rude because they call the name of the teacher upon asking something to the lecturer. It is very rare and rude for a student to call a teacher by his/her first name in Korea. Korea has high power distance and collectivist cultural traits compared to the Netherlands. Thus making them very sensitive in relationship and hierarchy. Moreover, when Korean people talk to people of higher position than them, they refer to them by job title rather than name. This is an example of a cultural misunderstanding that occurred to Lee.

Our team members gave solutions to solve the cultural dilemma. First, it is to be open-minded. This could help in facing an uncommon situation, that you perhaps wouldn't face in your country, overseas. Hence, the lesson is to be open-minded and prepare to accept new things. The second option we came up with was learning about new cultures in advance. This would be really helpful for you to adapt to a new culture, since it can give you a headstart to understanding and accepting cultural diversity as well as preventing potential culture shocks.

Similar to Lee, Luka also experienced a teacher-student power distance misunderstanding, coming from an extremely highly ranked power distance country, Croatia. Additionally, Luka encountered a cultural misunderstanding in terms of punctuality. Coming from a country where people tend to be very inpunctual as well as superiors being lenient towards this issue, this led to him facing fierce backlash from his superiors and Dutch friends in The Hague to his suprise. Solutions for the last two, as discussed by our members, include the same adaptations as in Lee's case.

   

Language lesson 4

We learned familial expressions in lesson 4

Croatian(Luka)

family= obitelj

parents=roditelji

father=otac

mother=mama

children=djeca

Swiss German(Patrick)

family=famile

mother=mami

father=papi

children=chind

German(Nils)

family=familie

parent=eltern

father=papa

mother=mama

children=kinder

Korean(Lee)

family=가족

parent=부모님

father=아빠

mother=엄마

children=아이들