Review-Cultural Mythology and Global Leadership

Kessler, Eric H. and Diana J. Wong-Mingji (Eds), Cultural Mythology and Global Leadership
2009. Edward Elgar Pub. ISBN-10: 1847204031

Reviewed by Dr. George Simons at diversophy.com

My mouth watered when first I saw the publication of this title, as it promised a next step in the exploration of cultural phenomena from within a culture’s

view and vision of itself. It has been my perception that the intercultural field has suffered from a plethora of models and mental paradigms that impose alien structures on the cultures to be studied and understood, and that the next task facing us is to see how different cultures define themselves and how they tend to look upon and evaluate others from their own cultural perspective.

Myths are an important part of the construction of a culture. Their telling creates, reflects and confirms, as well as continually adapts the values of a culture to the moment in which they are being retold. One might call them the constructive-instructive tools of culture. They are too often left behind in the research, analysis and codification of what we call intercultural knowledge.

This book brings together twenty studies that attempt to relate the myths of the country or region to the indigenous concept of leadership and its development in contemporary theory and practice. The framework of each study is identical, i.e., first, an exposition of the cultural myths or larger-than-life stories that speak of each people and of their leaders. The mythic characters may be anything from gods who shaped the universe as seen by a specific culture to real characters that shaped its history and have achieved mythic proportions in the cultural memory.

Secondly, there is an overview of how leadership is perceived in each culture. This generally takes the form of seeing how some of the values in the mythology may be reflected or used in current leadership thinking or in the behaviors of select leaders in politics and commerce.

There follows a look at the global and practical implications of leadership philosophy and practice within the culture. These are illustrated by one or more “commentary boxes” offering quotations from noted leaders. Each chapter is abundantly footnoted and referenced citing everyone from Aristotle to Ziber. The contributors to this book are by-and-large business and management scholars who see the relevance of both ethnic and organizational culture to their work rather than interculturalists, though they have some familiarity with theories of Hofstede and Trompenaars and occasionally cite where these theories break-down.

That being said, there is great diversity in the approaches taken by the various authors to the selection of the mythological content and to their perceptions and recommendations for contemporary leadership. Some authors underline characteristics (and failings) in terms of mythical prototypes while others use these as a jumping off point to suggest or recommend the relevance and applicability of current management theory to the development of today’s leaders.

While the mythological summaries are of varying quality and depth, it was interesting to read these summaries in the context of leadership and the various opinions of how the myths were relevant to flesh and blood leaders of our times. On the other hand, the book as a whole tends to suffer from having an “undistributed middle,” that is, there is in most cases a lack of concrete evidence that the heroes of mythology provide models or types for the leaders of today. Rather, from an intercultural perspective, one is forced to ask more complex questions that seem beyond the perspective or at least the task of the various contributors, e.g., chicken-and-egg questions:

• How do myths and heroes create cultural values? vs How do cultures create and continue to shape their mythologies?
• To what degree is a leader (or anyone else for that matter) shaped by the heroes and myths in his or her cultural ambience? vs How do we make choices about our heroes in order to further the values we have chosen for ourselves or our group?
• How much is hero identification, where it exists, a matter of intrinsic instinct and calling? vs How much conscious choice and reshaping occurs when leaders are chosen for their political or commercial value?

Case in point. I was stunned that the editors, who are authors of the first chapter on the USA), chose “superheroes” as the mythic typology for understanding US leadership. There were were two cohorts of superheroes cited, those created around the startup World War II (1938-42), e.g., Superman and Wonder Woman, and those surrounding the height of the Cold War confrontations (early 1960’s), e.g., Incredible Hulk and the X-Men. I found no significant mention of the socio-cultural context of their genesis.

While the authors of this chapter do offer a table of advice about leadership behaviors taken from the strengths and weakness of each superhero, and, while archetypal US heroism may be reflected in these individualistic, usually loner-saviors of comic book and silver screen, they are not per se our prototypes, at least once we have outgrown our Halloween costumes. These are actually found in the frontier mentality and continue to be reflected in the Hollywood heroes and political posturing ad nauseam. The theme repeats itself beginning with the cowboy who drives the bad guys from town to the sci-fi world saviors, and currently, in videogames where the players can themselves play the role of the superheroes.

While in many cases the mythology cited has archetypal religious roots religion is taken most seriously by the authors of the section on India. Surprisingly, though the author’s of the US chapter mention that Superman echoes the Moses story, there is no mention of the role of religion in the most “born-again” of all countries where political and military leaders as well as commercial capitalists often ooze piety. Perhaps this is implicit in the choice of superheroes and myth, in that they represent the importance of reinventing oneself in this culture.

While there is too much in this volume to comment on in detail, it is appropriate at least to offer some examples of insights produced by its reading. I bullet a few of them here:

• Canada is nicely distinguished from the USA by its sense how the land and multicultural realities have shaped leadership.
• The chapter on Israel traces the impact of the transition from a socialistic to and individualistic culture and the consequences on leadership.
• The impact of external domination in Poland and Islamic ascendency in Iran are both illustrate how deeper, older cultural roots remain powerful forces even when they have been suppressed or superseded by other ideology.

We know that within the same culture, the wisdom found one proverb (take risks) may seem to be contradicted by that found in another (be careful). Yet these complement each other in the big picture. So too, the gods and heroes of myth do not provide a consistent story but a rich locus from which we may draw the values and behaviors needed for our times and our exercise of leadership. In this regard, this book seems more illustrative than instructive and invites a closer look at how we make our choices of leaders and how leaders make their choices.

Surviving in the Civilized Jungle--review

Given the nature of the human beast, or perhaps the often beastly nature of humans, it is not surprising that philosophers have often cast commentaries and advice into bestiaries and fables. In the tradition of Aesop and La Fontaine, the latest on the scene is French consultant Bernard Nadoulek’s  Survivre Dans La Jungle Civilisée - Essai de stratégie à usage personnel  [Survive in the Civilized Jungle: A Guide for Personal Use].

This delightfully well written book casts the denizens of the organizational workplace with telling animal names for the roles they play. There are CEOs like Twisted Crocodile and Grumpy Bear, marketing directors like Ferocious Rhino, and other characters we are all likely to know from experience such as Irritable Baboon, White Goose, Golden Gorilla, Single-minded Ram, Putrid Hyena, Presumptuous Coyote and the like. I admit to a feeble French zoological vocabulary, so these names are literally my rendering aided by a friendly Larousse. They could no doubt be heard and translated more vividly by a native speaker.

The book in fact deals with common workplace situations, binds that we are thrust into by bosses and colleagues and our attempts to deliver ourselves safely from them without too much loss of honor, fur or plumage.  Our guide is the Eternal Owl, who has been invited to lecture at the HEC (acronym of the Grande Ecole de Commerce in Paris, but in our fable, the “Toads Institute of Higher Studies”). Owl (May we view her as a consultant guest lecturer?) rivals Allah in having close to 99 names each touting her insight and wisdom delivered incisively as the pages continue.

The situations could occur anywhere, but they are cast in a French organizational jungle for the most part where hierarchical relationships have their rules, practices and protocols. In later pages, in a more explicit analysis of strategy, Nadoulek will treat interactions from the perspective of their cultural context, with comparative Latin vs. Anglo-Saxon scenarios. It is here that the author, who is also a martial arts master, treats cultural values much as if they were the flow of energies in combat. It is a metaphor that I am quite attached to having spent some years as a student of Aikido.

Survivre Dans La Jungle Civilisée is, despite its scant 185 pages, far too rich to be captured in a two page review. My preference is to highlight a few of its insights of value for the intercultural field. Nadolek’s survival advice consists of five strategic principles:

1. Think in terms of the opposite. In a jam, examine the strategies that run contrary to your knee jerk inclination.
   
2. Put yourself in the other person’s head. What are they after, what do they want to protect, what do they expect or fear will happen?
   
3. If you can’t solve a problem, deal with it. Many problems in organizations cannot be solved, but most can be treated or dealt with appropriate steps to avoid or eliminate their damaging consequences.
   
4. Take local culture into account. What values dominate and need to be served if you are to succeed in your influence attempt?
   
5. Cooperative strategies pay off better than conflictual ones. Be ready to cooperate when the other party is ready. What is proven in game theory is also proven in life.
   

While these principles are offered as advice for surviving in the “civilized jungle,” they are in fact tools of cultural competence, since we might recall that culture can well be defined as a group’s strategic lore for survival and success in a given environment. While our ethnocentrism may insist that a certain value is at stake in a given conflict, say truth, for example, this will not help us in a conflict that is set in a context where, say, relationship is the prime value, or order, etc. Framing one’s influence attempts on “the truth” or on rationality in one of these other contexts may result in the glories of martyrdom as seen from another vantage point, but will hardly ever yield the desired results in the current scene. Cultures, Nadoulek reminds us, are not based on rationality, but on history, traditions, beliefs, religions, and the like. The foundations of rational thought themselves are not rational but contextual. If you must engage, pick your battles but know full well the terrain on which they will be played out.

Influencing requires a clear picture of one’s objective—not always obvious, and there are choices here. You must decide how to pursue the objective both directly and indirectly with full awareness of the outcome you expect, all of this within the cultural context. An effective strategy also depends on ones having performed beforehand the same analysis on the potential objectives, strategies and expectations of the other(s) you will be engaging. Depending on the ambient culture, the satisfactory resolution of a dispute may occur by sharing the prize or the pain, following the letter of the law, or a shootout at OK Corral. For a strategy to succeed it needs to be based on full knowledge of the fundamental values that shape the collective identity of the culture in which you are immersed. Beliefs must be dealt with as facts upon which to base your strategy. 

The book ends with the parable of a King in search of invincibility with the lesson being that it is not found in force or terror, which lead to self destruction on a grand scale, but in simply not being where the adversary expects you to be. Want to know more…? An appendix defines and summarizes the critical matters of strategy.  It is a very good read. 

Shocking Cultures--a review

Only a few pages into this slight book, I was already seeing it as a screenplay of Hollywood proportions. A surefire box office hit. With the perspective gained by his own experiences of coming to the USA from Cameroon as a school teacher of French, Dr. Ngomsi details the experiences of newcomers from abroad, his own and others’. While the book lays bare what the newcomer has to learn do and set aside to succeed and survive in a new environment, it also exposes, with the US as an example, the disastrous nature of the unconscious assumptions of the countries to which he or she may come.   

At the outset Shocking Cultures is intensely humorous as the newcomer goes from gaffe to gaffe in the hope of eventually making sense out of the environmentand the people in it. It is not just a matter of laughing at the ignorance of the newcomer, but in fact it is the obliviousness of the USians to their own cultural assumptions that creates the loudest laughs and in subsequent stories the most tearstained disasters.

The book opens with a scenario in which, accidentally “flipping the bird” while counting words on his fingers in a third grade class, the eager teacher is trapped somewhere between prudery and political correctness, and becomes the butt of both snide and explicit ridicule as well as accusations of criminal impropriety.

Cultural studies have long been strapped with distinguishing “high” context cultures from “low” context ones. This is a Western academic bias. Rather, what is required is knowledge of the contexts of various cultures.  Ngomsi’s tales make it eminently clear that US contextual assumptions and language can be as mysterious to the newcomer as are lore of a secret society. The context is too high and takes the newcomer too long to climb. One can often not find foothold on the cultural escarpment even with lively curiosity and earnest questions.

The danger of a serious fall is magnified by unfamiliarity with the language if one is speaking the local tongue as a second language speaker. When an US American says, “Tell me about it!” it is not a request for information but an emphatic statement that one already knows from experience what the other person is saying.  Calling someone “smart” is not always complimentary. Shocking Cultures is laden with these puzzling words and phrases that create painful moments for the newcomer. As the Hindi proverb would have it, “Fell from the sky, landed in a tree”—things go from bad to worse—the newcomer digs a deeper hole trying to climb out of a first mistake.

US addiction to law and order and a follow the rules mentality can be frustrating for USians and visitors alike. They provide the most painful stories in this collection. Let me be very blunt. I suspect that a number of US readers of this book will have a chuckle and dismiss the author’s dilemmas as did his colleagues in the story, “What can you expect of a ‘nappy-headed’ African?” To sober this racist reaction, I can simply cite the case of an intensely familial and culturally sophisticated French mother (now a CEO in an important company). She was detained and interrogated by police in a small Midwestern US town and threatened with losing custody of her children. Her crime? Leaving them in the car for five minutes while she went into the drugstore to get change for the parking meter. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, one more time, “It’s your culture, stupid!”

The book is eminently readable. Ngomsi nicely provides a list the topics issues dealt with in the stories of each chapter on its first page. I found these valuable to review after reading the chapter as they sharpened up the learnings that the engaging stories brought home. It is also intensely personal and one is left with the eternal human dilemma of the expatriate and the immigrant, the struggle between following one’s heart and finding one’s way in the dark woods of another culture.

Shocking Cultures is a strong argument for intercultural training not only for expatriates but for those who welcome them.  It also argues for very explicit and clear introduction to those parts of a culture that are highly contextual as well as those people would rather not speak about. I would recommend it as a must-read for people who do expatriation training as well as using it as a give-away to arriving expats and their hosts. 

 

The Healing Wisdom of Africa--a review

The Healing Wisdom of Africa by Malidoma Patrice Somé is very much about ritual and is an initiatory ritual experience in its own right.  As I started into it, I was discouraged and beset with the temptation to lay it aside. It felt like a mix of 1980s New Age californication with reminiscences of a Catholic boyhood.  Being my stubborn self, however, I dragged it on bus trips to the market and schlepped it to the swimming pool to prelude my afternoon sieste provinçale. Willy-nilly I pushed my way deeper into it and achieved a breakthrough at about the two-thirds point.

I can’t say exactly when or how this happened, but the shift was one that I had experienced on occasion before. Once was at an Easter Vigil ceremony at St. Meinrad Abbey in the middle of the night. It started slowly and tediously with the lengthy chanted biblical history of salvation interspersed by our joining the rhythm of the monastic psalmody. At a certain point my spirit entered a new space where time was no more, tiredness disappeared and the distracting realities of daily existence had vanished.  We were no longer individuals attending a service but a community of healing spirits.

Another ritual entry into sacred space happened in the company of 200 hundred men, as we gathered to remember our fathers. Each of us began telling a story of loss in regard to the men in our lives. For some separation by death, for others the fatherly love they missed out on, and for many the bitter awareness of having betrayed their fathers for their mother’s affection. As the stories continued to pour out, tears and lamentation began to flow until the sound of the wailing, grieving mass was too large for the room, passed through the walls and entered the universe. Later we wondered if it were heard by the women who had so stridently complained that men were without feelings… Trained to mistrust and compete with each other, we were transformed into brothers by our common grief in the presence of the spirits of our fathers, who continue to walk with us as we walk with each other.

I cite these experiences in a bit of detail because they illustrate not only what the book talks about but what it does: ritual, and symbol that draw on our ancestors’ wisdom, live in our community, and are remembered in our bones. Like ritual, the book is repetitious rather than climactic. Its aim is not brilliant ideas but glowing human beings. A blinding light is not a once-and-for-all fix, but perhaps betimes a starting point.

Ritual experiences reposition our viewpoints on life, who we belong to and how we must act. Somé frequently contrasts contemporary “Western” life with the “indigenous” tribal world. On one hand, one senses that this is unfair and that the geography of it is incidental. On the other hand, the recognizable social dynamics are present in what he says. There is ample evidence that spiritual experience, ritual and its powers and human solidarity challenge our accepted practice of everyday values and behaviors. Unfortunately spiritual and religious perception has suffered from academic snobbery, the transformation of religious ethic into colonialism and capitalism, and the deadly politicization of religion to serve purposes of power, conquest and consumerism. Abuse of religion becomes excuse for not facing the fear of ritual, feeling, and spirit, forces that might enter our lives and contribute to them in ways we cannot know beforehand.

At its best, when not perverted by such powers and perceptions, the ritual experience and the spiritual community can allow us what seem like dangerously radical perspectives. For example, I have long been agitated by and agitated against the law and order driven penal system in my native country. It creates and perpetrates injustice to the disadvantaged while it reinforces damning bias in the general population. This ritual reading of The Healing Wisdom of Africa brought out of my bones a deeper memory of the purpose of community and its primary role of healing itself by healing its members and their divisions. I belong to a country that excommunicates and punishes “badness” at great expense. with little being done to forgive, heal, integrate and enhance our lives with reconciliation with brothers and sisters who have “transgressed.” Whether behind Leavenworth bars or in plush Wall Street offices, being right and being a winner appear to trump being together at every level. We forget what we are here for… Ritual reminds us.

Lest you be tempted to see either the book or my review of it as a paean to the noble savage, forget it.  It is about how wounded community and its members can go about healing, whether in Burkina Faso, Berlin or Beverly Hills. You don’t have to buy the cosmology of Somé’s Dagara tribe to share their wisdom and experience or benefit from the initiations that our own lives insist we enter. The take away, in the author’s own words, is the “intensity of human connection,” something countless numbers of today’s individuals desperately tweet for like a caged bird.

True Colors--US values under stress

Since culture is developed so that a group can survive and succeed in a certain enviornment, and since under stress we tend to revert to our most basic (survival) values and behaviors, it is interesting to me to inquire about what the stress of the financial meltdown in the USA tells us about US values. It helps us see our "true colors," so to speak. It is also interesting to question at what point does an envrionmental change become so significant that a cultural value can come into question or a paradigm shift take place. 

With these questions in mind, I have asked friends and observers to reflect on this with me and share their perceptions. The following came from a friend and colleague on the West Coast, Diane Asitimbay. Some of you may familiar with and perhaps use in training newcomers to the US her very fine book, What's Up America?. Diane writes:

"First, I think the American workers' productivity is directly related to job security. In other words, we work so hard because we know that our jobs, and to some extent, ourselves, are a disposable commodity that employers can eliminate at a moment's notice. In other Western industrialized societies where there is more job security, more identity is invested in their job, and so they are out on the streets protesting the employer's practices and lay-offfs rather than blaming themselves. This has to do with the U.S. value of self-sufficiency and it's our fault that we lost our job rather than the forces outside our control or channeling the blame to excessive executive pay or poor labor or investment practices on the part of the employer.

 

"Second, people in the U.S. are so in mired in credit card debt that they feel guilty about this and have their nose to the grindstone working like dogs that they seldom get out on the streets and protest anything in measurable numbers. When people have so much debt, they have less choice, or none at all if they are not willing to risk a great deal.

 

"There is an interview segment in the Michael Moore movie "Sicko" that is particularly acidic and honest when legendary British Labour leader Tony Benn is interviewed by Moore. Benn says: 'Keeping people hopeless and pessimistic--see I think there are two ways in which people are controlled--first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them.'  

 

"Third, since government help is interpreted not as a good thing but a bad thing by the majority of people worried about losing their individual freedom and choice, most of us have a love/hate or an ambivalent attitude toward government helping them out, even in these economic times. It has to do with our self-sufficiency value again, the idea of " I don't need anybody," whereas the majority of us feel guilty if weneed help. 

 

"More particularly, I love what Obama is doing, given what he inherited from Bush. But I think Obama is riding on his charisma with his government stimulus package and his government intervention. Once this personal halo fades away, a lot of independent, middle of the road people who are currently supporting his policies will probably turn against the government protesting the welfare.  That's not the way I feel but I've heard a lot of business-minded people say negative comments about government regulation for his stimulus packing and in particular, in the banking industry and saying that the government shouldn't be involved at all.

 

"Many middle class people who I talk to say 'Things will get better next year," which to me, reflects that eternal optimism of our people, that it seems nearly impossible to imagine, 'Things could get worse.' I ask them why they think it will get better, and they say, 'It can't get worse.'

 

"Finally, to sum up, our values of self-sufficiency and distrust of government directly influence how we interpret our personal financial failures, foreclosures, credit card debt (guilt, not anger) etc. So an interplay of forces is at work, making it hard to distinguish when one personal value  begins and a cultural value ends. Amen."

Whither the weather "we"?

Watching the weather reports on the news channels, I have noticed an increasing tendency for the weather reporter to speak about "we" as the recipients or victims of weather trends. This is neither the editorial nor the royal "we" but a sort of symbiotic traveling "we" as the report moves from country to country. What makes the weather reporter one of us? If the reporter were speaking of the place in which he or she was located, the "we" might make sense, but when a Brit working in Qatar remarks of the Philippines, "We will be enjoying a respite from the seasonal rains..." I start to wonder about the internal conversation that results in this verbal expression.

Medical culture US Style, advice-less and priceless

Everybody is an expert in our egalitarian world. No one should be blamed for being wrong, unless they are supposed to be an expert and have the professional certificates to show for it and can therefore be sued for it. For example under threat of expensive malpractice suits, doctors no longer give advice. 

"Mr. Simons, the tests seem to show that you have contracted stercomyopia which often develops into a chronic condition in people your age. Currently there are three possible treatment options for this condition, you may chose a frontal lobotomy, get a second opinion from your financial advisor, or do nothing and allow the condition to take its course."

"Well, Doctor what should I do?"

"Mr. Simons, the choice is entirely up to you."

"But Doctor, if you were in my shoes, what would you do?"

"Mr. Simons, I can't choose for you. I have spelled out the options as best I can. The choice is yours. Think it over and let me know what you [and your insurer] decide."

US American Viagra--the psychological potency pill

Frequently I am asked to coach individuals about their cultural profile and to give examples of how that profile may fit or conflict with the cultural values of others. Take control, for example--the value here is being in charge of one's own life and then environment in which one lives. 

I suggest, for example, that many USians have been reluctant to act against environmental degradation, despite the evidence, not because we don't care about the environment, but because we have the belief, that "If we break it, we can fix it." In other words, we, the "can-do" people have the know-how, and if not, the investigative imagination to solve any problem and meet any challenge, environmental, educational, scientific, financial or political, if we put our minds to it. Demagoguery can easily dole out this psychological viagra for a variety of special interests. 

The evidence against this omnipotence, seems to be mounting against us in these many areas. Not that we cannot solve problems and exercise great creativity. We have frequently done so, and our great diversity has been our asset, but the assumption that we are on top of things effortlessly ever needs reexamination. Optimism is perhaps better than pessimism, but perhaps a bit more skepticism and criticism are needed to keep them in line. Fortunately there are a few politically incorrect shots are being taken at excessive optimism in the land of no small eggs. A pill to counteract US chirpiness?   

Management by Emergency--why it feels good.

Some years ago it was popular for OD consultants to observe that many US organizational cultures "managed by emergency." People in these organizations rushed about in a constant state of urgency, "putting out fires." I won't repeat the literature on the effects of this kind of management on planning, productivity and morale, but I do want to share an observation about it that I did not remember seeing in this kind of discussion. It is much more of a cultural and personal insight.

It has been clearly pointed out that USian culture values time as money and wasting time as at least secularly sinful. We were taught in the the Calvinistic vein that "idleness is the devil's workshop," rather than that "Leisure is the Basis of Culture." We are unleislurely, according to Aristotle, in order to have leisure. But why then do we resist leisure when we have adequate resources to take it and profit from it. What is the compulsion, greed, insecurity that leads to chronic workaholism?

I suggest that one of the psychological mechanisms that drives us to live in and perhaps revel in states of urgency is that it provides identity and hence importance, making us significant and needed. In a culture where we are largely defined by what we do rather than where we are from, doing is the key to identity. Urgency is the attitude that broadcasts to ourselves and others that we are here to do what we do and to be heroes at it. Having something to do helps me sense my worth; having something urgent to do undergirds my sense of capability as well as tells others that I have a role, an identity in something that concerns us all. 

This is, also, I suspect related to a refusal to be seen as victims, those helpless in a moment of need or emergency. Hence also the cultural tendency to look down upon those who feel victimized as in fact lazy, lacking imagination and initiative.

Valley Girl--look for the pain

This story was recounted to me first hand by a student who attended one of my courses in the years when I was working in Santa Monica. 

Jennifer had a part time job in a department store in the San Fernando Valley (Los Angeles above the San Santa Monica Mountains for those not familiar with the area). Her Japanese ancestry was visible in her face. 

She recalled that a customer had stared at her a bit and then asked, "Where are you from?" 

"Here in The Valley," she responded.

"But where are your parent from?" the woman continued.

"Oh, they're from The Valley, too, Jennifer answered, trying not to show annoyance.

The customer persisted, "But, then where were your grandparents from?"

"Oh, they weren't from The Valley," Jennifer continued, "They were from Fresno."

One of the things I learned from this story is to "look for the pain." Frequently US Americans are quite vehement in denying culture and roots, and, for me in the context of intercultural work,  quite resistant to talking about culture as a factor in employment and social life.

Where does culture end and choice begin?

When pondering this question we generally frame it in terms of "culture vs. personality," the unwritten assumption perhaps being that, while formed in the community or communities in which we grow up and live, the power of culture in our lives somehow diminishes as we individuate. And, this individuation is seen as an inevitable or desirable process in which we pick and choose those values and contexts that will be our own and differentiate us from those about us in the same community as well as from those in outside groups. 

In the USA children are trained for choice from the outset of consciousness. I never fail to be amused by seeing tourist parents in a French restaurant asking a 3.5 year-older, "Now honey, do you want the escargot en croûte or the  soupe de poisson aux croûtons et sa rouille à l'estragon?",  while the waiter smirks, pad in hand, shifting from one foot to the other.

But then, does culture not run deeper than these choices between cultural artifacts and behaviors? Certainly it affects how and when we make as well as give us input into which choices to make. Perhaps how we have and hold choice is also quite cultural, as well as related to the the amount of choice available to us as we shape our culture. Maybe culture is more like an infinite matriuska, where, lifting off one layer after another, we find the same thing or something similar at the heart of it?

I found the TED presentation by Barry Schwartz, which I have inserted below, to be very much to the point and was particularly struck, at the very outset, by his clear articulation of the core belief system, "the official dogma" of US (aka Western) individualistic and capitalistic culture, and dares to call into question from the perspective of its behavioral results.  Have a look. Then a couple questions worth discussing:

1. Will the current financial crisis result in less choice and more satisfaction with what we have? Will it make us more communitarian?
2. Are we at the "fooling ourselves" (a la Triandis) stage of fixing the system to make it work again and stomping our feet at tea parties in protest to any economic shift. 
3. Should we love this system so dearly?  What would falling out of love with it mean?

The love of stories

When I was in my mid twenties, I was blown away by the Hassidic storytelling that flavored Elie Wiesel’s  writing, and have been an aficiaonado of the story ever since, later discovering the Sufi writers and stories in other cultural traditions.  Reading is great but telling face-to-face is even better…

Elie Wiesel’s book Gates of the Forest opens with this tribute to the story:

“‘When Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening…it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and misfortune averted. When his disciple, Magid of Mezritch, had occasion to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say, Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer.” Again, the miracle would be accomplished. Later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov, in order to save the people, would go into the forest and say, “I do not know how to light the fire. I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient.” Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, head in his hands, he spoke to God: “I am unable to light the fire. I do not know the prayer. I cannot find the place in the forest. All I can do is tell the story, and this must be sufficient.’

“And it was sufficient. God made man because He loves stories.”

SIETAR Follow-up: Genes, memes, temes. Susan Blackwood on TED

As a follow up to Doug Stuarts SUSA workshop,  "Shaking the Interculturalists Paradigm: Considering Consciousness and Cultural Evolution," I would like to offer for discussion this short presentation by Susan Blackwood, that appeared on TED. It takes us from Darwin through Dawkins and beyond and is, I believe, significant for how we see culture being transmitted. The challenges I perceive and would like to discuss: 

1. How does this help us in learning and teaching about cultures?
2. How does this challenge and perhaps refine our view of the world and our personal, psychological and perhaps theological perspectives?

SIETAR USA & personal reflections of a visit to the homeland

On April 1 to 4 the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research USA held it's annual conference in Cary, NC. I went. It was my first visit to the USA since the day we invaded Iraq, over six years ago. This absence was not politically motivated, though I did tell my friends often enough, tongue in cheek, that I was "waiting for regime change." Now I had no excuse other than the fact that my travels took me via Manila, Dubai, Nice, London to get to RDU, leaving my body clock with a 12 hour time jolt. The greatest culture shock I experienced in the trip was transferring from business class on Emirates Airlines to steerage on American Airlines.

The high point of the SIETAR event for me was the all day pre-conference held on April 1 (my feast day = All Fools). Doug Stuart conducted an excellent presentation and discussion entitled, "Shaking the Interculturalists Paradigm: Considering Consciousness and Cultural Evolution." Our group was labeled HEAL by one of its members, an acronym for "highly engaged and loquacious," as indeed we were. Much of our discussion served to identify deceased and diseased paradigms in the intercultural field and the profession, raising the question,"Whither now?" Here is the police line-up of the suspects in this criminal or at least iconoclastic discussion.

By the way, if you click on the title of this post it will take you to the SIETAR USA home page where you can download the conference program, and where, shortly I hope, the proceedings and reports of the conference will be published, at least for participants. So this post will simply recount a few of my observations, quite partial of course, as it is impossible to attend everything in such a meeting. Others of you who were there might want to add to or comment on the post.

For reasons of either timing or the recession, conference attendance was, as I heard, in the 180's, so, relatively small for such an event. To me the crowd also seemed younger than usual (or am I just getting older?). At my best guess, about a dozen or more of the presenters were from the catalog of the Intercultural Communications Institute in Portland. 

Quite a few folks, including myself were somewhat disappointed in their expections of the first keynoter. Harry Triandis focused on the dynamics of self-deception in the key issues of the day, the financial meltdown, the population explosion, and terrorism. The big takeaway here was that we need to develop an alarm which should sound when we are Fooling Ourselves (the title of Harry's new book). Certainly a useful psychological perspective--and the field needs more presence of cross-cultural psychologists--but seemed a bit trite, biased and US-centric according to a number of the comments I heard. 

On my list of outstanding presentations were two that were done on somewhat related themes, an "Intercultural Perspective on Arabs, Muslims and Arab Americans" (Labna Ismail and Basma DeVries) and the role of "Muslim Women as Professional Interculturalists" (Pari Namazie and Munya Alyusuf).

Several significant sessions addressed theater and its uses for and impact on intercultural work. Saumya Pant and Nagesh Rao explored the use of participative theater for social change and engaged those present in the spontaneous participation process. In a TED talk, Emily Levine recently articulated one of the basic tenets of improvisational theater: "You cannot deny the other person's reality, you can only build on it." What a sterling principle for intercultural work!

Drew Kahn received a standing ovation for his keynote about the transformative effect of casting and perfoming  a play involving the story of Anne Frank, set side-by-side with the dynamics of the genocide in Rwanda. Though Kahn presented well, my sense was that the applause was even more for the courage, relevance and results of the project.

Patti Digh's plenary on "Hip-Hop, Manga, Facebook and Twitter, etc." was challenging, interesting, diverse, and just plain fun. Patti has a way of making asides to herself  that I rarely find other than Americans doing or doing well. She helped us look at at several less commonly explored arenas in which culture and the intercultural contest for people's attention today. These can be both learning challenges and useful tools for the work we do in the field.

We should be grateful to Cecilia Utne and Peter Fordos, for appraising us on "Icebergs and Polar Bears, viewing sustainability through a cross cultural lens." We should not be "fooling ourselves" about the gravity of our environmental situation and how cultures both affect and are affected by this issue. I am reminded of Paul Schafer's book Revolution or Renaissance.  Paul recently commented to me, "I am aware of a few individuals and institutions who seem to be committed to this issue, rather than the 'do culture because it's good for the economy,' which I think is rampant in the intercultural community today."

Online education and virtual collaboration were high interests of mine, and several presentations provided good insight into these developing facets of our work. At the very end of the conference Jen Stouse and I, along with the virtual imput of Joao Paoulo Brito of BluePill did a presentation of the curriculum design for a mixed media course on "Doing Business in the USA," which has been delivered now in its sixth year at the ESPEME-EDEC Business School in Nice. The BluePill Group were the sponsors of the highly attended online SIETAR Pavilion for the Granada Congress, which some of you may have visited. They also constructed the online learning center in SecondLife for this course. Joao Paulo spoke via Skype and interacted with Jen in SecondLife from his nightime in Barcelona, Spain. The technology for the presentation was last-minute touch and go, but thanks to the Palestinian technician of the hotel, we got the equipment we needed for satisfying connectivity. A big shukran to him! If you are interested in seeing or developing this kind of curriculum, we invite you to visit our course mindmap and resources. You can also view one of the online student projects, a video which we presented in the session. More info on request.  

In another session, Karen Dickman presented an interesting comparison of the Volstead Act (Prohibition, 1919 through 1933) failure with the contemporary struggle of gays for legitimate marital union in the USA. It was quite instructive as to how culture and law engage each other, and usually unrewarding challenge of trying to legislate morality on these and other issues in the USA. 

In my visit to the US I was also eager to explore the relationship of the pious and the prudish in US culture. There was  not really enough time to do that beyond a few conversations, and the fact that quite a few of the participants identified themselves as religious. This may be indicative of a recent national cultural trend. Or, maybe there is a sense of greater freedom to claim religious adherence and proclaim religious views in professional and academic contexts where anything but holy agnosticism tended to be seen as suspect and "unscientific." Or, maybe just my aimless speculation from a too small sample. Few people discussing religion and culture, on the other hand, seemed to be aware that many of the pioneers in the intercultural field had religious or missionary backgrounds. Phil Harris and Bob Moran, were religious brothers who later authored Managing Cultural Differences, now in its sixth edition. Mormon scholars originated the Culturegram series--early tipsheets on living and working abroad, still going strong at http://www.culturegrams.com. 

There was a noteworthy groundswell of interest as well as a conviction that we should do more to create a certification process for interculturalist practitioners as exists in other professions and professional organizations. Much complaint that SIETAR has failed to achieve this despite several attempts in various parts of the world. A working group has formed around this and created a process for taking it forward.  

A musical group called One Drum provided entertainment with an amazingly worldwide reperotoire, both at the opening reception and at the gala closing dinner. I captured this small segment as they were doing one of my favorite Leonard Cohen pieces at the gala. 

The Embassy Suites hotel which hosted the conference had a large and pleasant spa which I visited each morning, since my jet lag had made an early riser out of me. US "law and order" values were apparent in the spa area. I had to ask myself whether I should exercise my intercultural curiousity by taking half an hour to read and ponder all the posted rules for the hammam, jacuzzi and swiming pool, or just plunge in and get wet. I chose the hot water.

The last of my objectives on this visit was to go shopping à la américaine. Prices are good and they tend to have my sizes. Unfortunately the conference venue was a bit out in the sticks and by the freeway--not much shopping within walking distance. Moreover, out of respect for churchgoers, Sunday shopping in the area does not start until noon, so I managed only a couple of hours window shopping and a hot pretzel at the nearest mall before needing to fly off. Just about everything but the pretzel seemed to be made in China, but that is another story.

Finally, there was also the issue of having to spend two hours on arrival at the RDU airport in the immigration "holding pen" waiting to be interviewed. Did I look wierd, smell bad or have too many visas with Arabic text on them, or all of these? Also, on my departure, the immigration officer was reluctant to let me fly away with out showing him a return ticket to the USA. Both great opportunities to shoot off my mouth, which I fortuntely resisted.

The paradox of tolerance

Tolerance has two parts, not giving offense and not taking offense. It seems that much of  political correctness has specialized in the first part, and largely ignored the second part which in fact means that taking offense usually results in giving offense. You can't have one without the other. 

In addition, I have to admit that some of my greatest learnings occurred when tough love and directness pierced my shell and I was able either at the moment to not raise defenses or at least in retrospect realized the message when my defensive reactions diminished. 

Para-what? Protection in Manila

Vanou and I have been coming to Manila to train Intercultural Negotiation Skills for about four years now. But there is always a moment for a first. Any number of times we have left the hotel to walk to the client's workplace. When it is raining (or in some cases typhooning), the doorman offers us the loan of an umbrella for the day. 

This week we had bright unseasonably hot sunshine and the doorman, said to me as I went out, "Would you like an umbrella, Sir?" I was actually startled by the question. Though many Filipinos carry umbrellas to shade them from the sun, it had never occurred to me to do so, just counting on my baseball cap to get me through. 

This led to some cultural reflection though. Etymologically the word "umbrella" is really to

 shade one not protect from the rain, though in English we tend to think of it that way most of the time. They even carry an ombrellino over the pope! French has parasol for sun and parapluie for rain. Spanish has parasol and paraguas.  In English we also can hear parasol but without  making much distinction as to its purpose. We even call the big beach umbrellas "umbrellas" most of the time.  I expect there are a lot more cultures who have such distinctions. 

To me this is a reminder of how culture and language are shaped by our attempts to survive and succeed in the environment given us and that there are always surprises in other environments.

Life changing, life sustaining words

Proverbs and Quotes... Culture's collected wisdom is often packed into short, pithy statements told over and over again. Add to this the wisdom of those who speak for and out of a culture and seek to pass on life changing, life sustaining words. These words shape and become part of our stories.  

Please add to this post the words and quotes that you feel have shaped your life and identity. We start with a sharing by Jeremy Compagno, student in the International Business Management Program at IAE in Aix-en-Provence, France, who found this quote from Martin Luther King an important motivator in his life:

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

The VO dilemma--version originale vs voice over

This week I have been trying to get caught up on cinema after a long drought. Most theatres here have synchronized films, but I recently discovered one that shows VO with subtitles. I much prefer the latter. Even though I can follow a film in a number of languages, I feel that synchronization, besides giving bad lip synch, often betrays or loses the perspective on meaning and feeling and culture that are conveyed by tonality in the original language even if I can't understand the language that the characters are speaking. 

Let me give you an example. A few years back a friend and I went to Cannes to see Tim Burton's storytelling masterpiece Big Fish. The film was synchronized in French. We ran out of hankies and kleenex! A couple weeks I joined up with my colleague Kate to do a piece of work in the Paris area. Having an afternoon off we decided to go to the movies together. Kate had heard about and wanted to see Big Fish. I said that I had seen it but found it so good that I wouldn't mind at all seeing it a second time. This time it was presented in VO. It was an entirely different film. It still called for a five hankie rating, but now the regional Alabama accent was audible and the nuances and word play enriched the experience. 

Of course, subtitles can betray the sense as well, but normally they don't diminish the immediacy as much as synchronization. A tip--if you go to Bruxelles, expect only to see the top half of the movie screen--the bottom half is covered up with French, Flemish, and English subtitles if the film is in a fourth language!

Gran Torino--the sacred profanity of the working class

Gran Torino was a four hankie, male tear-jerker of a movie. Can't remember anything quite like it since Big Fish. I was back in the old neighborhood again, where Polacks, Wops, Krauts, and other Guinee guys called each other such, and this vocabulary was a sign of affection. The word list has grown since my youth with such choice expressions as wuss and dip-shit, but it's all in the tone, I guess--certainly indiscernible to the politically correct ear.   

Clint Eastwood, though not my visual image of a "Walter Kowalski," mastered the role of the man who, failing to raise his children to his own satisfaction, is forced by circumstance to try again, this time helping the parish priest grow up and making the Hmong neighbor boy not only the heir of his Ford but of his fortitude and forthrightness.

Yes, it is the US Lone Ranger again saving the neighborhood--do we have any other adventure theme? True Grit redux? Eastwood's artistry brings out enough of the familiar to invite us visit ourselves and then takes us to the old trunk in the basement to dig out a bit more about where we came from. As in The Unforgiven, we are asked to see more than our myths, urban and frontier, would like us to remember. 

The trailer is rated G "No nudity, no sex, no drugs, minimal violence and limited use of language that goes beyond polite conversation," and, of course, fails to convey what the movie is actually about.

Glossolalia in the melting pot

One only had to sit on the front porch, or at worst walk a block or two to hear other languages and accents. Ukrainians, African Americans, Greeks, Hungarians, the Jewish delicatessen owner, and West Slavs of every sort. Somewhere I read that 27% of the Central European immigration landed in the space between Pittsburgh and Chicago. Though I can't affirm the numbers, I can vouch for  the experience.  

Kids are good at imitation. So though we didn't learn the languages they spoke, we mocked the behaviors and speech around us. My grandfather, the court tailor from Vienna, I am told, could speak seven languages fluently. German, English, Polish, Hungarian, Croatian were ones I was familiar with. 

Given the biases against Catholics and immigrants, however, my grandparents and parents didn't want us to stick out. They refused to teach us what languages they knew, and used them with each other only when they didn't want us to know what they were talking about. "Let the kids be Americans--forget the 'old country.'" I remember asking my grandmother to teach me some German when I was about six years old. The lessons amounted to about half a dozen words and then let off. 

Even people's names, if they weren't already mutilated at Ellis Island, disappeared under the pressure of assimilation. The Wojichowskis turned into Walters and Papandriopoulos mutated into Peters. We build culture to make us secure and we abandon it for the same reason.

Starting in high school, however, I became an aficionado of language learning. In the classical education system, we got four years of Latin, two years of Classical Greek, and two years of German. College brought more classics, plus French. By this time, I was running on my own, studying Spanish in summer school and fiddling with the Arabic alphabet. Not particularly brilliant at it, I loved it and kept on going. Besides the classical studies providing roots to many contemporary languages, unlike many of my classmates I suffered no resistance to language learning and no embarrassment trying it out. If grandpa could speak seven language, why not me? Plus the mockery of the neighbors paid off. My teachers were amazed that I could pronounce concatenations of slavic consonants at first try.

Santiago Matamoros needs a change of name

Some years ago, my friend and colleague, Farid and I made a pact that he would perform the hajj and I would make the pilgrimage to Santiago de Campostelo as a mutual prayer for peace and friendship. 

Farid has kept his part of the bargain, reminding me also to be one of “…those who spend (benevolently) in ease as well as in straitness, and those who restrain anger and who pardon…” and that “Allah loves the doers of good.” (Quran‐3.134). Farid has gone, record in hand, to the gates of the garden, but I still have to hang my shell around my neck again for some weeks of marching west on the camino frances.

Hang on Farid! With my two new titanium hips, I’ll get there soon, and, after that, look forward to meeting you at the gates of the garden when the longer journey is finished.

Sketches of Spain--haiku with apologies to Miles Davis

Mirka, Granada.

Her gentle pastel memories

Hang now on my wall.

Strolling the ramblas,

promise of tomorrows world,

Couples hand in hand.

Yes there were yankees 

who loved difference:

Washington Irving.

Hospitality

with honor and gravity,

eternally Spain.

Sunlit and snowy,

the Sierra Nevada

smiles on Granada.

You don't have to be

macho Hemingway to love 

the manhood of Spain.

Gypsy and her child

evade rain in the doorway

of Corte Ingles.

See dark beauty where

Arab, Frank and Visigoth

have buried treasures.

An Englishman,

his daughter now sixteen,

a Moorish palace.

Arab, Catholic, Jew

once blossomed in this garden.

Time for sowing seeds.

Algunas tapas

The tired tourist's dinner

Una cerveza negra.

Blue jeans tighly worn, 

working woman's elegance

in stiletto heels.

Kings and fascists pass.

Churches, hotels, offices-- 

the marble endures.

Salve regina!

If you fall in love with Spain

Hell cannot claim you.

Pasta fagioul in the land of Foule Mudammas

We were cruising down the Nile on a small tourist boat. It was my first visit to Egypt. Mealtime. A selection of pastas with what looked like bolognese and alfredo. After a couple of dinners that looked quite alike, I made the remark to one of the waiters about how similar Egyptian food was to the Italian cuisine I was familiar with. "Oh no," the waiter remarked, this is Italian cooking. We do it regularly at this time of year because it is the season in which most of our tourists are Italian." 

Leaving the boat and settling into a local hotel set me straight, when the Foul Mudammas along with hommos bel tahini and babba ghannouj greeted me on the breakfast buffet.

We strolled around Luxor and at Aswan met Sobek, the crocodile god in his temple where sacred gators used to bask in the sun. We left Egypt a week before the Swiss tourists, who apparently bore no amulets against the rage, were massacred.

Moving Furniture--it's a guy thing

Besides the "real men" in my family, there were the "Stargazers," the team that met from house to house every Tuesday night, sans beer, for more than eight years. We talked about and managed our lives in mutual support. It could mean listening to family sagas and tragedies, lost and found loves, plans for the team to paint a local schoolhouse, picking up trash along the river bank, or doing a "sweat" on the beach. "You need help, we'll be there." 

I needed help, housecleaning and moving furniture. Over they came. When they left, my partner Cathy was incensed. "Pick that up." "Take it downstairs." "No, not there, over here." "You never say please or thank you." "If I did that to my friends, I wouldn't have any."

"But they're guys..."

Let's go window shopping

Genovefa Domanska (Jenny Miller, to her flapper era friends) was a beautiful woman with some resemblance to Queen Elisabeth. The youngest of six, her life had many disappointments, the death of her mother in the influenza at age ten, bottom of the pecking order when my grandfather remarried a woman with six of her own, a boyfriend who crashed his speedster into a bridge. All this left her risk adverse and protective from fear of loss.

Given the tough times into which I was born, I learned from my mother how to go happily “window shopping”—the joy of seeing without the compulsion to possess. To this day I am an incurable lèche‐vitrine (“window licker”), as my neighbors would put it. Recently during Ramadan, I apologized to my favorite Tunisian traiteur for forgetfully munching tastes of her delectable cuisine in front of her.  She replied, “No problem, I eat with my eyes all day long.”

It is no surprise that mothers’ maiden names are the secret password to credit card and bank accounts. Mothers are the key to unlocking many of our riches, and mother’s love continues to sustain our self‐esteem and confidence long after they have left us for more rewarding advocacy. Thanks, Mom!   

Memories of real men and depression cooking

Don’t worry that I can’t remember what I told you last week or where I put that train ticket… Actually, I am not a case of old‐timer’s disease. When I was sixteen, my mother already astutely noted and often announced to the world that I would “not remember where I put my head if it wasn’t attached to my shoulders.”     

I can remember that in the height of the great depression, my parents found room for me in their world. I carry their cautions and strategies for hard times with me. My mother always remarked about my dad’s wondrous ability to forage the woods and cook a tasty meal when the ice‐box (see archetypal fridge at the right) was empty. Yes, he was a “depression cook” who in demigod fashion could make something out of nothing. 

As a boy I was lucky to have “real men” in my life. My dad, who sometimes played Tarzan, and my two grandfathers did stuff with their hands and made things work better than “store bought,” and even showed me how. My uncle Johnny let me sit on his lap and drive his Model A on our way to a fishing hole. They still hang out together in my unconscious. Thanks, Guys! 

On becoming sixty-eleven--bless the French!

Not too long ago a neighbor asked me, “Monsieur Simons, you have seventy years… when will you enter into retreat?” I think he wanted me to settle down and play cards with him more often.

One of the blessings of being in France, though, is that I am still in my sixties—so, I became sixty‐eleven on January 12, 2009. It’s a helluva’ way to count, but a great way to think. The Belgians and Swiss are already in their seventies… poor devils, how they speak French! 

Some weeks ago, I asked a financial advisor, what I could do at my age to preserve my small nest egg from the depredations of the current economic crisis. His response, “Keep on working!” Shortly after that he seems to have been replaced by someone who sounds like a teeny bopper on the phone… Nuff said.  

Anyway, I remember that my parents could be in love and smile during the Great Depression--the picture at the right is of me, "still in the oven." Despite the downturn, I am busier than I ever have been and deeply enjoying the people around me and in what I am doing. I keep trying to create some itsy-bitsy islands of peace in the world, as best I can, by helping people to laugh at themselves and with each other in loving acceptance of our differences—as my good friend Kate Berardo says, by replacing resentment with culturosity.

Can't you see what's going on?

Hitler was running against Hindenburg for the presidency of Germany when my Grandfather, after thirty years abroad and now a citizen of the United States, decided to visit his origins in Poland. His trip took him through the Third Reich where 40+% unemployment had left the brownshirts in control of the streets.

It was a frightening prospect for the tourist and something to talk about when he arrived in Gmina Brudzen Duzy. No one wanted to listen. Poles had enough problems of their own. Yet, they were proud of the Second Republic and still gloried in the defeat of the Red Army. Under the leadership of Pilsudski, "Nothing is going to happen."

With a visit to the Virgin of Jasna Gora and a muttered prayer for the country, he returned home to Ohio, having made his last and only visit to his roots.

Fathers and sons--a tale of two cultures

Walt and I have been best buddies for over 30 years now. We met when each of us was doing a workshop on writing at the same learning event. We got acquainted by attending each other's presentations. The logic that we should combine forces quickly asserted itself. We have been both working successfully together and enjoying each other ever since. 

Despite the beards and graying topsides we have in common, our diversity is our delight. I am an AM person and Walt is a PM person, so when we would do a weekend workshop, we could give our participants 24 hour, round-the-clock coaching. Walt perpetually makes love to his creations; I love 'em and leave 'em. When we collaborate, Walt carefully grows his garden and prunes literary fruit trees; I load the jackass and make sure the produce gets to market. I was a lonely child, while he had to make Dostoyevsky with multiple siblings. My ancestors arrived at Ellis Island; his at Plymouth Rock.

We once compared our fathers at their moments of irritation. When displeased Walt's dad would stand with arms crossed, frown and not say a word; my dad would yell from the rafters. The message was the same if you were the focus of displeasure--"Stop it now!"

Fettnäpfchen--tracking grease spots onto the rug

It was a cold, rainy night in Schleswig-Holstein, when Elmar, a housemate,  and I sought the protection of the local Kneipe. Hot tea would have been better, but we managed to nurse a couple of beers at the bar. I was chatted up by one of the locals in  Plattdeutsch, largely unintelligible to me. There was quite a distance to walk home, so we left early for the Wohngemeinshaft (commune) where we were staying.

We stepped out in the cold and had not gone a dozen paces before we heard yelling behind us. Turning to look we saw the innkeeper standing in the doorway fiercely shouting in our direction. As his Platt was also beyond my ken, I asked Elmar what the man was saying.  Elmar replied, "He is saying that you didn't shut the door." Then he added with a bit of irritation all his own, "You never shut doors!"

It seems that my USian open-space, open-door behaviors had ticked off any number of housemates. The German version of the Summer of Love had apparently not included cool drafts and heating the empty spaces. From this I began to develop the famous cultural theory that, "You don't know what a Fettnäpfchen is until you step in one." Apparently I didn't invent the concept. (See http://www.ausgetauscht.de/forum/fettnaepfchen.htm) 

The delights and dangers of durian--gas attack in Munich

Having about exhausted the packaged tours, I suggested one day to Nita that she be my tour guide to interesting places that might not be either on the map or in the guide books. I would pay for hiring a car and we could go wherever. She arranged it and included her boyfriend, giving the three of us some full day excursions that were really both great fun and learning experiences.

Since we had a driver, we were free to chat all the way and I asked the two of them endless questions about the culture, the place and the language. For example in my generation a boy who chased girls was termed a wolf. In the Bahasa world, he was a buah, a crocodile, and I was even later to find a book in a Singapore store that was a guide on how to become a successful buah!

We also stopped along the way to refresh ourselves with tea and durian fruit, which I have developed a passion for. Durian has the flavor of sweetened camembert cheese and can be slightly intoxicating. It also has an odor which some people fine offensive, hence it is generally forbidden to bring it into hotels.  A man with a durian tree can support his family by serving and selling the fruit and cups of tea in its shade.

Once very hard to find, durian is now relatively common in Asian groceries. This led me to buy one in a Chinese grocery in Munich during our SIETAR Congress there. I brought it to the lunch room, broke it open and shared it with my friends, on an, “Oh, go ahead, try it!” basis. Quite a few did and some were converted.

Suddenly an alarm went off, and we were told to evacuate the building immediately. So, several hundred of us were standing in the courtyard when the chief superintendant of the building showed up (it was his day off) and asked the staff what had happened. “There was a gas leak,” they explained, “We are looking for it now.” “Gas leak,” he shouted, “this is an all electric building!”

Out of the mouths of babes—and sweet young things.

While my participants worked largely in Aceh Utara, my trainings, generally speaking, took place in Medan. In many cases they were consecutive, which meant that I would be staying in the same hotel for several weeks at a time. This left me with weekends to fill as well as occasionally a week between programs. So I began frequenting the little travel shop on the first floor for ideas about seeing what Sumatra had to offer. 

Yusnita spoke perfect English. She was still in university and working at the agency. There were indeed things to do, tours to the country and wanderings around Lake Toba. Nita, as she liked to be called, and I struck up a liking for each other, and I got the idea to ask her to teach me Indonesian. So, a couple times a week I would take her to a nice restaurant and try to absorb Bahasa words and phrases with my chili crab. It was a simple language. Words easy to pronounce though hard to remember, very few grammatical traps, a touch of Dutch thrown in.

My linguistic courage grew, and I arrived at the restaurant one evening with a farewell speech that I had written for the celebratory dinner, which would end the weeklong training program.  She looked it over, made three or four corrections on the page and handed it back to me. “It’s fine,” she said, “just a couple things that we would say differently.” I was flabbergasted expecting to have to reconstruct from scratch.

I am uncomfortable with the term “sweet young thing,” but if it ever applied to anyone, it applied to Nita. Imagine my surprise when, as we were walking home from the restaurant and getting ready to cross the street to return to the hotel, a car careened from the left, right in front of us causing much honking, to say nothing of fright. “Did you see what that f----er just did?!” Nita blurted out, catching me totally by surprise.

Later I gently asked her how she learned her English so well and how she happened to know this term (and came to apply it at an appropriate moment, I might have added, but didn’t). The VCR was the culprit. Videotapes of US movies. She devoured what she could get her hands on, which meant her command of street talk far exceeded the content of school vocabulary drills.

Of becaks and butterflies—strolling in Medan

In the early to mid-1980s, I was doing a considerable amount of influence skills and negotiation training for both the Indonesians working with Pertamina, the local natural gas company, and for Mobil Oil expats.

When evenings came, I set out to explore the city and get a bit of exercise—not an easy thing to do, because the moment I set foot in the street outside the hotel door, I acquired an entourage of not just one, but several becak drivers who would pedal their cabs alongside me. “Master go shopping?” “Master want good restaurant?” “Master see city?”

I whipped out by pocket language guide and came up with, “Saya mau jalan-jalan.” (I want to go for a walk). It didn’t work. Or, at least they thought that this was part of my negotiating strategy, so they kept on trying to make me a passenger.

But my few native words worked to shift the conversation to Indonesian. Not having lured me into a ride with the common destinations, one of the drivers sent me back to the dictionary with, “Mau kupu-kupu malam?” Plurals in Bahasa are often the repetition of the singular word. I found kupu easily enough. Butterfly? So he was offering me butterflies of the night? Moths? Not quite. I put two and two together and came to the conclusion that the oldest profession in the world apparently had the most genteel of names in Medan.

Taking electrifying advantage of being older

My cousin Artie owes his existence to me, and I don't let him forget it. On the day I was born my aunt and uncle visited my mom in the hospital. I was the cute little bundle that caused them to remark, "Let's make a baby." Nine months to the day, Artie was born.

Nine months doesn't seem like a generation gap, but it depends on what you can make of it. Artie relieved me of being the youngest in the cousin set. This gave me an advantage that we both recognized. I was the the don and he was the goon. This gave me the influence to insist successfully that he take a whizz on an electric fence.

Buying an identity & cheating the Czar

The grandfather of my grandfather, whose name I know not (which shall explain itself in a moment), was in love with a rich young woman. At this fragile point in his life he was summoned to serve in the Russian army. As my grandfather explained in telling this story, it was a time when the nation of Poland only existed in the spirit of its people--it had been, as he put it, "crucified between two thieves."

Fortunately for my ancestors, another man was willing to exchange his passport for a considerable sum and be drafted into military service in place of my great, great, great, grandfather. This labeled the family with a new name and, unfortunately, leaving us with no traceable genealogy backwards from that generation.

A fascinating story that would have remained such, had I not told it to my friend Eugene in Ottawa one day. It immediately became more fascinating. "Well, you must be Jewish then," Eugene commented, when I had finished the short tale. 

"No, I don't think so--as far as I know all my ancestors and relatives from that side of the family were Roman Catholics at least as far as anyone knew." 

"Interesting." Eugene replied, "I know at least a half dozen Jewish families who tell the same story about their ancestors at that time. The Russians often conscripted the young Jewish men and kept them in the ranks for thirty years or so until they were past having a family. It was sort of a slow genocide..." 

The haggle--learning by watching

The Near West Side of downtown Cleveland was where I learned to haggle. Grandpa Tony would take me with him shopping for bolts of cloth for his tailor shop. He had a negotiator's command of a few words of Yiddish, at least enough to insult the merchandise as "schmattes,"(rags) when dealing with the Jewish clothing merchants in the area. And then both were loudly off and running until they grudgingly decided on a price that secretly made both of them happy.  

Beyond the bolts of cloth, this side of town was also where my Dad took me each August to outfit me for the fall semester, well into my high school years. Harry Weinraub's Men's Clothing was a place to haggle for everything from underwear to dress shirts, ("How much for three?"). The store on West 6th Street was a Cleveland high-quality-low-price landmark for 80 years. 

To be honest, being somewhat of an introvert, I was embarrassed watching my elders go at it tooth and nail with the salespersons, whether the purchase was dress pants or kielbasa and kiszka in the West Side Market stalls. In my teen years, I was curious and amused, watching the haggle unfold. 

Then, years later, when I stared traveling the world, I discovered that, in the mercados, bazaars and souks of the world, I am actually an adept. Knowing those few words of local speak also helps. "La shukran" seems to work much better than "No, thank you," or, at least it is my impression that saying it reduces the distance I am followed by a bargain that I am not interested in.

Mind the gap & look to the right

It was with a deep sense of guilt that I drove a rental car around the North Island of New Zealand. No, I hadn't done anything wrong, but I was driving on the "wrong" side of the road, and the feeling of moral turpitude just wouldn't go away for almost two weeks. What a great reminder of how powerful culture can be in shaping our feelings and attitudes without necessarily asking our permission or being persuaded by the simple logic of difference! 

On the other hand, it seems to me that the pretense of empire has been finally abandoned in Britain by the simple act of painting big yellow letters at the zebra stripes warning this alien pedestrian to "Look to the right." While the nation and parts of the Commonwealth have preserved the direction of their vehicular flow, it now more quaint rather than quintessential. Jolly good! I survived the traffic, making my way safely across Albermarlie Street. Now it is high tea at the Brown and the gastronomic delight of a watercress finger sandwich shared with genteel folk.

It is indeed a service to warn the visitor to mind the (cultural) gap!

Ladies & gentlemen, this is your captain speaking

It's many years now since the first time I heard a feminine voice coming over the airplane PA system, announcing, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking..." I can't say I had much of a reaction at that point other than noting another milestone in women's progress in the US. Also, it also marked the moment that I started to lose interest in following the stories then current of continuing searches for Amelia Earhart...

The experience, however, gave me an idea for addressing stereotypes at an almost unconscious level. I collected tape recordings of a variety of voices and accents saying these same words, just, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking...", and asked participants to rate their first impressions of their confidence in the reliability of the pilot. Reactions were abundant and different. Alas, I didn't make a formal research project out if it, but that could probably still be done. 

Counting on my fingers--the key to unexpected abundance

The waiter delivered two beers to my table. I was seated alone. Similar things happened. Eventually the clues mounted up. "One" in France was not counted on the index finger but on the thumb. Thus putting up the index with the thumb alongside said "two, please." Fascinating, we are different in many unexpected ways. Later a colleague was to demonstrate to me how Chinese can count to ten using a single hand. Impressive. 

Tears on the tram--returning to roots

I boarded the train at the Milton Keynes Central Railway Station on my way to Liverpool--a somewhat lengthy ride. The carriage was full, with the exception of two seats currently occupied by the feet of two teenagers. A bit heavily laden, I walked down the aisle to where they were seated and asked if I might take one of the places. Neither looked at me, but one snarled, "Bugger off!" 

Fortunately another seat opened up a couple stops later, but I was thrown back on a different scene, the memory of a tram in Warsaw. I had been invited to the University to lecture in the sociology department, and then to go to do some like presentations in Cracow. I was in my mid-fifties at this point and had had jumped at the chance, now that the travel restrictions to Central Europe had been lifted and I could make my first visit to Poland.

I jumped on a crowded tram, this time without baggage, and was immediately offered a seat by a younger man. The scene repeated itself each time I boarded public transport. After a few days, I found myself regularly at the point of tears as each moment of gentleness and kindness rekindled the memories of my earliest years in the company of a bygone generation of Polish immigrants. Sobs of reconciliation with  my past. In fact, these relatives and their friends surrounded me with the value that said, "If you take care of others, you will be taken care of."

 So different from the wrenching I later experienced as I my life shifted into the raw US context, "Take care of #1." "If everyone takes care of him or herself, everyone will be taken care of..." After much trying, I still don't believe it.

Is it irreligious to be culturally religious?

A few years ago I started traveling regularly to the Philippines, where a lot of TV programming is straight from the US of A, with the dirty words bleeped out.  I was overwhelmed by the flood of "fix yourself" commercials.  

More recently a colleague of mine spent about an hour lecturing me on a variety of spiritual techniques and practices that were guaranteed if I followed them to help me live a long, happy, stress free life. I have an allergy to true belief. I seem to have contracted this allergy well before I ever read Eric Hoffer, "The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets."

Over the years, I have practiced meditation: Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and New Age. I have done Yoga, Aikido, and Tai Chi, and, in fact, taken something precious from each of them, but none of them  instructed me in the need to make converts or fix anyone. Thus I am put off by what feels like the spiritual equivalent of pharmaceutical marketing. 

Cultural religion, that acquired in the ambiance and experiences of life, is often disparaged in favor of the practiquant, who to me often seems like the learner rather than the learned. 

Napoleon's soldier--the story of a name

Anton Simonovič, my father's father was a good storyteller. Tony the tailor, as he was affectionately known in town, was suiting up the gentlemen of Bedford, Ohio, when I came into the world--in fact, I don't believe I had a pair of store-bought pants until I was about seven year, when my Mom bought me corduroy knickers to wear to school. 

For the neighborhood kids Tony was also a favorite guy to hang out with. He took them fishing in Tinker's creek and spun tales, I suspect in various degrees of tall. 

"Once upon a time," he began, "there was a soldier whose name was Simon, marching in the infantry of Napoleon. When the Corsican decided to trek to Moscow, this supposedly French ancestor thought that Vienna might be a better place to spend the winter, so he went AWOL and headed south. Ultimately he settled in the Krainer country, where his children became, in the last days of patronymics there, 'Simonovič." 

And so, the name stuck, and it came with my grandfather who, as a young court tailor's apprentice in the days of empire, came to New York to study fashion. He stayed. He had relatives in New Jersey, but ultimately sent for his young wife Barbara and his daughter Kate to join him from Austria and settled on Ohio. He opened a tiny shop and eventually invested in a few gentleman farmer acres in the town of Macedonia.  

There the story would have ended, had not my father got tired of being called, "Simonovič, the son of a bitch!" Immigration, intimidation, assimilation!

Storytelling--an annotated bibliography

This is the place to post what you know about the culture of storytelling and storytelling about cultures. Links in  my posts are to reviews I have done. Please use a new response for each book, CD,  tape, website, video, article, etc., that you add. Thank you.

Don't assume--up to my backside in alligators

Many of us are familiar with the old wordplay on ASS U ME. Written that way, it tells us that assumptions are likely to make an ass out of you and me. This is why our stereotypes about others can lead us to both be wrong about people but also how they can change people and create lasting realities in our world. Let me show you how.

Some years ago I used to regularly visit a small local artisans' shop in downtown Santa Cruz. A couple of potters specialized in making functional animal ceramics. A casserole in the form of an alligator caught my eye and came home with me. I put it on the coffee table where it became the receptacle for keys, matches, loose change, and the like. I remembered also that I had a small paper mache alligator, which I then put alongside the larger clay sculpture. This was a few weeks before Christmas.

As Christmas presents that year, I received no less than six crocs. My birthday, coming a few weeks later brought another five. They have been coming ever since, in every medium possible, crystal, plush, wire, amber, wood, plastic, etc. They are statuettes, transformer, pull toys, books, puppets, dolls, masks, hats, pincushions, paperweights,  pencil holders, you name it. On that came home from from a holiday in Poland with my friend Elena, we have nicknamed "Cracowdile." In fact, I have even bought a few myself!

The assumption that I was an alligator collector caught on. Now I am one. I am up to my assumptions in over 200 of the beasties. When I next redo the apartment, I think I will paint swamp grass along the baseboards! 

"See you later, alligator." "After while crocodile." 

Pineapple upside down cake--my favorite Polish dessert

Growing up in a Polish, Austrian, German, Croatian, etc. family can be confusing. My mother tended to follow the Polish customs for holiday cuisine at home, so when pineapple upside down cake, to my delight, appeared at the end of a dinner, I took it as super tasty part of the culture.

Many years later, when attending a SIETAR Congress in Bath, I was walking across a bridge, which had shops along the side of the road, one of which was a bakery with a lovely collection of desserts in the window. Being an inveterate foodie, I stopped to admire. I was stunned to find my mother's pineapple upside down cake in the middle of the display. It said, "Buy me!" I did, and it was indeed my mother's cake to he last tooth-sucking morsel. 

Only then did I make the connection. At age 13 my mother when to work as a cook's apprentice at Wallace Arms, a Cleveland boarding residence, under the tutelage of a certain Elisabeth Scott, herself an immigrant from Scotland. At this point the pineapple cake explained itself along with Christmas pudding and a number of their other sweet colleagues. 

"Psia krew!" (dog's blood)--How I almost didn't come to be...

Towards the end of the "Great Depression," (will this term now be applied to the present?--anyway, around 1936-37) my dad had luckily found a job stoking the blast furnaces of Republic Steel in the Flats area of Cleveland. At this time, he was courting my mother, the youngest in a Polish immigrant family of twelve children who spoke Polish at home. 

Being an enterprising "interculturalist" in the big city "melting pot" of the time, my dad asked his co-workers to teach him some Polish romantic talk to plead his cause with his girlfriend. They did. 

When Saturday night rolled around my father tried his new found Slavic eloquence on his date. My mother had not heard these words before, so the next day she asked her dad what they meant. "Psia krew!" (SOB in English) exclaimed my grandfather, "I kill him!" 

Digame, querida, "How are the kids doing at school?"

Nancy showed up at my office door one day and asked for a job. I hired her. She was bright, had a winning Puerto Rican smile and moved right in. The office was tiny with each of four people occupying a corner of the room space,  so that activities and phone conversations were within earshot of each other, and Nancy's conversational exuberance a bit louder than the rest of us. 

This meant that I could monitor sales conversations without trying--but what I heard was trying. Most of the time from Nancy's corner I heard discussions about how the kids are doing in school, the state of Carmencita's allergies and Juan's automobile accident, sometimes in English and sometimes in Spanish. My concern about pay for performance mounted daily until we ran the monthly sales figures and I discovered to my amazement that Nancy's numbers were better than anyone else's, including my own. 

The Distance Dance--How close is close enough?

From the 1970s through the 1990s I worked regularly for Management Centre Europe in Brussels, training programs in Intercultural Communications and Virtual Teamwork. Each Tuesday evening the Centre would invite the participants of the various courses to an after hours reception with drinks and snacks.  It was largely a noisy, stand up affair where participants mingled with their classmates and others in different programs and were often introduced around by colleagues.

A not unfamiliar sight was the "dance of distance" as in the crowded room, participants automatically struggled to establish and maintain an agreeable conversational distance in their little groups of two or three. It meant a room in motion and it was particularly amusing to see the occasional extreme chase around the room, where a Saudi would try to come "nose to nose" with a Brit who constantly walked backwards to avoid coming too close for comfort. I am sure the inner, at least unconscious conversations ran something like this: "What is wrong, doesn't he like me?" vs. "This fellow is certainly cheeky!"

Dining delight dumped by Dutch directness

I fancy myself a rather good cook, and some of my friends do too. I often volunteer to cook for friends and fellow residents. One night when I was living in the Netherlands, I did a special recipe for my Dutch friend. When I served it up and she had tasted a forkful, I asked, "Tina, do you like that?" Her answer was a monosyllabic un-nuanced, "No." 

What she had given was a factual report in response to my question. No, she didn't like it. De gustibus non est disputandum. Could I hear that? Not a chance. What I heard was a swelling mental chorus of interpretations along the lines of: "No, it's a bad recipe!" "No, you're a bad cook!" all the way to, "No, I don't love you any more!"

Clarity and heartburn. I appreciate always knowing where I stand with my Dutch colleagues and friends, but something in my gut is always a bit upset.

Getting worked up works up an appetite

I grew up in a diverse family where loud arguments preceding Sunday dinner raged until the soup was served and the appreciation of the palate trumped the debate, be it political, prices, sports teams, or the best fishing lures. 

For me such friendly but bombastic conflict normal and had to learn the hard lesson when entering the US workplace where Anglo values were in charge that it was totally unacceptable. I had to learn to "control my temper" instead of enjoy it. Even worse it was a Jurassic time when political correctness only existed in the Soviet Union, and our mixed family gatherings were spiced with terms of affection between best friends and brothers-in-law like, "You dumb dago!" "You knuckle-headed kraut!" etc.

Maybe it was a working class thing, too... Now it seems that conversations seasoned with profanity can only be found on the White House tapes of certain recent presidents. 

Dad's fiscal values trump son's sentimentality

Culture is said to live in the voices from the past. It certainly does for me. I own a tiny house in Ohio made beautiful by my long deceased father's landscaping. It's market value is probably around $65k.

Imagine this scenario. I am approached by a potential buyer who offers me $55k. "Sorry, no deal, I say." The offer rises to $65k, now a reasonable number. But, suddenly I am visited by memories of my dad planting the baby chestnut trees that today grace the yard with abundant shade. My inclination to say yes is blocked by a furtive tear.

The buyer's offer rises to an exasperated $75k. Again, I am flooded with sentiment and images of my gardening father potting flowers around the house. Suddenly, I hear his booming voice over the images, saying, "Don't be a dumb fool, Son. Take the money and run!"

Good night Eileen, Eileen good night--I still hear you in my dreams

It was lunch time and we left our Japanese intern in charge of the phones while heading out of the office, over to the food court for a quickie. On returning, Noriko, immediately told me, "Eileen called and wants you to call back immediately." Puzzled, I asked, "Did she leave a number?" "No, I asked for her number, but she insisted that you knew it by heart." 

I searched my memory and then my address book for an Eileen, but without success.  I shrugged my shoulders and went back to work. About an hour later the phone rang again. I picked it up to hear, "George, This is Irene, and you know that I asked you to CALL ME BACK IMMEDIATELY! What is it with you?!"

Diversity for dinner--forewarned but not four-armed

For over to 15 years now I have been privileged to have hosted interns in my home from all corners of the world. At one point I had several months of transition during which I had three international interns at the dinner table each evening. I delight in cultural differences, of course (my business), but did not expect them to show up as famously as they did in the dining room.

As student of world religions, I was always impressed by Ganesh, the Hindu god depicted with four to ten arms symbolizing his powers and functions. I was to learn that the elephant-headed deity was  favorite choice for householders. Understandably he became a model for the short order cook in the kitchen, where multiple arms would have been a real boon for me. Preferences around the table were: 

• Japanese=various foods, preference for seafood, served and kept separate on the plate, often cold.  
  
• Polish=piping hot casseroles and dishes where meat, vegetables etc., were all cooked together.
• Dutch=irreligiously vegetarian.
• Mine=whatever was left over.

Fortunately, I gained stove time since there was usually an argument between the Dutch intern criticizing her Japanese counterpart for an insufferable accent, and being criticized in turn for her poor grammar while the Pole looked on and nodded in agreement to both sides. The meal always ended with a reminder to set the timer on the rice cooker for 07.30 breakfast service.

Don't just pardon my French, please correct it!

Early in my work with our association secretary, I asked her to help me by improving my French by noting my misspeaks and telling me how to correct them. I repeated the request quite a number of times over the first months until, finally when she had me alone in her car she mentioned a couple of of my faux mots. Some months later, she actually interrupted a sentence or two right in the flow of conversation with suggested improvements. Still this would only happen privately. 

Finally, she encouraged me to tutoier. That meant a real effort of distinction that is not a part of my mental structure, since thou disappeared from English (except in prayer books) long before I first saw the light of day. We anglophones are formal with everybody, but totally unconscious of it. Now the challenge is to know when and in front of whom to do it. This bit of linguistic education is now entering into its seventh year with no end in sight!

Learning to shake hands--again & again

Moving into my new apartment in la Napoule, I wanted to install a satellite dish to broaden my choice of TV programs. This required a visit to the condominium council for permission. I arrived at the appointed time, said hello and sat down a bit uncomfortably. Other members and residents arrived after me, each of them going around the room shaking everyone's hand, including mine. 

While the meeting went well for me, I was embarrassed, and still am by the memory of my cold entrance and wondering what the others felt. That is the day that I learned to start shaking hands in France and I have been reminding myself to do so since, even more than once a day. Oh, oh, someone's at the door. I think it is Alain the concierge. Remember to shake his hand (again--second time today)!

Renting a room--my stereotypes run rampant

Rattling around in my big house in Santa Cruz, I decided to rent a room, more for some live company than for the money, but that too. My small classified ad went into the Good Times local events sheet and soon I got a message that somone, an engineer was interested. I called the phone number sent me and a woman answered the phone. "Can I speak to the engineer who answered my ad," I said, expecting a man. "That's me," she said. (Whoops!).

So I continued the conversation and made an appointment to interview her in a convenient lunch spot nearby on the way to Monterey where she worked. I asked her name. "Chevonne" was the answer I heard back. "Hmm, a black woman engineer," I mused, as I never had known a white woman with that name.

I arrived in the restaurant in good time and waited as customers walked in. And waited, chatting and sipping a pina colada with my friend Steve who had come along. And waited. And waited. Finally, a woman walked up to us and asked, "One of you wouldn't be George by any chance, would you?" "Why yes," I said, expecting this person to apologize for Chevonne's lateness or no-show. "Great, she said, I'm Siobhan." (Whoops!).

The pot of marmalade--in a gender jam

Gisela had moved into her new apartment in Altona, proud of her independance and new life style in the 1970's bloom of feminism. As a guest I showed up to help with making breakfast, but she insisted on doing it herself. All went well until she tried to open a new pot of marmelade. Hot water, tapping the lid, nothing seemed to work to unscrew the lid. As I walked over to say, "Here, let me try," she held the pot of jam over the kitchen trash basket and let it drop with the words, "Better to throw it away than ask a man to help!"

Jam & bread--an accent accident

It was time for our Easter potluck and I was calling friends to coordinate what they might bring. When I spoke to Anna, a Peruvian woman who was a friend of the family, she responded that she would come with "jam and bread." Sounded a bit strange to me for Easter Sunday dinner, but I noted it down. 

When Sunday came, I was slicing the honey baked ham that I had shopped for the day before when I noticed out the window that Anna had driven up and was taking out of her trunk a large jam that looked just like the one I underneath my carving knife. "Aaarrrg!" as Charlie Brown would say. I quickly hid our ham in the oven and went to escort Anna and her jamon to the picnic table along with the still warm pan dulce.

The stories people tell...

“The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And, learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memory. This is how people care for themselves.” 

These lines from the storybook, Crow and Weasel, by Barry Lopez have haunted me for many years now. As an interculturalist, consultant and trainer I have found that theory is enlightening, but stories are memorable. Stories shape us. Stories care for us. As Elie Wiesel once recorded, echoing a hassidic tale, "God created people because God loves stories!"

With this in mind, I have opened this new blog at http://interculturalmemories.blogspot.com/. This is your invitation to share stories, stories about how you learned to be who you are in the cultures you live in, stories we tell to learn from and sometimes just laugh at in our experiences with others who are both like and unlike ourselves.

This is a space for first-hand experiences that we are willing to share, quote and be quoted. No jokes or old chestnuts, please. Not a place for argument, theory, analysis and other kinds of resource sharing—we do that at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/interculturalinsights/. This is just a place to enjoy and learn from each others’ stories. Write in whatever language you like. I have put a couple of my own stories in place to shill the game and will continue as they occur to me.

Please join me in taking care of each other by telling stories...