How are we the same? How are we different? What’s an isolated incident or behavior, and what’s typical of a culture as a whole? These are some of the most important things to consider as we widen our perspective. We’re going to get at this topic in two ways: (1) our tendency to look for similarities and (2) our tendency to apply an isolated event or trait to an entire culture.
People Are People
Eastern or Western, rich or poor, black or white, people are people. Sure, there are differences, but at the end of the day, we as human beings are more alike than different. This prevailing assumption drives the tendency to seek common ground.
More than three-quarters of the short-term participants I surveyed commented on the similarities they observed in the new culture with what they experienced at home or in another place. Often this response came in reply to the question, “What surprised you most about your trip?” Here are a few of the responses:
“Maybe the real point is that they just aren’t as different from us as I thought they would be. Or maybe it’s that in spite of a few superficial differences, like clothes and food, they are more like us than I thought.”
“I understand more of what is going on than I expected to (not the language of course, but the things people do). I watched people in the restaurant the other night, and there was nothing they did I wouldn’t do back home.”
“We’re all fallen people, and the issues are much the same because we have the same root to deal with [sin]. I prepared myself for all the differences, but I don’t think I needed to. We’re a lot more alike than different.”
“They struggle with the same things in their churches as we do—elder boards, parents, how to get people to buy into the vision, sacred cows, that kind of stuff. It sounds a whole lot like our church!”
“The students I taught met most of my expectations. . . . If there were any surprises for me, it came in how similar they and the issues they’re dealing with are to the students I teach back home.”
Why are we so inclined to find similarities between us and those we meet in new places? Are our perceptions about our sameness accurate? At face value, there’s value in our desire to find “sameness” in our fellow citizens of the globe. We are all created in the image of God. We all long to love and be loved. We were all created for a mission and to have purpose. We’re all born and we’ll all die. Our common bond as humans is evident during crises such as an earthquake or a tsunami. Suddenly, the Islamic-Buddhist-Christian, male-female, East-West barriers are diminished. We watch with horror as our fellow human beings are destroyed by a natural disaster. When we begin to see what we have in common with each other as humans rather than being obsessed with the differences, we begin to strip away the “us versus them” mentality.
In fact, looking for common ground with our fellow citizens of the globe is a normal and healthy way of coping with the inevitable dissonance that occurs when we encounter a new culture. Traveling to a new place brings on an irresistible impulse to smooth over the strangeness. We look for similarities because it’s reassuring for us to spot something familiar when we go somewhere for the first time. Before we know it, however, we become so focused on the similarities that we fail to marvel at the differences. Only when we’ve been in a new culture long enough to be repeatedly shocked at the error of our assumptions do we begin to see the things we missed before.[66]
A great deal of research has been done on culture shock and examining the cycles that typically occur for someone encountering a new culture for the first time. Finding common ground is the coping mechanism most often used in the first several weeks in a new place. After a couple months of being immersed in a new culture, one begins to see all the differences rather than the similarities. However, most short-term participants aren’t in a new culture long enough to experience this shift. We’re back to life as normal long before we experience the depths of the differences that become apparent after more extended cross-cultural immersions.
The brevity of our cross-cultural experiences ought to alert us to the wrong conclusions we make as a result of the common-ground issue. Many of the behaviors, nonverbal cues, and issues we observe may in fact be familiar. The question lies in whether they mean the same thing in a different culture. When we’re in a cross-cultural context for only a brief period of time, we interpret everything we see through our own cultural framework rather than learning, over time, to identify with another cultural framework. As a result, a short-term trip has the potential of further reinforcing inaccurate assumptions and interpretations rather than helping alter our inaccurate assumptions. Even multiple short trips to the same place don’t necessarily alter them. Continued brief encounters in the same place often result in continued observation of the same similarities rather than exposing the vastly different cultural paradigms at work.
An Indiana youth group who traveled to Ecuador for a couple weeks described the consistent joy and contentment evident among their Ecuadorian hosts. In struggling to overcome the language barrier, students found themselves doing a lot of waving and smiling to their Latin hosts; the Ecuadorians reciprocated with equally warm smiles and waves. As a result, the students talked a great deal about the unusual measure of joy and contentment among the Ecuadorian people as a whole. They talked about the amazing love of Ecuadorians for Americans.
Terry Linhart, a researcher and professor of youth ministry, joined this group on their trip to Ecuador as a way to better understand the short-term mission phenomenon. Linhart compares the high school students’ interaction with the Ecuadorians to an interactive museum. The students gawked at the “living artifacts” from Ecuador without really encountering them. The North Americans worshiped alongside the Ecuadorians, performed for them, and poured out affection on their children. However, with limited ability to cross the chasm of language, the students were unable to make accurate perceptions about the Latinos. Linhart writes, “Without spending significant time with the person, visiting his or her home, or even possessing rudimentary knowledge about the person’s history, students made quick assessments of their hosts’ lives and values.”[67] Their reasoning went something like this: “When we smile and show friendliness, that means we’re happy. It’s a sign of joy. Therefore, these people’s wide smiles and aggressive waves clearly prove the contentment and joy of all Ecuadorians.”
But we must be cautious about too quickly interpreting the meaning behind nonverbal behaviors. Smiles and laughter in another culture may in fact be signs of joy, but they may just as likely be responses to an awkward situation in which words cannot be used due to a language barrier. Likewise, a nonverbal response of silence or a lack of nodding one’s head in agreement doesn’t necessarily mean understanding isn’t taking place.
I often observe this when African-American preachers speak to predominantly Anglo audiences. It’s widely known that many African-American congregations are very expressive as they listen to their preachers. I feel for the African-American preachers who move from that setting to a stuffy white one. At times, however, I’ve been among the white audiences who have received a tongue-lashing from preachers who assume we’re apathetic and disinterested because we don’t respond with shouts and nods. Many of these preachers interpret the nonverbal cues they receive based on what they mean in their own cultural context. The reasoning goes something like this: “When my people are bored and disengaged, they don’t say anything. Therefore, this white crowd’s silence means they’re bored and disengaged.”
I’ve often done the same thing when teaching cross-culturally. When I teach, I draw a lot of my energy from how the students respond verbally and nonverbally. Furthermore, this is one of the primary ways I assess whether learning is occurring. I’ve spent a great deal of time teaching in Asian contexts where the level of immediate responsiveness is far less apparent than what I experience in North American teaching contexts. Even though I know that, and even though I’m writing about it right now, next week when I’m teaching in Asia, this issu
e will continue to be an ongoing challenge for me.
Misreading cross-cultural behavior is one of the most consistent findings of my research. The most frequent statement made by the North American pastors I studied was, “These people are so hungry for our training!” Every pastor/trainer said something like the following:
“They were really hungry [for the training].”
“The training [was] outstanding. . . . I think they were hungry, very hungry. I would even say more hungry overseas than they are here . . . because they’re looking for more effective ways and tools.”
“They would sit and listen. They wouldn’t get up and go to the bathroom every five minutes or say, “I need a break” every couple hours. They were enduring heat . . . humidity . . . the small environment. . . . And they didn’t get up and leave. I mean they were spellbound . . . in listening to the message, the methodology . . . the format . . . the how to’s, and the philosophy.”
“It was fresh and new [like] they had never heard it before. They really soaked it in.”
“They were so thirsty. They just hung on every word.”
I asked the trainers how they came to these conclusions. Responses ranged from “I just sensed it from the questions they asked and from the way they listened so intently” to “I asked them if they were tracking and they said yes.” Others drew upon nonverbal feedback, concluding that nodding heads and note taking implied learning was occurring.
In contrast, the most brutally honest student who sat in this training said, “You conclude you’re communicating effectively because we’re paying attention when we’re actually just intrigued by watching your foreign behavior.” This African leader wasn’t the only one who made a statement challenging the assumptions of the American trainers. Some of the other statements made by the local ministry leaders who sat in the training included:
“It was a nice day, but I don’t think what they taught would ever work here. But if it makes them feel like they can help us in ways beyond supporting our ministry financially, we’re willing to listen to their ideas.”
“I’m glad the trainers felt respected. They should. What they need to realize, however, is that we would never think about talking or getting up to leave in the middle of their lecture. It would be repulsive to do that to a teacher in our culture.”
“I wish we could have shared more about the real challenges we’re facing in our ministry. How do I lead a church when most of our godly men have lost their lives in battle? How do I help a parent care for their AIDS baby? Those are my pressing issues, not growing my church bigger or starting a second service. I didn’t get that whole discussion.”
While hesitant to be overly critical, more than half of the local pastors studied expressed frustration that North American pastors talked about successful churches in the United States with little awareness of many churches that are far bigger in other parts of the world. And as a result of striving to find common ground, many North American pastors felt that the needs among the local pastors were the same as those back home. Almost every North American pastor commented on the similarity in the issues in churches cross-culturally. Whether discussing youth ministry, elder boards, getting people to buy into a vision, putting people under church discipline, or dealing with expectations people have for the pastor, most of the North Americans concluded, “Church is church, wherever you go.”
Perhaps this explains why one Brazilian pastor described his frustration with what occurred when he attended the training done by a North American as follows:
During our class, I was describing some of the challenges our church is facing in our Bible study groups. I shared how our adolescents rarely feel free to speak up because of some dominant older members. The trainer immediately started to tell me why this proves our need for a specific program for the young people. I told him we’re resisting that trend because we want to keep the generations together. He laughed and said, “That’s where the American church was forty years ago, but you’re going to have to develop a strong youth ministry or you’ll lose those kids.”
Conflicting perspectives between North American trainers and majority world church pastors were more than occasional. During my extended study and review, these two very different perspectives became a consistent theme. North American pastors operate on the assumption that “things here are pretty much the same as at home, so these pastors are really hungry for guidance on how to lead.” In contrast, the local pastors who received them said, “You act as if the North American church is the true trendsetter for how we should all do church.”
I would be misrepresenting majority world Christians to suggest that nothing of value comes from this kind of training or that it’s always a waste of time. Several pastors described specific experiences with foreign teachers that really moved them forward in their lives and ministries. So while you may be ready to ban everyone from short-term training efforts overseas, I’m not ready to go there just yet. The point is not that nothing good ever comes from the trips or the training. Instead, how might our widened perspective improve the way we engage and serve?
One short-term participant said, “I wish I had spent less time studying the cultural differences because I was really more struck by the similarities than the differences.” On the other hand, a short-term participant who exercised cultural intelligence made perhaps the most accurate and appropriate statement in relation to this topic when he said, “They are just like us but not like us at all.”
“Everyone” Here Is . . .
When we can’t find similarities between ourselves and the people we encounter in a new place, we seek common ground by making generalizations about all events and people in a new place. This is what my airport driver did when he assumed that rainy skies in India equals grounded planes.
According to Linhart’s analysis of the Indiana youth group’s experience in Ecuador, all the students on the trip, except one, seemed unaware of the myriad of Ecuadorians who passed each day. These locals seemed to contradict the way the students were interpreting the smiles and waves they received from their hosts. Linhart says the Ecuadorians in general appeared “uninterested in the group, or portrayed facial expressions that were quite different from those who served as the hosts of the group.”[68] Even if the high school students accurately perceived the contentment and joy of their hosts, they moved into unfounded territory when they declared that all Ecuadorians are like this.
Linhart is careful to qualify his analysis by saying that the students’ intentions were honorable and compassionate. Part of the challenge came in the sheer brevity of the experience, which fostered a near necessity to stereotype—to reduce people to a few simple, essential characteristics. Fill in the blanks: “Italians are all _____.” “Indian people are always so _____.” “Of course he’ll be late, he’s _____.” On second thought, don’t fill in the blanks! Probably several of us would finish those sentences the same way. Stereotypes are ingrained in our perceptions about others. They are based on taking a few simple, vivid, memorable characteristics of people we’ve experienced or heard about in a particular place and making those common to everyone there. We tend to reduce everything about people in a culture to the few simple stereotypes we have of them.[69]
Nonjudgmental stereotyping can assist us in cross-cultural engagement. Understanding familiar traits and values of a particular culture helps us interact more effectively there. For example, if we understand the way most Latins think about time as compared to how we do, or if we think about the communal orientation of most Africans compared to our individualistic drive, or if we consider the respect given to elders in an Asian context, it will help move us toward cultural intelligence. The challenge lies in whether our stereotypes are accurate generalizations in the first place and whether they apply to a particular individual we encounter.
At best, the key lies in holding nonjudgmental stereotypes loosely and not applying them too quickly to everyone. We must beware of having an experience with one or tw
o individuals from a particular place and suddenly thinking we’ve experienced a characteristic that can be applied to all or even most people from that place. And we ought to resist creating stereotypes on our own but instead look for what extended research about a particular culture suggests. Some things about me are terminally North American, but other aspects of my personality are unique to me as an individual. The same is true of you. The same is true of the people we encounter when we travel to a new place.
Concluding Thoughts
One day I was at a bus stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Standing next to me was an eighteen-year-old Malay guy dressed in an Abercrombie & Fitch sweatshirt, Diesel jeans, and a baseball cap. With his backpack over his shoulder and sipping his Starbucks mocha, he pulled the ear buds from his ears and we began talking. Soon into the conversation, he asked me what the kids his age are like in my North American neighborhood back home. I started by saying, “Well, you could easily be mistaken for one of them. A lot of them look just like you.” He laughed, and we continued talking for another fifteen minutes after boarding the same bus. As my new friend got up to exit the bus, he turned to me and said, “Just remember, sir, I might look like the kids in your neighborhood on the outside. But what’s on the inside is totally different.” If I wasn’t convinced before he made the statement, I was then! Our conversation itself was different from what I typically have with teenagers in my neighborhood.
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