Cultural Intelligences

1. CRITICAL REFLECTION ESSAY

My very first experience of intercultural interaction was ordering a fast food at drive-thru counter with a foreign worker in Singapore. I waited in line in my car and ordered a fillet o’ fish burger set. The waiter spoke very politely and softly. After I paid for my meal and I proceed to the next collection counter to take my meal. A 30 years plus man is standing right at the window and ready to give my meal to me. When he handed me my order, I took it with my left hand and ready to drive away, he looked at me and say briefly to me "Very sorry, it is very rude to do this in my country, Ghana." I was confused and a little bit blank of what he’s talking and he further adds on and said “It is very rude if handling customer’s meal with left hand too”. I sensed that he felt bad, and I give him a bright smile, and gave a wave of my hand. I drove away later back to my home.

On the way I back to my home I was thinking of what he is intended to tell me, only after I realize that he was talking about the left hand was being unclean, so handling things to others using left hand is consider rude . I think he was probably talking to me as I did not realize the cultural difference and he feel bad of it. I think I should apologize to him, to tell him that I’m very sorry if insult him because of that. In my culture, there’s not much big deal for me as it is not offended if handled things using left hand. The prohibition of using the left hand is so strong in his culture until he can't put aside those feelings when he is in the Singapore even though he knows Singapore Chinese don't care.

In this situation, high context person meets low context person. In my opinion, fast food is a low context activity. We usually expected to order food and get it right away, or to take away the meal. We do not demand any conversation or relationship with the cashier or waiter. The waiter in my situation was likely from a higher context culture where interactions with others were more important rather than speed or efficiency. Perhaps nobody in this restaurant ever thought of serving food with the left hand would offended others for example like their employees or customers. Foreign workers are to assimilate local culture in other country, when they work in other country, they must adapt to that country’s culture and try to avoid clashes of their culture and improve body movement and customer’s communications. When understanding a cultural difference does not certainly mean that we can overcome our emotional or even physical reactions. The waiter still preserved his culture’s values even he had changed his contexts. We must keep our culture to ourselves. The only thing I learned is that I need to take care of other people's cultural perspectives seriously, and that adapting to the ways of Singapore culture is harder than I realize although it is a small little things.

From foreign worker perspective of view, he has the characteristics of mindfulness in himself. He has the awareness and conscious knowledge of internal and external experiences as he is alert and alive in the moment, he immediate notify me when I use left hand to take things as it may insult other people. He can detect cultural cues, more attuned to the external environment. Mindfulness acts as a bridge between cultural differences and responses to them. He possess mindfulness to understand the unique cultural settings. He is able to recognize influence of cultural scripts on his own and other’s thoughts and behaviours. I think he still cannot adapt to the local culture that Singaporean are less likely to care of left hand handling things. He should have make sense of new changing circumstances and adapt to them. Mindful people attend to the environment though a filter that is not tarnished with preconceptions. They can better adapt to past scripts and engage in creative-problem solving.

From my perspective of view, I am less awareness of cultural and differences and less of regulation of attention towards the foreign workers. At first I couldn’t understand the point of the foreign worker that apologize to me, I had been enlighten by him about the problem of using left hand when handling stuff. Mindfulness here can help to reduce bias, when we know that culture is exchanging or influencing, label partners as deviant or incompetent will be less. This counters ethnocentrism and reduce stereotyping, prejudice and other bias. Besides, I think I should have self-learn on increasing of cultural knowledge gaps or areas which confusion occurred in our culture. This will definitely encourage us to seek information and skills to improve my performance. I learn to cognitively aware of communication if I am to overcome tendency to interpret strangers’ behaviour based on my own frame of reference. When I interact with strangers, I will become mindful of our communication. When I am mindful, I can make equitable choices to what I need to do in the particular situation in order to communicate effectively.