CCA1

“What’s your name? Hu. Not who! What’s YOUR NAME. My name is Hu!” Who could forget that hilarious first meeting scene between Chris and Jackie from the movie Rush Hours? The inability of both characters to communicate successfully with each other despite using the same language is an ideal example of how culture serves as a perceptual filter that influences the way we interpret events. In the following paragraphs, I will share my personal experiences with two different cultures to demonstrate the impact of this principle on the effective communication process between people from different cultural backgrounds.
Quite frequently, a gesture towards someone can construe entirely different meanings based upon the cultural backgrounds of the communicator. Being a Chinese-Canadian, I have personally experienced the cultural shock when I moved to Canada at the age of 11. As I arrived, I was surprised to realize that the difference in language was not the only factor prohibiting my capability to communicate effectively with others. Growing up in China, I was taught that looking directly in the eyes of the person you are speaking with is a sign of disrespect, and it is appropriate to remain quiet when there’s nothing important to be said. As a result of such custom, I often bowed and avoided eye contact while making conversation with my classmates and teachers. Therefore, I was often mistakenly labeled by my teachers as introverted and incapable of leadership, which is not true of my personality. The difference in cultural perception between Chinese and Canadian caused disparity on our perception of identical signals and caused unfortunate and unnecessary misunderstandings between me and my instructors.
It is important to realize that failures to recognize cross-cultural differences can lead to impairments of effective communication, causing unnecessary confusions. However, these differences can be effectively eliminated with increased knowledge of other people’s cultural backgrounds. Living in today’s increasingly diverse society, shouldn’t we all be educated in how to better understand other people?