I think you may know now that I also teach some university classes.
In the midst of teaching my communications class this morning, I was struck by a comment made by one of my students. See, the topic was culture and the differences between communication across cultures. What one culture may perceive as rude, another culture may perceive as quite acceptable and vice versa.
Quite a few of my students are international and quite a few of them are from Nepal. What a beautifully humble culture this is, defined by kinship, honesty and friendship.
I have nine students in fact that hail from there. They outweigh the ‘Australian’s’ in my class. Discussing the competitive nature of our Aussie culture, a few of my Nepalese students were confused.
“Yes mam, a lot of us don’t understand, why so serious here?”
“What do you mean?” (I had a hunch what was coming next, but wanted to be clear.)
“Well mam, in Nepal, when we shake hands with our people on the street, we shake hands and become friends. Straight away they are our friend. Here, it is different. Here, we shake hands but we may not become friends. We may not be so open with them here.”
Ug.
I knew it.
In our Western culture, our culture filled with goals and outcomes and our concentration on the economy and our material achievements, in a culture filled with technology connecting us all, we are not connecting – at least not on the level that our Nepalese counterparts connect.
We have become closed. We have become serious.
We have increasingly stopped saying hello to our neighbours, we have increasingly stopped making friends with strangers in the street, we have increasingly neglected our communities and taken the focus to ourselves and our own and even then, we have neglected our own.
I love being a teacher because so many times (so many times) I am taught.
How can we change? How can we become more personal in our dealings with people? How can we become more open?
Granted, some of us may already be doing this. We may be looking people in the eye when we meet them and genuinely, warmly give them a heartfelt smile of appreciation for beginning the journey to know them. We may be helping our neighbours out when we see them in a spot of bother. We may be embracing and acknowledging our loved ones often.
But some of us may not.
Where has the trust gone? This is a reminder to me as much as you – we are all each other’s brothers and sisters. Be kind. Be generous. Be open.
Look past the handshake and into the person.
Now I’d love to hear from you! What do you think? Share with us in the comments below. Perhaps you have a simple strategy for being more open and allowing our sense of community to grow?
With love
Lynda
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