Doing Culture

At the beginning of the semester, when both I and my students were getting our bearings, shall we say, a fellow teacher lent me Doing Culture. The premise of the book is that we should attempt to "do" a new culture, rather than "understand" it on a more 2-dimensional level, and I found myself essentially using the book as an outline for my class. They all wanted me to teach them American culture, like turkey on Thanksgiving and parades on the 4th of July. Really, that's not going to help them when they go abroad. All of my students will travel to teach Chinese after graduation, so it'd be much more beneficial if I could teach them something about culture that would be actually practical, not just random facts about America. So, with doing in mind, I focused on macro concepts of culture (focus on the individual or collective, high value of hierarchy or all people treated equally regardless of age and status, change is good or bad, etc) and where China, and other countries, compare. Essentially, I wanted them to walk away with a basic understanding of how people of their own culture communicate and how it may differs from the way people in my culture, for instance, communicate. Though I can't teach them culture, I can help them prepare to better perceive a new culture, and help them understand how this could make them more effective teachers.

In Doing Culture, a series of scenarios described conflict in communication between, usually, a Chinese person and a westerner, which gave opportunity for us to discuss these different cultural behaviors and why they may cause conflict. Typically it had to do with pleasing someone (Chinese) vs. being more direct (westerner) or the different applications of formality (Chinese: formality shows how important you, as the guest, are; America: informality suggests a more intimate relationship among business partners and colleagues). The reception comparison I mentioned yesterday was also included.

I wouldn't have chosen to discuss these topics with my students had their English been weaker. The issues were complex, and I was asking them to look at their own language and culture in ways they perhaps hadn't before. It was a bit of a challenge. They weren't all at exactly the same level, but through repetition and writing everything on the overhead (my students find reading much easier than listening), eventually they all began to understand.

This week, however, was definitely the deepest yet. The topic was perception. We all use our senses to see, hear, feel our environment. We all see the same red flower in front of us, but what our minds do with this information is very different based on the cultures we come from. This can affect what we place significance on, and it consequently also changes the way we communicate effectively. Take, for instance, memorials in Washington DC. Typical memorials in America are just how we like them: big, clear, we look at it from a distance, we think wow Lincoln was a good president, the end. Now think of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, designed by Chinese-American architect Maya Lin. It was initially poorly received by Americans. It's not like the Washington Monument. Rather than flashing a camera from a distance, you're supposed to walk along the wall, get lost in it. It's more about an experience rather than just seeing a statue. Americans value communication from a distance, and they use visuals as their primary perception. While Chinese still use visuals as a primary perception, I think touch and experience is more significant, and they communicate on a much (literally and figuratively, I suppose) level. You can see that in the designs of the monuments themselves. But my students have never been to DC, so this was sort of lost on them.

I told them that in America we are quite sensitive to noise. Fireworks can not go off at 5am, people turn off their phones in the theater, and colleagues generally do not shout at each other. My students insisted, Yes here in China, too. They were obviously wrong, but they didn't understand because they've never tried to sleep in country much louder than their own.

Instead, and I stole this idea from Doing Culture, I showed these 2 paintings to my students and then asked them to list what they saw and tell me what each painting meant:
We all saw the same 3 women, the same fruit, but what they saw as "preparing for a big night at the restaurant," I saw as isolationism in the modern world.

Again, we all saw a mountain and some clouds. What I saw as "a scenic picture, perhaps the artist lives near this mountain," my students saw as "a fictional mountain, representing strength and balance." Even though we saw the same pictures, our perceptions of what each picture depicted, and what the focus was of each painting, differed. They totally understood, and they loved the fact that I encouraged them to disagree and come up with their own ideas. Although I've been pushing that angle since Day 1, this is the first time it was effective.

Class, as usual, ended with a standing ovation.