As someone who has lived in many cities on the opposite side of the world from where I was born, I’ve had a chance to adjust myself to different cultures. I don’t always adjust to every aspect of the culture but my goal is always to bend enough to get outside of my own biases. It can be challenging but I find this to be one of the most rewarding experiences a person can have.
I tend to stay away from places where other foreigners hang out, unless those foreigners speak the local language. I find my favorite people from the local culture and explore from there.
What's normal?
While each place certainly does have a majority culture with certain customs that are commonplace, there is still a lot of variety everywhere. It's interesting to see how much peoples concept of "normal" varies though. "Americans all carry guns don't they?" Well if you ask someone from the south, maybe. If you ask someone from the suburbs of New York, probably not. If you talk to a 25 year old Japanese person and a 65 year old Japanese person, their ideas about gender roles are completely different.
Sometimes just working in a different industry or living in a different station will lead to a totally different concept of normal.
Our whole concept of “normal”, “right and wrong”, the importance we place on family, friendship, work, money, it’s all influenced by the people who surround us, our friends, the media we consume, whether it be television, news or social media.
What is culture?
There is still this idea that culture belongs to a country, but a country is made up of people, and the connection between people is where the culture comes from. Whatever ties those people together will be the strongest influence on that culture. So as much as we talk about culture in terms of countries or regions, I find that there is just as much variance of culture in a single city or neighborhood than there is when comparing two different countries.
Take, for example, my musician friends and my contemporary dance friends.
Smoking and drinking
The musician friends drink a lot and smoke a lot and they always forget I don’t smoke. They have emotional relationships and they like to spend a lot of time with each other. They can be really fun but also a bit dramatic. They are a bit skeptical of new people but if you show interest in some common things, they open up right away. They can be quite draining when they are being depressed or when things are going badly, but then at other times they bring so much energy and support. They pee with the door open and tease each other a lot.
Yoga and Quiet time
My contemporary dance friends are much healthier. Most of them are vegan or vegetarian, they have fewer addictions and fewer attachments. They are generally less dramatic in that they fight less and have fewer things to complain about, but if there is drama, it might be on the extreme side. They are very free in their expression and will say “I love you” to a friend without thinking much about it. They touch a lot more and it doesn’t carry any sexual or romantic meaning. They don’t always stick around. They might disappear and not answer replies. They’re not always there when you need them, but they don’t hold it against each other because they tend to have wide social networks and give more attention to whatever is in front of them.
These two groups are all artists in the same city, but they couldn’t be more different. My musician friends in Japan actually have more in common with my musician friends in America or Hong Kong than they do with my contemporary dance friends in Japan, for example.
What does this say about our culture?
Culture is built by our own behaviors, interests and perspective. It is how we act with others and what trends form because of the way we act with each other. It can surely be shaped by the country we live in, our parents, or our education, but we still have the freedom to take what we want and to leave what we don’t. We have the ability to bend our culture and turn it into something new.
There is one shop I go to where all the customers talk casually without asking your name. No one made a rule that you can’t ask someone’s name. Nobody was taught not to ask another persons name. Actually, sometimes someone will ask a strangers name, but I’ve noticed that it’s incredibly rare. It’s much more common for two people to talk for hours without knowing each other’s name. It’s just part of the vibe of the place, it’s part of the culture which was created by the customers, staff and the owner. People ask for a name only when they want to add you on social media, usually at the end of a conversation, or sometimes a second or third conversation.
What kind of culture can we build at Hive?
We have people from all over the world here. I see this as an incredible chance to build bridges between countries and cultures. I want to make it easy for people to connect with each other and to build our own cultures out of our relationships and shared sense of community. Even just a passion for community is enough to build a culture around.
Our countries culture has shaped us to some degree though, whether we adopt it or reject it, it's part of our experiences and we can understand each other better by understanding the culture and mindset that they were raised with. We can also teach someone about us by sharing about he unique culture of our office or our club or group of friends
I would love to see more deep, analytical or even emotional discussion about our national cultures in a respectful way where we can learn from each other and learn about ourselves. That’s why I started Hive Cross Culture, a community for culture discussion and language exchange.
We can start with more casual topics, and once we get more comfortable with each other, we can go deep and try to understand what it’s like to grow up in a totally different mindset.
We may even learn that we fit some stereotypes we didn’t know we fit, or that we make some stereotypes we didn’t know we make. We might learn that some stereotypes are misguided and the deeper story behind where some stereotypes come from. Or we might just learn some fun things about a place we want to travel. There is so much potential for this kind of community which is why I’m so excited about it.
The topics I mentioned are are acceptable, so are any bilingual posts or posts about studying languages. Share your own culture or share your impressions of another culture as long as you make an effort to be respectful and build understanding. 🙂 I'll be posting a prompt every week or two for people who are having a hard time coming up with ideas for what to post.
Once we understand each other better, we can shape our culture at hive in a way that we all feel comfortable.
You can join us in discord too
- Pineapple 🍍
I+Everything