Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication happens when people with different cultures and from
different communities share meanings and interactions. Some think that intercultural
communication happens between individuals from different countries as others expand the
notion of intercultural communication to inter-ethnic, inter-religious grounds, and so on.

One can argue that all interactions are intercultural because I have a different past, a
different upbringing than the person standing next to me, but I think that would be more of an
interpersonal communication than an intercultural one.

To communicate effectively across cultures the first thing to have in mind is that the
notion of culture diverges from our own view.

I have been always told that I should accept people that are different from me because
they can teach me and show me things I never heard about. And that I myself have so much to
show to others that are from a different culture, different country or different religion. I do think
that this is true but I also think that too many years of existence can blur all humankind vision of
diversity. We are all engaged in a web of stereotypes and bias that, sometimes, keeps us from
seeing the real person that is in front of us. If a Gipsy stands before me I will connect him to
robbery or stealing. If a Jew talks to me I will always connect him to the “sacred war” and to
Holocaust… One’s past and legacy follows him wherever he goes.

About communication, it is a complex and dynamic process as it gathers many

elements and has to support a lot of different aspects: gender, sexual orientation, nationality,
age group, ethnicity and race, religion, social cast and nationality.

In my personal experience I have two experiences concerning major contact

with a different cultural or different territory.

I lived in a Portuguese island for twenty one years. After finishing my first
degree I moved to Portugal mainland to study journalism. Even being in my own country, this
was quite a shock. As I have different accent and pronunciation from mainland people, I would
be asked to repeat myself so many times… It was quite frustrating and I thought to myself very
often that I was in a different country. I would talk about food people didn’t know, I would say
expressions people never heard or that had a different meaning there. It was very confusing in
the beginning, but in time I began to be appreciated by my different way of being and I also was
interested in the differences that people from my own country had.

The other experience was, of course, coming to Poland. The first day was so
strange. Being in a city where you can’t understand a word of what people say, and reducing
communication to pure mimics is very awkward. That was only the first problem. Here in Poland
people are tighter, they don’t talk loud, they don’t loosen much and my first impression was that
they were very cold. In time I have learned to behave among them and respect their way of
acting. I have Latin blood so I’ll sing in the metro, I’ll laugh as loud as I please in the restaurant, I
will kiss someone in their cheeks when I meet them and I will always dance when I hear a music
that I liked. I lived to comprehend that many people won’t do that, not because they don’t feel
like it but because they are different from me. I have been looked down and I have been
cheered for my spontaneous acts. This is to show how people handle with difference. And I’m a
normal European, with no physical special characters, besides being white and green-eyed…
So I can only imagine how a Chinese, an Islam or an Indian can feel different in a country far
from their own. But I have also seen that there are a lot of similarities, for example, music. The
type of music that generally is passed in discos is the same as in Portugal, and also, taking an
example of where I have also been, in London.

I believe that a world where everyone was the same, with the same traditions, beliefs
and cultural ideas, would be so boring. Why are we amused by travelling all across the world,
but we still won’t accept foreigners into our lives? We eat American fast-food, we hear Beattles
English music, we go out and pay so much many for Japanese sushi, we use Chinese made
shoes, and we will die for a African gems necklace, but we still have problems accepting these
people into our lives. How can we be hypocrite and say we don’t need globalization and
difference?

I guess time makes people get used to difference. Even if we still have ethnocentrism,
and anti-globalization supporters, I think that we have come so far. There is no way to stop
globalization and soon we will have no other choice than to accept everyone’s culture into our
own. And I myself am glad for it. And I’m also proud to know people are absorbing my own ways
and culture. I don’t think that this phenomenon, globalization, will delete the different cultures
and mix them together to a point they won’t be distinguishable… I think that it will only give
emphasis in what good things every culture and different way of life has to give.

We cannot lose ourselves to other cultures. We will only get fuller, bigger and larger
than our own lifetime experience. It is not the world that will turn into a “melting pot” but each
one of us.

Cristina Freitas