NAME Jeremae Etiong Class Time: 8:30 – 10:00 AM DATE 11/12/21 SCORE

Worksheet No.
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LOCAL AND GLOBAL COMMUNICATION IN A MULTICULTURAL SETTING

Task 1

The following images were created by the art and visual designer Yang Liu, who was
born in China and raised in Germany. Her work is entitled East Meets West: An Infographic
Portrait. Drawing from her own experience Yang Liu created minimalistic visualizations using
simple symbols and shapes to convey just how different the two cultures are. The left side
represents Germany (or western culture) and the right side China (or eastern culture) (Falle,
2016).

Based on the images below, discuss what you think the artist is trying to illustrate regarding the
differences between Western (German) and Eastern (China) cultures in terms of:

Self- expression

(Yang Liu, 2015)

Based on my own perspective regarding this illustration, Western culture is more like straight-
forward in expressing themselves and opinions on a certain situation. They like to point out their views
in a manner that is direct, simple, and can easily understand by their listeners. While in the Eastern
culture, they are likely to beat around the bush or prevaricate themselves. They prefer indirect rather
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than direct communication. As a listener, I will have a hard time interpreting the words they want to
convey until such time that I can finally understand what they want to express.

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Problem-solving

(Yang Liu, 2015)

As shown above, Western and Eastern cultures have different ways of dealing with problems. In my
own understanding, Western culture tries to find a way to address or overcome their problems
immediately by identifying first the cause of the problem and formulating a solution to deal with it.
On the other hand, Eastern culture is having difficulty in confronting their problems so they try to
avoid them and let them just pass. Also, I think Easterners want to get away from their problems
because they don’t want to think about them and be stressed out about how they can resolve them.

Expressing emotions

(Yang Liu, 2015)

In terms of expressing emotions, Eastern culture remains calm and optimistic rather than Western
culture when difficulties arise.  Easterners want others to see them fine, happy, and not worried at
all despite what they truly feel about the situation. Whereas, Western culture wants to show what
they really feel in front of anyone when a certain problem occurs. If they are angry or sad about
what happened, then they will show anyone that emotion.

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