evaluating intercultural behaviour

As a Singaporean, learning how to live with people of different cultures seems to be no big feat. Being born in Singapore, I guess many of us probably do not really meet with much inter-cultural issues. I am one such example. Hence, what I am going to share is actually what one of my friends experienced while travelling in Italy.
As mentioned earlier, my friend and his wife were touring Europe, and Italy was one of his tour destinations. It was lunch time, and both of them were famished. They settled for a restaurant along the street and when their order came (spaghetti), they dug into their “noodles” and ate like how we (Singaporeans) do. Soon after, a lady, who was sitting on the table beside his, stood up and walked over. She actually went over and reprimanded my friend, for not eating the spaghetti the way they should be. (i.e. digging into the noodles and twirling it with the fork) My friend obviously felt offended to be actually told off in public in a foreign land!
I reckon that this is a pretty fine example of inter-cultural differences. Culture is defined as the behavior and belief characteristic of a particular social, ethnic or age group. To put it simply, it comprises of beliefs, values and certain behaviors that are imparted to us. And these behaviors and beliefs differ from people to people, from village to village. It is precisely these cultural differences that lead to many miscommunications and misunderstandings. Why so? For the same task/problem, people from different cultures learnt different ways/methods of solving it. Just take the pasta incident for example.

Task: Eating pasta (noodles)

French : Twirl pasta on fork
Singaporeans : “scoop” noodles with fork

So how does this difference lead to communication barriers? Taking a step back, one would easily realize that behaviors fall under the category of non-verbal communication. Different actions could be used to express the same issue. The difference lies in the way the how the individual was taught to do so. As the saying goes, action speaks louder than words. Indeed, an inappropriate gesture could result in dire communication errors. What’s important is to learn how different cultures work and to be tolerant and understanding.
By knowing the taboos of other cultures, one can effectively avoid unhappiness and misunderstandings. Knowing isn’t good enough. Understanding and being able to accept the fact that each culture has itstheir set of learned behaviors and values could very well help one look at a matter from a different perspective.

toys no enough?

Do you remember the days where short advertisements in between your favorite cartoon program by Mattel, lego or hotwheels got you excited over a new toy or game? Well, I definitely do. I thought toys in our days were sophisticated enough, ranging from nail art set for the girls to power ranger robots which could speak and light up with noises for boys. Whatever the case, as I took a look around the toy shops around me, I started to realize something. Gone were the days where building planes with legos and dressing up Barbie was the “in” thing. Now’s the age where purchasing the latest popular movie-themed merchandises is the way to go.

It was reported that there has been an increase in childrens’’s purchasing power which generates billions in revenue for related companies and corporations such as Disney. This phenomenon which includes largely “tweens” (preadolescence), are found to be the largest driving force in this market. Who then enables these kids to have such big spending power? I would naturally assume their parents are the ones. I’ve come across an article in the papers that mentioned a parent who recently spent several hundreds of dollars buying high school musical merchandises for her child. It certainly shocked me there on the amount spent.

A fine example of such merchandises:

Image courtesy of http://highschoolmusical.tystoybox.com/

Are parents so caught up with work that they feel buying their kids the things/toys they want is a way of compensating time with them? Or, are parents nowadays just so willing to spend loads on their child? If it is so easy for a child today to get what he/she wants, would a child still be able to learn the value of money? Hence, my research question would be focused on these tweens’ parents’, “How much are you willing to spend on your children on movie themed merchandises?” My hypothesis would then be, “As long as it is within my financial means.”

Through an attitudinal survey, I hope to be able to find out what are the views of these parents (with children aged between 8 to12) with respect to buying of these movie themed merchandises and to what extent are they willing to spend for their children. (problem statement) It is therefore, my wish to raise awareness of these parents (and parents-to-be) with regards to their expenditure on their children and probably a self-check to see if they’ve gone overboard. (purpose statement) We certainly don’t wish to have to come up with a “managing your finances” education in future, do we?

Here's some advertisements to relish our childhood memories: