Since teenagehood I’ve sought out my culture-fix, as I named it, regularly. In a way, one could call it an addiction, but at least not a harmfull one. Nevertheless it's not always popular going for the seemingly unexplainable. Taking it's starting point in a predilection to the things in life, which I do not understand, with an innate fundamental feeling that understanding is not the primary goal, rather it is a different experience of joy, without being able to explain exactly why, because I'm never sure that I quite understand the situation as I'm supposed to myself. I guess most people can relate to this, but rarely to the same extent. An example is looking at art. There are never two similar analysis to one painting, and there can never be a correct analysis. Another example is musical lyrics. What can be quite as entertaining and cheering as children singing along in a language they don’t understand? They put their own meaning into the song, make up their own version, living in a fantasy creating assimilation as they go along. Later in school they accomodate, finding out what the song was actually about, but they will always carry the first adventorous experience inside, even though it wasn’t the truthful meaning of the song.
Encountering another culture cannot be much different. Our memories are intact. All it takes, is a similar experience or situation to recall a certain feeling. We cannot decide to throw away what we’ve once been taught, but we can decide to think twice about our approach. Wanting to get as close to understanding a culture as possible, there must be certain criteria of which to reach the optimum of understanding the strange and not alienating it. The tools we’re given are other individuals to pass on their knowledge and our own common sense of how to communicate in a given situation. To get answers, one needs to ask questions, but these questions has to be formulated on the conditions of the foreign culture. How can one formulate a question on these conditions, without knowing the culture? There is no certainty to that off course, but it is important to be aware of one’s own cultural identity, here lies the answer to one’s own reactions towards what is encountered. A useful tool of communication is to ask authentic questions of high appreciation in a dialogical discourse. This method was introduced by Olga Dysthe as both a didactical and pedagogical tool of teaching and learning. Another useful communication tool is ”Non-violent Communication” or ”Compassionate Communication”, introduced by Marshall Rosenberg. This method involves three recommendations:
1. Describe without using evalualistic judgement or moralistic labels.
2. Avoid blaming or behaving defensively, illuminate the personal needs of the other.
3. Request the specific behaviour. Avoid demand, threat, guilt or shaming.
1. Describe without using evalualistic judgement or moralistic labels.
2. Avoid blaming or behaving defensively, illuminate the personal needs of the other.
