Comments on: The dark side of intercultural communication

By: Jasmine Gagarin

Jasmine Gagarin — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 13:04:22 +0000

Indeed, actions speak louder than words! Some people really forget that gestures, tones, and facial expressions also hold a lot of meaning. This also goes for people who speak English in different degrees of fluency. Sometimes, some people who are more fluent would say mean things that they think some people wouldn’t understand, but their gestures and expressions give it away. This is very relatable. Thank you so much.

By: Eumira Guillermo

Eumira Guillermo — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 01:47:37 +0000

I understand what you’re pointing out and thank you for this, Kimie. When there is no common “language” or “culture” in a multicultural setting, it becomes acceptable to insult without repercussions. Naturally, this is a mistaken assumption. This is indeed a good and interesting post!

By: Mary Caryl Lozano

Mary Caryl Lozano — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 00:27:02 +0000

Thank you for sharing this. As sad as it is, many things could be picked up from the interaction, from Thailand’s culture to Asian socioeconomics. But when it comes to language, it reminded me that language is power. It can be used productively to do many good deeds, but it could also be used to further tip the scales of power imbalance. Language is power especially if it’s a non-dominant language spoken in a foreign land. This can be seen in the exchange written above. It is no longer “language is power” but “knowledge is power”. Because knowledge is what would’ve allowed those children to know what the Japanese men said if they were given the opportunity, but because they were not, it was the Japanese men who used the children’s lack of knowledge to their power and insult them. Truly it was despicable scene.

By: Rosan Ogayon

Rosan Ogayon — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 17:54:39 +0000

Thank you for sharing your experience, Kimie! Through the article, I understand that communicating with people of diverse cultures can be exciting, but also tough. Differences in cultures can lead to misunderstandings, thus, ineffective communication. Misunderstandings occur in intercultural communication merely because people have different perceptions and interpretations of the same information. For instance, we don’t know what exactly the Japanese man trying to claim but learned that we all see things differently. Thus, intercultural communication is more than just the exchange of information across cultures. It is also the cultural context within which information is exchanged and understood.

By: Jose Daniel Cabrera

Jose Daniel Cabrera — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 18:10:38 +0000

Thank you for your insights, Kimie! Even without a shared language, the children can still indeed understand what the men were saying to some degree. A similar experience that I have observed is the common occurrence that takes place when Filipinos interact with other nationalities, be it people they are already friends with or complete strangers. Filipinos tend to teach foreigners curse words or lewd words with the goal of humor. This seemingly harmless “fun” interaction often results in foreigners being doubtful and given the actual meaning of words, but there are times when the real meanings of words are not explained to them and they inappropriately used them.

By: Francis Gozon

Francis Gozon — Sun, 27 Nov 2022 06:39:27 +0000

Thank you Kimie for sharing your experience. You have made great observations which are quite thought-provoking. The man was expecting the children to not understand his words since they do not share a common language. I do think the children did not understand the man’s words but they understood his intentions to drive them away. As you mentioned, gestures, expression, and tone are other methods for people to transmit their message and intentions across, not just with words. These non-verbal cues provide more context to the message that is being conveyed, the communication between the men and the young flower sellers were incomplete, but the young flower sellers still understood the context of the message. It is quite sad for such a scene to happen, and I hope more research regarding this topic receives more attention for people to be aware.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 16:56:43 +0000

I remember when I was in Thailand a Japanese men told his friend 外人嫌い while they were starving at me.
I reply to them 外国人は外国の国籍を有する者です。 it means in Thailand you are also 外人。
They ran away …

By: khan

khan — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 18:31:42 +0000

What a moving post, thanks Kimie. I agree with your observations and analysis that having a commonly shared language is not absolutely necessary to understand each other. Silence is sometimes more deafening than noise depending on who, where, what and why.

Heard melodies are sweat but those unheard are sweater. ( Grecian urn, Keats)

Khan

By: Mira-chan

Mira-chan — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 22:34:59 +0000

I remember once, me and a friend of mine saw a british lady at college, but the weird thing was is that she was dressed in the full traditional emirati abaya. We stared at her for a bit then started talking about her like any other girls would do, we were like: She must be muslim, or married from some emirati guy here? Or she might just want to look emirati, but poor she fails cause she still has that white face. Then,suddenly, she looked at us and said: I am british, but married to an emirati guy. That was so embarresing because she figured that were debating about her from our body lang and from how we gazed at her haha.
And yes that happens alot with me and with my forigen teachers at college, i use arabic whenever im annoyed to express that im just SO ANNOYED that you should not understand what im about to say, and they often get it haha.
Thats a really good post, and that japanese should get a life because no matter what, he should not treat homeless kids this way.

By: Lachlan Jackson

Lachlan Jackson — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:01:57 +0000

Thanks Kimie for this thought-provoking post. Excellent! Mind if I use it in class?
Lockie.

By: Akiko Kato

Akiko Kato — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:24:11 +0000

I could imagine the similar things happen everywhere in Thaniya. It is highly possible that at least one of these five Japanese men can be a father. I wonder how he speakes his own child 😛 From linguistic point of view, obviously communication is made by a lot of components, words, tone, gestures… I remember reading an article about mother’s talk. New born infants are very sensitive to tone, face expressions. They detect if they are in safe situation or not mainly from these nonverbal communucation Actually, we, adults, do the same when we talk evan in a common language. But between two speakers with differnt language, nonverbal factors play more important roll in communication.

By: Motoko Sugano

Motoko Sugano — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:51:01 +0000

Thank you Kimie-san for the post. It is truly embarrassing to witness the scene like this — condescending J-man shamelessly exhibiting arrogance. The sight that we want to avoid, I usually stop here. But Kimie-san’s article goes one/two maybe three steps further and consider it as a very good case of intercultural communication. Yes, it is not the words but how you say them that actually create meaning, we do often forget that!. I am not sure if the boy understands the man’s words or not, but certainly Kimi-san as an interlocutor does. I though that kind of relationship is interesting, too.

By: Sheyla Gallegos

Sheyla Gallegos — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 08:40:32 +0000

Thanks a lot Kimie for this vivid article.