Cultural adaptionWord下载.docx

1、Nevin BlumerIn the course of my extended stay in Beijing, I have come across many students who, out of fright, ask me to give them advice on how to adapt overseas, particularly in Canada, since I am a Canadian. The typical concerns range from social ones, like making friends, to more professional co

2、ncerns, like cultural issues at work.Many of the students that express these concerns assume that cultural adaptation involves a type of behavior modification, and requires a system of communication to facilitate this adaptive behaviour. Many would-be overseas students and immigrants fear that their

3、 own culture or lack of English skills may inhibit this process of adaptation. While there are legitimate ways of preparing for living overseas that involve culture and language, it is neither your culture, nor your English that will inhibit your process of adaptation. Cultural adaptation does not i

4、nvolve throwing away your cultural traditions, nor does it involve any wholesale behavioural change. And while developing your skills in English certainly helps you to understand more, it does not necessarily ensure that you will avoid problems due to cultural differences. Cultural adaptation is mor

5、e about sensitivity, understanding, reaction and anticipation.Sensitivity means being observant of the reactions of others and looking for signs and messages that communicate peoples feelings. Much of this involves not only concentrating on what is being said, but also what is unsaid but still commu

6、nicated. Nonverbal signs can communicate much more than mere words.Understanding means that you are persistently trying to discover realities beyond the surface. This means that you are constantly trying to clarify meanings and searching for a range of opinions and interpretations, not just a select

7、 few. Reaction is your response to events. Adaptation often involves reacting in the most constructive and effective ways, so that those you interact with learn and grow from the experience, just as you do. This contrasts with reactions that seem to result in stress and anxiety, like temper tantrums

8、 and violence.Anticipation is your ability to predict events based on your knowledge of culture. For example, if you know that certain words will be received better than others you may choose to use them instead. Anticipation allows you to choose more effective ways to interact and get along with ot

9、hers socially.Cultural adaptation is a process of changing perspectives and reconciling your values and beliefs system. It is a process of being able to refine your reactions and responses in a way that allows you a measure of satisfaction and success. It is not about jumping to conclusions and find

10、ing neat little classifications to label each and every experience you find yourself in overseas. In short, adaptation does not mean becoming a “cultural expert”.I have lived in 3 countries, China being the last one. My own experience has taught me that living overseas involves changing interpretati

11、ons. The most common problem I have found with expatriates living here in China is that they quickly interpret their new environment and seem unable to offer themselves new interpretations in response to new events. They may quickly say, for example, that they think making friends is difficult, that

12、 the locals seem cold or unfriendly, without trying to consider what it is about themselves that is isolating them from the rest of the host society. They find that after living in a country for 2 years events are not so easily categorized and labelled, and so they are back to square one in their un

13、derstanding, even though they thought they had figured out everything. Thus when we talk of the principles or dos and donts of living overseas we must be careful. The all-embracing principles of cultural adaptation just dont exist.Dont we need some fixed set of principles for adaptation overseas? Ma

14、ny students of mine still ask me for the hard and fast rules of living in Canada. For example, they ask me what the best way to start a conversation is. Some ask me how they can politely say goodbye, others ask me what kind of gift they should give when arriving at someones home.When I ask them how

15、they would feel if they received these same responses and gestures, the answer they give is usually the same one that I would give. How would you yourself react to someone doing the same thing to you? The reality that will hit most visitors to a country who stay for an extended length of time is tha

16、t people around the world are remarkably similar. And no matter how banal this truism may seem at first, it may take a visitor a good few years before it really begins to sink in. Why would it take so long? Typically we go through stages of development while trying to adapt overseas. Jean Piaget （a

17、famous Swiss child psychologist） noted that young children go through stages of accommodation, anxiety and adaptation when exposed to new experiences. Each new experience that cannot be accommodated may challenge their pre-existing conceptions. Adults are much the same. Adults who live overseas will

18、 have their pre-existing conceptions challenged constantly and accommodation will not come at once. Typically there are 3 distinct stages in a foreign visitors cultural adaptation development: the honeymoon stage, the hostility stage and the adaptation stage.Honeymoon Stage （normally 1 6 months）The

19、first stage is called the honeymoon stage. Researchers have observed a cross section of subjects from a variety of countries and noted that the reactions for the first 6 months are remarkably similar. We begin our life overseas with a honeymoon perspective of the place.The honeymoon means everything

20、 is so fresh and new that we tend to respond in a naively positive way to each new thing we see. We are looking for differences and relish it when we first see it. Perhaps in Beijing, for example, the bustle of people crowding into a bus is a sight that delights and amuses the foreign visitor, altho

21、ugh it may annoy that same visitor 7 or 8 months after he first arrives. A honeymoon stage means that a visitor is trying to absorb differences into their conceptual framework furiously, so much so that he or she sees differences in things that may not be different at all.It is a time when we are fu

22、riously trying to categorize things and thus we tend to make overgeneralizations. We do this because we want to feel as if we are in command of our lives and we want to create order from chaos. So we begin to say such statements as “Chinese are” or “ Canadians are”, even though we have had too few i

23、nteractions to make such statements. In other words, we are not in a position to make such judgements but we do so anyway because of our eagerness to “know the unknown.”We are still in a tourist mindset eagerly trying to find out where all the various landmarks are, trying out and learning the names

24、 of every dish we can. We start conversations and seem genuinely interested in people who approach us. We are also interested in the culture and furiously study the language.This stage usually lasts for up to 6 months but it certainly can be shorter or longer. It is a pleasant stage, as all honeymoo

25、ns ought to be, when everyone seems so friendly and hospitable, and most sociologists advise you to let it last for as long as you can.Hostility Stage （normally 6 months 2 years）As we all know, honeymoons cant last forever, and so the business of settling into a routine becomes important. Instabilit

26、y and chaos are fun for a while but we do not want it to unsettle our lives for any extended period, so we begin to create order. Creating order in a foreign country is difficult because we lack the capacity to do things as effectively as locals. Often our reactions turn to hostility. We begin to de

27、eply distrust everyone and suspect the worst intentions. We are truly into our hostility Phase. Whereas we looked at differences with such delight and curiosity, now it becomes a burden.This stage is the manifestation of a kind of hidden homesickness. It is at this point that we begin to make critic

28、al comparisons, and when we do our home country always seems to win out.We wonder why the host country cannot do things the same way as our home country. I can recall speaking to a group of students from Hong Kong who complained of the rudeness of Canadian doctors, the inefficiency of the traffic sy

29、stem, and the laziness of the professors. The more they vented the better they seemed to feel.Interactions naturally suffer during this period and your temper will be much shorter. You will find yourself getting upset more easily and in arguments more and more. You begin to label the people in more

30、negative ways. You begin to suspect that they are all racist and against your country.You find yourself voting for any sports team except the host country and disagreeing with the host countrys political positions. You particularly find it annoying when people of the host country show any kind of pa

31、triotism. Even the dishes you used to love ordering seem boring now. Most annoying to you now are the many people who ask you the same questions that seem to invade your privacy.At the same time you become more romantic about your home country, forgetting that it might have ever had the same problem

32、s. Many things, as far as you are concerned, just would not happen in your home country. Your host country now seems slightly uncivilised and you no longer take any interest in the cultural events. This stage can last a very long time or very short time. Nobody can say what moves you out of it, but many sociologists suspect that the evolution of routines and order tends to help you move past it. Also, a wide circle of friends from the host country tends to help, since you are able to get a wide variety of interpretations and explanations. One thing for sure, how