There is no doubt that culture is the breeding ground of value and character. Both the article ‘Figuring Foreigners Out’ and the analysis of Skim Geert Hofstede bring out the notion that people from different cultures might form different values.
The results are really interesting. Take the monochronic and polychronic as the example. People from different culture handle time differently. I totally agree with this conception. When I travel to Hongkong, citizen there is more tendency toward monochronic. They believe time is a commodity which is quantifiable. People I work with really pay attention with time and they always have a sense of urgency in many matters. However, when I went to Norway for my vocation, people there are more polychronic. They usually have leisure. This clearly shows that people will have different characters because of different culture and country.
I also love the part talking about direct communication and indirect communication. Grown up in China, I am more tending to speak indirectly. Chinese tend to be collectivist and tend to infer, suggest, and imply rather than say things directly. During China’s long feudalism history, seignior has superior power and other peasants, inferior citizens, need to follow their order completely. Saying directly might lead to the fury of seignior. In this case, people are tending to speak indirectly. Even nowadays, in the democratic republican country, there are a lot of group activities, so people are really aware of the unity of the group. However, in the Western world, people will speak directly and to get direct answers. The great thing is that in Korea, people are more tending to speak indirectly. They are usually more aware of social stratum.
At the end of my journal, I want to quote one sentence from the article, even though I do not totally agree with it. ‘Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster.’
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