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While containing certain points of clear variance, both Figuring Foreigners Out and the Hofstede Dimensions of Culture provided standardized methods for differentiating or "scoring" different countries or cultures. They provided categories by which to compare cultures to each other (e.g. individualism, power distance, etc) and also to get an idea of what an individual in a certain country might think or act like. Using the standards of measurement that the readings provided could be useful as a rough, broad overview of a culture's views in general but I personally didn't think it would be very useful for determining an individual's values or thoughts. While knowing a culture's general views toward a concept or idea would be useful as a foundation, especially when first learning about that said culture, it would be significantly more fruitful to explore the different facets of opinions and values that people hold even in the same culture. 

While it would be tempting to simply generalize my native culture, the United States, as an individualistic society because it is perceived as the "land of opportunity" where you and you alone decide your own fate, it really isn't that polarized of a society. One of the core values of the U.S. is family and that family comes first, and while living alone isn't heavily looked down upon or shunned, it isn't considered a completely normal way of living.  On the other hand, my target culture of South Korea is considered a fairly collectivist society because of its emphasis on national pride and the idea that one's actions hold consequences for the family as well as for oneself. However, several sectors of the South Korean economy, especially the real estate market, benefit greatly from the significant population of the country that lives alone, with eating alone in restaurants being an everyday, accepted occurrence.  

• Summarize your assessment and goals in a blog post in your learning journal.

My Goals:

I have one overarching goal and three sub-goals. My overarching goal is to be proficient in bahasa Indonesia so as to pass my UR language requirement. My first sub-goal is to briefly review and master level one. For this, I will use Let's speak Indonesian level one. My second sub-goal is to briefly review and master level two. For this, I will use Let's speak Indonesian level two. My third sub-goal is to review and relearn level three's content. Here, I will use Indonesian in Grammar Context level three. Midway through the third sub-goal, my bahasa Indonesia should be sharp enough to pass as proficient. 

My Assessment:

For level one: I will lead a meeting among Thalia, Bow, Zack, and myself at a level comfortable to the other language students. I will record this conversation and use it as an artifact.

For level two: I will listen to Indonesian songs at a lower speed (adjusted on youTube) at first and then at regular speed. I will then be asked to translate the songs into English and write a summary about the songs in bahasa Indonesia. 

For level three: I will read news article in bahasa Indonesia and will have a conversation with Thalia in bahasa Indonesia. 

For my language requirement test: I am not familiar with the structure of the test.

The assigned reading from Figuring Foreigners Out was about basic types of differences between cultures. It touched on collectivism vs individualism, which pertains to the culture’s priority of seeking group vs. individual goals; nonverbal communication, which helps humans communicate more than just the sum of their words, but can cause misunderstandings in inter-cultural contact; monochronic vs. polychronic, which pertains to a culture’s sense of time [which has caused the most issues for me personally in intercultural contexts]; internal vs. external, which considers if the perceived locus of control is within the person or within their circumstances; and finally, direct vs. indirect communication, which is concerned with how people infer or state directly what they want to say.

The Hofstede Dimensions of Culture is similar, but with the following well-researched dimensions: Individualism, Power Distance, Masculinity, Uncertainty Avoidance, Long-Term Orientation, and Indulgence.

I do generally agree with these theories, with the caveat that country-wide statistics cannot possibly describe every culture within a country (especially in diverse countries like the U.S. and India). A few things in the readings which I had never been able to specify/name before was the cultural differences in time (Oh India, sweet India, where is your sense of time… :)) and the idea that one person can use nonverbal communication which means nothing in the other culture and thereby has communicated nothing when he thought he had.

I went ahead and checked out the comparative culture tool with India and the United States. I can definitely relate to the data! For example, the U.S. scores low (40) on the Power Distance index and India scores higher (77), showing how Indians have more appreciation and respect for hierarchical structure in society compared to Americans. I have seem that demonstrated daily in India, even in how people treat waitstaff in restaurants. In America, waiters/waitresses often interact as “friends”, using very familiar language and body language. Especially in the South, you can’t be surprised to hear a waitress call you “Honey” or say “If you need anything, just holler!” In India, on the other hand, even at casual cafés the servers keep a very respectful distance emotionally and generally treat patrons as being much higher in status than them. It confused me at first, but I had to remind myself to keep an open mind and accept that India is a different culture.

The readings primarily deal with organizing different countries/cultures in categories based on the traits the authors/researchers consider most informative.

Figuring Foreigners Out

This reading has chosen to categorize based on five habits/characteristics; Namely, level of individualism, verbal communication, sense of time, relationship with control, and level of directness in communication.

These categorizations are useful in my opinion for the following two reasons:

1) They point out aspects about cultures that many people may not have payed attention to prior to reading this article, not realizing that these are things that actually make a difference.
2) It puts into words ideas that other people  may have intuited but had not consolidated.

By doing this, these categorizations and their explanations help us understand more about other cultures, our own culture, and our selves.

However, as with any information, in contact with these categories lies the danger of sciolism. When reading this article, people who have no previous exposure to thinking about these topics can fall in the trap of not being able to distinguish other categories, in addition to these, or opposing to these, because in their mind these were the first ones to be established, therefore they must be correct.

Geert Hofstede and the 6D Model

Hofstede's Model uses a different set of traits than F.F.O. Namely individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and indulgence. The same applies here as above, with the exception that the 6D model rates countries on these attributes on a 1-100 scale. Here lies my major disagreement with this model. Although I am a research as well and I understand the limitations to getting answers to certain questions these days, I also understand the importance of uncertainty, subjectivity, and generalizability. There is a limit to how correct these ratings are and how indicative they are of each country's culture. I have used this model in my research, so I am not trying to discredit it; I think however that the results should be taken with a grain of salt.

The readings indicate the obvious, that different cultures communicate and understand people differently.  Whether by using and understanding different gestures and phrases, or by prioritizing different people, members of culture fall on different points along the dimensions listed in the Figuring Foreigners Out reading.

I generally agree with the readings, that people and cultures score differently along the dimensions, but I do find it very hard to place a realistic quantity on any of the dimensions in the Hofstede analysis.  To analyze a culture as a whole strikes me as futile, and to not account for the variance among the people seems to yield too strong of a consensus with the score the country is given.  I do appreciate the ability to roughly compare countries, but am not too sure that it would have any great use beyond personal development (eg, any policy decisions that could be effected with this information).

I would not ally myself too closely to the “official” score of the countries so much as accurate anecdotes about the relevant areas in the country.  If I were to describe myself and my hometown, we would score right about the middle on the individual-collective axis, maybe 70% monochronic, almost entirely internal personal control, and employing very high context communication.  Instead of the Hofstede tool, I would prefer to rely on the verbal impression of Greece, specifically around Athens, Bartholomio, and Thessaloniki.  According to Smaragda’s insight, Greece would score just a little bit more collectivist, probably 50-50 poly- and mono-chronic.  Generally, a Greek would consider himself controlled by external forces, and communicates with high context.

     This week, I accomplished one of my goals in presentational speaking, where I wanted to learn how to talk about different types of educational background. For example, in the U.S., there are different levels of education, such as high school and college. In South Korea, they also have these different levels, but I was always confused on how to say it in Korean. Therefore, I was able to learn what elementary school, middle school, high school, and college meant in Korean. Since I keep forgetting these terms, my language exchange partner helped me look at the roots of these words (like you do in Latin) to help me make the connection better. For instance, middle school in Korean is “joong hak-kyo,” where the first part means “middle” and the second part means “school.” Although this is a very simple connection, it helped me a lot to break down the words because now I can realize the words with “joong” can reference "middle." A simple application is to the word "middle school student," which is simply “joong hak-saeng,” as we can see that "joong" was used to describe "middle." This can also be applied to saying "joong-soon," which can reference the middle of the month. I also have a hard time remembering this term, so this helped me learn both terms!

     Therefore, I think it was very helpful to find a way to break down parts of these words because it helps me make connections to other words in Korean.   

     Some of my cultural goals are incorporated into my learning plan in the interpretive communication section because I want to learn about these topics to be able to talk about them with other individuals, such as family and friends. One topic that I was interested in learning about is South Korea’s bird, tree, flower, animal, and etc. I am interested in learning these cultural aspects because I know what they are are for my state (Virginia) and country (U.S.), which is why I was curious to learn what these were in South Korea. I can explore this topic by researching about it and watching videos that discuss this manner.

 
    Along with this topic, I want to also learn the early historical myths in South Korea and understand what the national anthem means in English. Since I just came back from studying abroad in South Korea last semester, I am very interested in looking at the similarities and differences between the cultures in South Korea to that of the U.S. Therefore, I will use this semester to explore these ideas!

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In both of these readings, they stated the factors that make the language and the culture of each country unique from others. In Figuring Foreigners Out, the author mentions how the the two extremes ends of each spectrums, such as individualist/collectivist, nonverbal communication, monochronic/polychronic, internal/external, direct/indirect, affect countries to be different from one another. Hofstede also states a similar claim with ideas such as the power distance index, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty tolerance index, and long term orientation.

I agree with the statements made in both readings, and I believe the differences in countries based on these ideas is evident and quite distinct. For example, America is more focused on the idea of being individualists, while Asian countries, including South Korea, are more focused on the idea of being collectivists. In the U.S, people are more focused on being an individual and the idea of “every man for themselves”. They emphasize individual goals, and the achievement one makes on his or her own. In Korea, people are more focused on the concept of group or family. They believe that one must take his or her own responsibilities and provide for the group or family. There is a strong sense of membership, and the sense of cooperation and harmony is stressed, which is also proven by the Hofstede map.

Both Figuring Foreigners Out and the Hofstede Dimensions of Culture defined 6 dimensions of culture: individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation and indulgence. Of these 6 dimensions, 4 of these dimensions are considered significant. First, individualism measures the degree that a society enforces individual or collective achievements and relationships. Second, power distance measures the degree of acceptance of equality or inequality between people. Third, masculinity measures the dominant values of a society driven either by competition and success or caring for others and quality of life. Finally, uncertainty avoidance measures the degree of tolerance for uncertainty in society.

Through these measuring standards, we are able to evaluate and see the different values that an individual who lives in that country may hold more strongly than another. Peoples' cultural outlooks thus affect their use of non-verbal communication or being less direct, committing more individualistic choices, being monochronic versus polychronic, and amount of control an individual has of their future. An action that may mean something in one culture may hold no meaning in another in which the message is lost to the person receiving it. Due to these differences, we are able to understand why it may be difficult for foreigners to acclimate to a new country as they communicate and process actions and words very differently. 

I readily agree with the Hofstede Dimensions of Culture in that it takes key aspects of culture which affect the core values of people and which in turn affects their actions and thought processing. Related to me, the United states and Korea are very different in all dimensions of culture. While the U.S. tends to be a more individualistic, success defined by achievement, and a less rule structured society, South Korea tends to be a more collectivist, success defined by quality of life and a very structured society. Looking back, I can see the differences in culture by the way that I could address people older than me, differences in perspectives of certain jobs, as well as emphasis on different things in life. 

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The reading Figuring foreigners Out introduce two notions of personal identity. Individualist and collectivist. Individualist values their own happiness above others while collectivist concern about their role in a group. Cultures have both identities, but the problem is the same behavior may have different meanings. We can categorize the nonverbal behaviors into three categories. First is that the behavior means the same in the target culture. Second is that the behavior means different in your target language. The third is that the nonverbal meaning has no meaning in your target language.

People’s conception of time also differs in various cultures. Monochronic means time is limited and quantifiable. Polychronic is that time is unlimited. The biggest cultural differences are probably whether people believe the locus of control comes from internal or external. This may greatly change ones ’perception to the event in life. We can see from the 6-D model of national culture shows that American people tend to be individualism while Asians are more viewed as collectivism. One of the models raises my interest. American tends to have short-term plans while Asians put emphasis on short-term benefits. I agree with this assessment. With the pressure of purchasing an apartment, people in Asian tends to be more focus on the short-term benefit. People work day to night for high pay and therefore lower their standard of living.

I think since Korea and China are all Asian countries, we share a similar value. We have similar working and social environment so the way we use language to describe everyday life can be regarded as highly identical. I think this similarity is a privilege since it would help my language understanding. I would understand the scenarios faster thus have a better language intuition.

     According to the Levels of Competence, I would rate my speaking in between Intermediate-Developing 2 and Advanced-Expanding 1. Although I am the most confident in speaking Korean, I always have room to improve. Therefore, I am not sure if I am an advanced speaker yet, which is why I can always increase my vocabulary and fluency in speaking. As for writing, I would say I am an Intermediate-Developing 2 because I was able to work on my writing skills while I was abroad in South Korea, last semester. Nevertheless, I can always work on learning the grammatical rules for writing. Lastly, I would say that I am the weakest in reading because I have had the least experience with developing this skill.

     Through SDLC 112, I want to mainly focus on developing my reading skills for Korean because I need the most help with it. I really want to increase my reading comprehension by learning how to understand what I am reading in a faster and more clear dynamic. Although this is my main goal, I will also work on developing my speaking and writing skills. I will dedicate 2 hours on Wednesdays to work on these goals with my learning partner and I will schedule other times during the week to put into practice what I have learned.

Angella Lee's Learning Plan (Initial)

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.’

The reading tried to make a spectrum with two extremes for the four cultural concepts, but I think one culture can't be just leaning towards one or the other. Everyone has both extremes used in different situations. In my opinion, everyone is an individualist to some degree. However, they are also able to excel in group settings and can have a larger meaning in a group. In addition, I have a different interpretation on the topic about time being monochronic and polychronic. Time definitely is finite for everyone and wise usage is encouraged. People always adjust schedules, but efficiency is not defined by the ability to do one thing at a time. Instead it is the ability to maximize work done towards a goal in a finite time whether it may be one or multiple, it is what defines efficiency. Interruptions aren't a nuisance but just a change in course towards a goal and adjustments are made to make wise usage of time. For the discussion of internal versus external, it is true that there are circumstances that are set. But, change in one's life is still possible. There are things out of our control like luck, however, it should not determine the outcome. The outcome depends on how well an individual maximizes the effect of good luck and minimizes the effect of bad luck. Finally, direct and indirect communications is used all the time and it is hard to distinguish whether a culture is more direct or indirect than the other.

One thing I could relate to my own native culture is the reading on nonverbal communication. In Korean culture, the act of eye-contact is considered disrespectful whereas in the American culture it is good to make eye contact while having a conversation. After immigrating to United States, I have several miscommunication experiences due to the difference in cultural meaning. I think it is very important to be aware of the difference in meaning of various behaviors so that you are able to express your true intention. 

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Figuring Foreigners Out and Hofstede Dimensions of Culture broadly categorizes one's native culture and the target culture and explores the differences between them. It includes ideas such as the individualist vs. collectivist, differences in nonverbal communication, monochronic vs. polychronic, internal vs. external, and direct vs. indirect communication. I agree that different cultures could have more emphasis on one over the other but in general, they consist of elements of both sides. For the individualist vs. collectivist category, I think American culture leans more on the importance of the individual, while Korean culture is quite the opposite. In America, you grow up hearing often about how everyone is a special snowflake and how individuals rights are valued. I found it interesting that the reading mentioned this quote, "Koreans believe that to accomplish something while causing unhappiness or discomfort to individuals is to accomplish nothing at all." I think in Korea, the importance of family drives the actions of the individual. Even the hierarchy within the family is a major aspect of Korean family culture. When I looked at Geert Hofstede's collectivism-individualism world map, I noticed how America is a very dark purple, while Korea is a very pale purple on a range of white meaning collectivist and dark purple meaning individualist. It's interesting to see a visualization of how different countries actually are based on these categories of differences.

Over these last couple of weeks, Seonghye has been working with me individually focusing on verbs and tenses.  I asked her to teach me the past and future tenses since I have previously studies only present, and I have wanted to be able to state what I did over the summer or what I will do this weekend for example.  She gave me a sheet that described the conjugating process of verbs that end with different stems and a list of exceptions.  We practiced various examples together and I was given homework to practice more on my own.  In addition to writing, we practiced speaking with these tenses.  She would ask me a question such as, "What did you do yesterday?" or "What will you do tonight?" and we would reverse the roles as well.  

I believe these strategies were effective in that when learning the material, it seemed easy to follow with fairly straight-forward rules.  However, I did find myself forgetting them rather quickly after lessons when practicing on my own.  I have learned from this that I must not only study the conjugations but test myself so that I will be able to recall each tense during conversation without relying on my worksheets.  I hope that mastering this material will make it easier for me to understand dialog in K-Dramas, Kpop songs, and ease the flow of conversation.  

Both Figuring Foreigners Out and the Hofstede Dimensions of Culture attempt to place international cultures into certain ‘categories’ on a spectrum of two ends. Figuring Foreigners Out made a lot of interesting points, some commonly heard before and some commonly not. These include concepts of the individualist vs collectivist societies, monochronic vs polychronic societies, internal vs external societies, and societies depending on direct vs indirect communication. The monochronic vs polychronic society was a completely new concept I had never even thought of before. I hear so much in the U.S. that “time is money,” but I wonder if those sentiments exist in Turkey. However, I could not help but feel as if some points were just too general. For instance, that behavior does not have an inherit meaning and that meaning is only given when assigned by people. There are cases where this is not true, and these cases are huge in how we communicate. The biggest example is of facial expressions. Several studies have found that facial expressions, such as those of happiness and fear, are virtually the same across all cultures and countries, even remote native tribes with barely any contact from the Western world. This is a very huge pillar of nonverbal communication, yet this text makes it seem as if nonverbal communications are just too different across cultures and a foreigner will be doomed to not have any form of nonverbal communication right off the bat when entering another country.

The Hofstede Dimensions of Culture continued with the trend of shoe horning the vast amount of cultures into the world into a dichotomous spectrum. This is not entirely a bad thing, but it may impede in our ability to truly connect with something if we simply feel it is too ‘foreign’ rather than simply another way of being human. Another culture may simply just be seen as far too ‘different’ and impenetrable, and a foreigner too stuck in their ways to change. The piece of text that greatest gave me this impression is the quote of Hofstede himself provided in the second link: "Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster." This is not someone open to accepting another culture or learning about them, but rather one who just wants to see another culture as some sort of set difference that he would rather just avoid altogether. The ‘dimensions’ he mentions on his website seem very short-sighted. There is a lot of variation in the underpinnings of each culture on a lot of these topics, such as with the ‘femininity-masculinity’ scale. A lot of the scales were just a bit bizarre, to be honest. Though I can understand that some of these scales have some truth to them, it just does not seem the scales were constructed on the right type of premise and that they generalize a bit too much. The U.S. and Turkey both fell in categories I expected, such as the U.S. being very individualist and Turkey being moderately collectivist and individualist (I expected Turkey to lean a little more on collectivism actually), and the U.S. not having a large power distance while Turkey had a moderate amount. All in all, I appreciate what truths the Hofstede scales have to offer, I simply do not think they should be the only reference to understanding a culture as they are very limited.

After reviewing my lesson plan and the track that my lessons are on currently, I think it would be best to focus on interpretive listening and interpretive writing, since those are the two skills that i would be able to apply most frequently to my day-to-day Korean interactions. From the feedback that I got from my Korean teacher Jimin, she also agrees that interpretive listening and interpretive writing would be best to work on, since it would apply to me best and it would be the areas where I would be able to show the most improvement. While a lot of the tasks that I have in my learning plan focus on interpretive reading as well, I think those tasks are all connected and would benefit me holistically. 

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