Cultural Adaptation: How Does it Come About?
Nevin Blumer
In the cour of my extended stay in Beijing, I have come across man严肃造句
y students who, out of fright, ask me to give them advice on how to adapt overas, particularly in Canada, since I am a Canadian. The typical
concerns range from social ones, like making friends, to more professional concerns, like cultural issues at work.
Many of the students that express the 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 overas students and immigrants fear that their own culture or lack of English skills may inhibit this process of adaptation. While there are legitimate ways of preparing for living overas that involve culture and language, it is neither your culture, nor your English that will inhibit your process of adaptation. Cultural ad
aptation周报怎么写
does not involve 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 more about nsitivity, understanding, reaction and anticipation.
Sensitivity means being obrvant of the reactions of others and looking for signs and messages that communicate people’s feelings. Much of this involves not only concentrating on what is being said, but also what is unsaid but still communicated. 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 arching for a range of opinions and interpretations, not just a lect few.
Reaction is your respon to events. Adaptation often involves reacting in the most constr
uctive and effective ways, so that tho you interact with learn and grow from the experience, just as you do. This contrasts with reactions that em to result in stress and anxiety, like temper tantrums and violence.
Anticipation is your ability to predict events bad on your knowledge of culture. For example, if you know that certain words will be received better than others you may choo to u them instead. Anticipation allows you to choo more effective ways to interact and get along with others 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 respons in a way that allows you a measure of satisfaction and success. It is not about jumping to conclusions and finding neat little classifications to label each and every experience you find yourlf in overas. In short, adaptation does not mean becoming a “cultural expert”.
I have lived in 3 countries, China being the last 刚正不阿的意思
one. My own experience has taught me th
at living overas involves changing interpretations. The most common problem I have found with expatriates living here in China is that they quickly interpret their new environment and em unable to offer themlves new interpretations in respon to new events. They may quickly say, for example, that they think making friends is difficult, that the locals em cold or unfriendly, without trying to consider what it is about themlves 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 understanding, even though they thought they had figured out everything. Thus when we talk of the principles or do’s and don’ts of living overas we must be careful. The all-embracing principles of cultural adaptation just don’t exist.
Don’t we need some fixed t of principles for adaptation overas? Many 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 someone’s home.
When I ask them how they would feel if they received the same respons and gestures, the answer they give is usually the same one that I would give. How would you yourlf react to someone doing the same thing to you?怎么熬鸡汤
The reality that will hit most visitors to a country who stay for an extended length of time is that people around the world are remarkably similar. And no matter how banal this truism may em 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 overas. Jean Piaget (a famous Swiss child psychologist) noted that young children go through stages of accommodation, anxiety and adaptation when expod to new experiences. Each new experience that cannot be accommodated may challenge their pre-existing conceptions. Adults are much the same. Adults who live overas will have their pre-existing conceptions challenged constantly and accommodation will not come at once. Typically there are 3 distinct stages in a foreign visitor’s cultural adaptation development: the honeymoon stage, the hostility stage and the adaptation stage.
Honeymoon Stage (normally 1 – 6 months)
The first stage is called the honeymoon stage. Rearchers have obrved a cross ction of subjects from a variety of countries and noted that the reactions for the first 6 months are remarkably similar. We begin our life overas with a honeymoon perspective of the place.
