Cross Cultural Communication Tips

This is from Anne Francis' Culture class:

At a party how do you introduce yourself? If you are at a business meeting what do you say? When you meet someone from another country, what can you expect?

In America, when being introduced to someone new, it is important to look the person in the eye and smile. A younger person is introduced to an older person, a man is introduced to a woman. Men almost always shake hands. Women may or may not shake hands. When a woman is introduced to a man it is her choice whether to shake hands or not. In business everyone shakes hands. But no matter whose choice it is, when someone puts out a hand, the other person must shake.

Five EFI students taking the Culture Class tell us about the customs in their countries.

My name is Chi-Fan Yung.  I am from Hong Kong (which is now part of China). I am now doing my graduate study in the United States.  I have been here only for three months.  My whole family is still in Hong Kong,that's why I really want to finish my study here as soon as possible and return home. I am 24 now and I hope to finish my study before I'm  30. There is still a long long way to go.

I think for normal social events, parties, or business meetings, everything done in America also applies to Hong Kong.  There is nothing peculiar regarding the do's and don'ts.  I guess for some countries, there might be some special forms of introduction like bow, hug, kiss or something.  But for Hong Kong, I don't think there is something that is particular to it as far as introduction is concerned.  Perhaps I am so used to it that I consider everything normal, yet as far as what I have observed up to now, there is not much difference between US and HK except for the difference in language itself (English vs Cantonese).

My name is Eloisa Batista de Medeiros, I've just turned 23 (Nov 17, 1974), I was born in Recife, a delightful city by the sea, in the state of Pernambuco, in Brazil. This is my last semester (I guess and hope) in college. I'm graduating now, in Computer Science, at Catholic University. If there's one word one can't use to describe me it is "shy". I've lived in the USA before, for six months.

In Brazil, things and people are more informal than in other parts of the world I've seen. For instance, we almost never use the last name to refer to someone; lists (like school ones) are made using the first name to put in alphabetical order; we usually call even teachers by their first names too. When it's an older person, Mr. Joseph or Mrs. Mary is the normal procedure (using their first names).

The usual way to salude someone you know, or that you are being introduced to is giving two kisses (many people give three - I stick to two), one on each cheek, this is valid for man-woman, woman-woman, but not man-man, two men salute by shaking hands, like in the US. When I met my host family in the airport in the US, I came to them and immediately went to give the two kisses. They seemed to find it strange and gave out their hands to shake, I should be aware of this... I guess.

Now you can imagine we touch one another a lot, while dancing, talking, it's natural. If you don't like when people you've just met act like old friends, don't come to Brazil (specially in the Northeast, where I live).

My name is Nuttapat Somboonhansa. I'm a Thai people and living in Bangkok, Thailand. That is the land of smile. :-) Although, my country is encountering economical slump problems, we still have to be able to smile!! I hope that we should be recovery it in coming soon (a few year). For my English language communication skill,  I have been making speedy improvment because I'm going to the US for a while early next year. That is just two month remaining from now to improve.

As for the custom of introduction at here in Thailand we have a little bit different way, but it is important.  In general, when we see a new friend or are introduced to someone, then we will say Sa-wad-dee (means Hello) but we don't touch each other.   And a man should be careful when he is introduced to a woman. Don't touch her, even the elbow, because in our tradition this is an aggressive and impolite manner.

Every rule have exception, if you are in a pub or entertaining place, we might handshake a new face. When you introduce your friends to one other, you should start introducing older one to the others first. This is for formal situations only.

My name is Seiichiro Yoshida.  I think my name is so hard to pronounce for you.  So call me Say[sei]. I work for a semi-conductor company, Saga Electronics Co., Ltd., located in Saga prefecture where is the western city of Japan. My hobby is watching sports, any kinds of.  The other days the soccer team of Japan won the final heat of next World Cup in France in 1998. This is the one of the greatest news here.  I watched that game in excitement.