Pieces of me in letters

Cultural differences are always interesting to discuss because of its sensitivity and complexity.

Living in a foreign country, I get to know and be friends with people from many different backgrounds and cultures. I found that cultural differences can be interesting but also challenging (at a few certain times, it can be even frustrating… hehehe). I also found that it takes time to realize that what is acceptable or common in a culture may not be acceptable or common in other culture and vice versa.

I don’t think I can blame someone to have a certain expectation in how people should express their appreciation based on what she/he was taught/learned for years: Common Courtesy 101, if I could just borrow Chuck’s terminology :P However I must say that “expectation” can be dangerous. My friend M and I actually talked about this “expectation” issue a few times. He said that expectation causes frustrations and thus problems among people. I was shocked to be considered unappreciative and even more shocked by the “mean things” I heard along the way. Mean because I did not expect to hear those things from somebody who barely knows me, and because in the culture which I grew up in people are expected to not say such things. Anybody sees the problem now?

I grew up (and currently living) in a culture where subtle ways to express feelings/emotions is considered wiser than open confrontation.  I personally think that open confrontation rarely leads to solution and more likely leads to empty argument. The worst thing is when it makes one feels very intensely emotional and then say something that he/she will regret later on. I was asked: “Do you not get use to people confronting you? Do you always get what you want?”. The first time I was asked such questions in my entire life and I didn’t really have reason to answer.　Because I know myself too well that answering them very likely would just make me end up saying things that I didn’t mean.

To put an end to this topic…

Expectation is shaped by culture, which implies that what is acceptable or not acceptable is relative. I think the first step toward mutual understanding is how to communicate the difference without judgement. My thanks to Chuck for his comment. It spices up my blog Ijou desu.

Is there “the best” way to appreciate nice things that people have done for you? How, how many times, and when?

I appreciate every single nice thing that people have done for me and I try my best not to forget to express my appreciation. From small things like when my friend saved a few pages of seminar material for me, to significant things like when I was very well taken care of for days during my trips abroad or when I was sick. There are times when I express my appreciation promptly and there are other times when I express it at the end of an event or a day. It depends on many things that might be a little too long (and boring) to be mentioned here (and it is not really the main point of this post :p). Anyways… I think being appreciative and to express it are very important. However, the way to appreciate - how, how many times, when - is less important than the appreciation per se. That is why it doesn’t bother me that sometimes some people choose to express their appreciation for me one way and other times they express it another way.  I personally choose quality over quantity to express my own appreciation… one sincere and thoughtful appreciation than many casual thank you’s. 

I learned - the hard way, by the way - that some people have a certain way to express their appreciation and expect others to do the same. I was expected to express my appreciation a certain way but I didn’t… and so I was considered as unappreciative. My reaction was… quiet (some people probably know very well this particular reaction of mine). The ideas that had been rolling in my head to express my appreciation the best way possible at the end of the day, evaporated within seconds because of the shock *sigh*.  And thanks to the shock, I started looking back, asking questions and ended up being overly critical to myself (so there goes another flaw of mine identified… ugh). Not until few hours later I fully realized that it was somebody who doesn’t know me well who considered me as unappreciative, but I took it as if it came from somebody who has known me for years. So I guess in my case, the final result of the expectation on how people should express their appreciation is… nobody feels good. But I wonder if the expectation was communicated in a different way the result would be different. Hmm… this actually inspires me to write another post with a related topic