St. Lucia
I was fortunate enough to be able to go to St. Lucia for my honeymoon 3 years ago. This was my first face to face experience with intercultural communication in a different country. While over there I gained a better knowledge of the value, social norms, attitudes, stereotypes, the social organization, roles, and language skills (Moran, 42).
There were multiple instances where I saw the effects of the cultural difference. The first one was when me and my wife left the resort to go for a hike on our own. There was a couple in front of us who was from the island and wanted to pay to go in. Due to them being from a specific neighborhood from the island their price was different. When we walked up we were charged something completely different. The body language during both conversations was the thing I noticed the most.
The next social norm that I noticed was the way that they treated animals. A few stray dogs wandered onto the resort one night. Some of the other couples were playing with them and feeding them. When I staff member saw this, he came over and kicked the dog to get it to leave. This upset quite a few of the people who were standing there when it happened. This social norm towards these animals was something that most of the guests were not accustomed to.
This trip taught me a lot about understand verbal and non-verbal signals when working with a different culture. I plan to build upon this knowledge at my current job to help me to be able to handle these situations moving forward.
References:
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences (9th ed.). Oxford: Routledge.
Hi John,
I found your post about cultural attitude differences toward pets to be very thought provoking. My family is from the Caribbean. There are definitely cultural differences in the way animals are viewed. My mother was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and she considers dogs to be “outside animals,” meaning she is not accustomed to living with pet dogs in the home. She considers them unsanitary and has never owned a dog in America where the seasons and culture are not amenable to dogs living outside the home.
As another quick example, a family friend in town has two pet goats that are treated like pet dogs. The goats were purchased last summer. Around that time my partner who was raised in Haiti until age 12 was inquiring on the purchase of a goat. He wanted to slaughter it and cook a feast for his birthday. I bought him a card with a goat on the cover instead, but I reserved judgement. He grew up raising animals in his yard that were slaughtered for meat when they matured, so he views animals as sustenance.
I recently had a conversation with my nephew’s Chinese girlfriend. She is from Hong Kong and was explaining some food customs to me. She explained that in Chinese culture people believe they take on the attributes of the animal they consume. A tiger penis can provide virility, a monkey brain can provide intelligence, and so on.
Sven made an astute point about technology bringing American cultural norms to other countries, and vice versa. Sharing American customs can be beneficial in some cases, but it is important to be sensitive to the cultural customer we encounter, as you both have demonstrated you have.
Great post!
Ericka
Hi John! I lived in the Caribbean for over twenty years and spent some of that time working for Sandals in St. Lucia. What you describe about the way dogs are treated is unfortunately very true. Animals in general are held in a very low regard. I remember being pleasantly surprised by a young man of 30 telling me how much he loved dogs. As the conversation wore on he told me that during his life he had over 40 dogs, this was how much he loved them. I was really surprised and a bit taken aback. Turns out once the dogs approached a year old he ‘threw them away.’ What he really liked was puppies, not dogs.
Interestingly as the people in the communities I lived in traveled more and were connected to the internet and cable TV, dogs became a status symbol and thankfully started being treated better. There is still a long way to go, but being ‘connected’ to the global world had definitely started a change.