Culture Miscommunication

 

02/05/2022

Week 5: Response to "Culture Miscommunication"

Communication happens any time we send a message conveying meaning to another person. It can happen verbally or non-verbally. Communication is also a two-way interaction. The sender has a certain message they want to convey, and the receiver will interpret it in their own way. Each person involved has their own personal and cultural paradigms that affect how they both send and receive the message. All of this back and forth leaves a lot of room for confusion and misunderstandings! In the realm of cultural miscommunication, it could cause hard feelings toward a whole group of people which is very damaging. I think keeping an open mind is so important. We can never know all of the cultural differences that we may encounter. The best we can do is be open to being misunderstood as well as realizing we are wrong when we misunderstand. Not taking offence in these situations is very important.

I absolutely loved the commercials in the video. Some of them were very funny! I remember when I first met my husband’s family who live in Canada. There it is very common for people to remove their shoes before going all the way inside the house. In my home, and my experience growing up, removing shoes at the door wasn’t expected. So, when I went to my husband’s parents’ house and everyone was removing their shoes I was a little taken aback. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed or shocked, it was just something I never thought about. I would usually just leave my shoes on for a while and maybe take them off later. My husband had to explain to me that it was a Canadian thing to take shoes off immediately at the door. I realize how it can actually be a lot of fun to learn what different cultures do and grow from it.

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