(1) What did you think goes with the cow (P.141)? The chicken or the grass? What do you think causes the difference in the way Western people and Asians think? (History, influence from other cultures, etc.) Please write reasons.
(2) How do you think people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, such as the Western culture, which focuses on objects and categories, and the Eastern culture, which focuses on relationships and context, would reach a mutual understanding of each other?
(3) In chapter 6, Nisbett defines two different types of grouping objects between the Westerners and the Easterners. However, why do you think it is important to even define such a thing? In other words, do you think there will be any intercultural misunderstanding or preconception due to these different ways of grouping object?
Group Leaders:
Yuto Esaki
Ema Yamamoto
Shuntaro Seki
3. By reading about how people from different cultures group objects in distinct ways, one can have in mind that the person one is talking to may have a completely different interpretation. Moreover, having the idea that people are different may produce smoother understanding in intercultural communications. However, I think that categorizing Westerners and Easterners can lead to misunderstandings if one is not aware that what Nisbett claims are merely "stereotypes" or even "sweeping generalizations!" In addition, I think more and more people are becoming "coordinate bilinguals" and "compound bilinguals"(pg160) and the importance of the distinction between Easterners and Westerners can be weakening. This "coordinate/compound bilinguals" does not merely mean that Easterners are becoming Westernized, but the opposite may be said too. People cannot be separated only as Easterners or Westerners, but we must have in mind about people living between the Eastern and Western culture ( and this one can be even more multicultural inside). Therefore, I do think it is important to have a general idea about how Westerners and Easterners have a tendency to think/group things in different ways; however, it is more essential to know that such ideas can only be stereotypes and an increasing number of people are becoming "bicultural." Consequently, when participating in intercultural communications, one should not accept what Nisbett says without questioning, but instead consider the person as an individual rather than a member of a culture and value the diversity.
ReplyDelete2) I think mutual understanding takes place when knowing that others are unlike or being aware that we are individually different. This can be done by respecting others and trying to reason those people’s attitudes or acts. I believe that this process consequently turns to a mutual understanding of each other, because of the effort of trying to reason and understand the dissimilarity.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, when dealing between the Western culture and the Eastern culture, where the cultural values are unlike, both sides should be aware and accept the different thoughts, so then we can all respect each other and live happily ever after. However, this is just an ideal world vision. In reality, nothing works in this way.
2.
ReplyDeleteOne would think that this should not be such a hard question to answer. Just "keep an open mind", "know that people are different and thats okay", "respect each other`s ideas and beliefs"... seems simple enough. These words are easy enough to say. But as Naoko said, "in reality, nothing works in this way."
With all the interpretations and assumptions that people make everyday, we are bound to have misunderstandings.That part is not the problem; it cannot be helped. What people do with these misunderstandings is what could cause problems. People can become prejudice or discriminating, intentionally or unintentionally. The thing is, this problem does not just lie between the different cultures, it could happen between people within the same culture.
I think the best way to be able to have a mutual understanding with each other would be to go and have different experiences. Instead of "putting yourself in someone else`s shoe", you should take your "shoe" over there and see for yourself. Perhaps it is unrealistic because not everybody from "East" can just go over to the "West" and experience what they do. But its an idea.
To what Miyuki Shinohara said...
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thank you for being our first commentator. I was wondering if my question was clear. As you have mentioned to consider a person as an individual rather than a member of a culture and value the diversity, I agree with your view. There could be stereotypes among different cultural groups, and lead to sweeping generalization. However, like you said, it is only a tendency that people do so. Therefore, I believe that even if a person holds some kind of stereotypes toward other cultural groups, what one should do is to learn. Recent technology has made it possible for us to have an easy access to get to know about other cultural groups via internet. By using such tools, it is our responsibility to become bicultural and be aware of understanding each other.
To what Naoko Inadome said...
ReplyDeleteI thought it was really a good point that you have defined the presupposition that people are individually different. By asserting such premise, it led to easier understanding of how people can have a mutual understanding. You mentioned how people should respect and accept other cultures in order to understand each other. In addition, you claimed that this is just an ideal world vision and nothing works this way. I thought this is because people sometimes need to question to other cultures when they encounter such attitudes that don’t fit to their own culture. Just by accepting could over load your capacity to do so and hence lead to bad relationships. Therefore, I suggest that distinguishing a “third culture” is the real way to have a true mutual understanding.
2) I think people would be able to reach mutual understanding if they take plenty of time to communicate with each other and make much effort to accept what the other is saying. I believe people have different ways of thinking, whether they grew up in the same culture or not. Reaching a mutual understanding is not a problem only between different cultures but also between people you spend your everyday life with. It is almost impossible to communicate without having misunderstandings. The most important thing is to consider the fact that others will have opinions that do not match yours.
ReplyDelete(2) As Madoka said, I think that the problem is not misunderstanding people but despise or discriminate people by misunderstanding. And these problem can even happen within the same culture. Once people perceive bad impression from their companions, they only think bad side of them without trying to know them very much. In order to have a mutual understanding with each other, people should take a time to know each other before they judge. Even if they misunderstand their companions at first, taking time and knowing them would solve the problem of misunderstanding.
ReplyDeleteTo what Hanna Otani said...
ReplyDeleteI truly thought Hanna’s got the point where she stated it is almost impossible to communicate without having misunderstandings. This can be implied in a way of building a new culture up among different cultural groups of people. Without this, I believe that relationships among such people will be just superficial agreeing to what other people does even if one doesn’t like it. The idea of having an understanding with each different cultural group is not accepting but questioning. When a person encounters with a misunderstanding, one has to overcome this hardship by questioning what significance does that misunderstanding have within one’s self and the opponent.
reply to hanna otani
ReplyDeleteI agree to your opinion.
Understanding someone or something is really difficult because I think even understanding yourself is a challenge.
I think getting the exact message to someone is impossible like our teacher said the other day that only a few students will understand the actual meaning he is trying to get through to us.
I'm beginning to think thesedays that maybe people from different cultures can understand eachother more easily. You become really tence not trying to offend them and to understand them if they're from a different culture whereas if they have a similar back ground as you you expect them to be more or less like yourself.
To Miyuki,
ReplyDeleteI liked your idea about how we should not be bound by Nisbett’s claims about the cultural differences between Easterners and Westerners without evaluating them for ourselves. Your thoughts on how “bicultural” people were increasing also made me think. I hope I am right in assuming that a “bicultural” person refers to a person who has had experiences in another culture that is different from his native one, early enough in his life so that it gave him two different perspectives. The world is a much smaller place than it was several decades ago. It is much easier now to go overseas to work, or to get an education. I also believe that to keep in mind that the person you are speaking to is an individual, and that there is nothing unusual even if they have traits that do not fit our expectations, is important when communicating with others. How one would overcome those expectations is one challenge in the process of communication.
To Naoko’s comment,
ReplyDeleteAs you said, I also think that being aware that there are differences between the people who are trying to communicate is a vital element in achieving mutual understanding. However, I also think that this is only the starting point in communication, even in an ideal world. There are times when you can accept and understand that you and the people who you are trying to communicate with are different, and still be unable to understand what they are trying to say. Suppose you were talking to a person who had a stereotype about something. To that person, their way of thinking will be natural, and they will not even consider the possibility that they are thinking in a biased way. How would you convince that person that their views are, from your point of view, biased? How would you convince them that your way, not theirs, is the “correct” way of looking at the world? In fact, if you accept other people’s differences, and consider those differences to be on the same level of importance as your own ways of thinking, how can you be sure that your ways are the “right” ones? I don’t think many people would be able to accept what they perceive as biases, even with some knowledge of the differences between people and cultures. I feel that these kinds of questions cannot be answered just by an acceptance of people’s differences. Accepting that people are different is important, but those differences will not disappear even if people change their ways of thinking. In other words, the acceptance of differences would not change the fact that differences exist, nor would it show a clear way to communicate effectively. It will prepare you for the shock that you will experience when you meet those differences, and it will also help to overcome those differences that each side can understand, but it will do almost nothing else to help you get over differences which can’t be understood, and this doesn’t mean a misunderstanding. Acknowledging that there are differences in the way people think is only the first step in broadening your field of perception. From here starts the hard part, to try to communicate in spite of those differences.
1. The moment I saw the cow and the grass, I knew the two items were related. I found it more difficult to think how the cow and chicken were related. It didn’t occur to me to think that chickens and cows were both animals. Maybe it is because it was so obvious. I thought there was more to the question than just “the chicken and cow are both animals”. I also remembered that cows were usually chewing grass in the field. So I suppose I did a little bit of thinking based on my own experience. I am not really sure if there are any differences between western and Eastern way of thinking in this case, but it might have something to do with the lifestyle of the West and the East. The Westerners’ ancestors hunted animals whereas Easterners or at least Japanese and Chinese mainly spent their year in the rice fields. And I’m talking about the West and the East ages ago. It’s something I read in a book before and it occurred to me that Westerners would have seen chickens and cows as animals to be hunted, while Easterners probably used cows to plough and had to feed them. So the cows had a purpose in each culture. In the West, cows were food. In the East they were food and also something that helped them plant the crops. I know this sounds like something instinctive and improbable, but it makes a little sense.
ReplyDeleteAnd good luck with the PWT for us all.
2.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Madoka and Naoko said about keeping an open mind, knowing that people are different, and respecting other people's beliefs. I also agree that these solutions are not realistic. By experiencing it yourself, you would be able to get the best solution. Also, trying to make good friends from different cultures would be a good way to overcome the differences. I know there may not be people with different backgrounds, but if there is, people should actively talk to them and get to know each other, their culture, their individual personality, etc. I think trying to put yourself in their shoes, as Madoka mentioned is also a good way to get to know cultures. By taking a look at the other countries' origins and histories, you are able to get an idea of how they think, because history forms how people think.
(1)I'm sorry to be late!
ReplyDeleteI thought the cow would be grouped with grass and was surprised to know that westerners tend to group that with the chicken. Then I thought The reason might be because chickens and cows are for meat and couldn't come up with other reasons to group them. I think the reason of the tendency come from the difference in food they have chosen from long before. From ancient times to now, Westerners generally have eaten meat so they needed to have eyes to distinguish objects, especially animals to hunt. In other hands, Japanese people have lived basically by growing rice to eat. In this situation, there was less need to be sensitive to object. What was more inportant was observing the surroundings such as the soil's condition or climate that can affect crops.
2)
ReplyDeleteI can say it is possible that we could understand each other through the Third Culture,as Nisbett mentioned. Of course, it is sometimes frustrating, time spending
and complicated to try understanding each other because of our different backgrounds, however, at the same time, it is so challenging, fascinating, and thrilling to perceive the world through their eyes. Needless say, Easterners and Westerners are both optically and culturally different, nevertheless, I used to feel much more relaxed and comfortable when I was with my non-Japanese friends while living abroad. Probably, because we were so different, we took nothing for granted, endeavored to get to know each other,and the most important thing was we “respected” each other. In retrospect, I feel sorry for that I took some of my precious friends for granted. Ironically,
people first realize how special someone was when she/he is not with us any more....Back to the topic, Mutual understanding is definitely possible, moreover,we can even meet our soulmates by this.
2. I think people from different cultures can reach a mutual understanding by accepting the differences of their culture. Accepting....I guess that's the complete opposite to what Meiland, Barna, Fisher etc say, but they keep on saying that it is important for us to have the REASONS.
ReplyDeleteSo, to have a mutual understanding between the different cultures, we first must 'like' each other in some way. Therefore, to create a good relationship,we cannot be silent all the time but we must communicate. And from this communication, good reasons to accept the different cultures could be found. I do not mean communication only from 'talking' but communication through other activities such as music. We might be able to understand each other by hearing each others cultural music.
To understand each other, we must communicate. This should be done not only to understand cultural differences but should also in our lives in the culture that each and every one of us live in today.
Miyuki
ReplyDeleteI actually first realized that Nizbetts' statement was a sweeping generalization the other day in class.
I think this shows how much stereotypes I had and didn't even think of questioning them, which made me believe that what Nisbett was saying was the TRUTH.
Now I realize it is strange to group how everybody's thoughts and opinions depends on where they come from.
In this globalizing society, people's thoughts can't be that simple; thinking the way others around you think.I'm not sure if this is true, but people like us who get education are especially supposed to have different views toward an issue, don't you think??
We are presented different cultures and opinions, how to have your own opinion and all that.
In this sence, I agree to you that you can't assume what someone will think based on their nationality or where they've lived.
But maybe in small societies where civilization is not such a large part of their life, it would be better to think in general most people have a similar opinion.
YOKO
ReplyDeleteI thought the grass went with the cow too!
I was also surprised by the tiger thing.I never came up with the idea that because tigers and lions are similar, they don't cover the mammal category.
After reading the different interpretations it sounds really stupid, but I thought lions and giraffes are from Africa or some really hot and dry areas, so they had more in common than lions and tigers.lol
I like the way you thought the different interpretations are caused by the differences in food culture.It's convincing!
I guess many reasons can be found what causes the ways Asians and Westerners think, but yours surely can be one good reason I think.
2)As some people have already mentioned, I think it is important to communicate in order to reach mutual understanding of each other. This is also already mentioned above, but categorizing Westerners and Easterners is the same as making stereotypes. It is true that Westerners and Easterners think differently to some extent, but it can also happen within one culture, which means this kind of thing can happen between indivisuals not just between cultures. Therefore it is important to communicate with others and accept their thoughts and such, which sometimes may be difficult. But I beliebe having the idea that everyone has a different way of thinking helps us to reach a mutual understanding of each other.
ReplyDelete(2)
ReplyDeleteI also think that focusing on relationship would reach to mutural understanding. Categorizing people leads to making stereotypes, which can be a stumbling block for communication, as Barna said. The only way truly know about different cultures and background is to have communication. We cannot learn these by just looking at the appearance. We must not judge people by their nationality, skin color or religions. Through creating relationships, people can accept the differences that other people have and then understand each other. Like some people have mentioned already, in reality it is common to categorize people and we have likes and dislikes. I believe that putting ourselves in an environment with many different people will help us to get used to other cultures and thoughts. My experience abroad and going to an international school with students from over 60 nationalities helped me to accept and understand people who are diffent from myself.
To Hanna's comment,
ReplyDeleteBefore I reply to your comment, I want to briefly go through it. In your first sentence, I thought that your basis of the concept of “accepting others’ differences” is the difference that is realized through people’s interactions with others from different cultures. Or, you may have meant “acceptance” as not treating other people’s opinions as unreasonable because they are unreasonable or absurd in your opinion. This would include, or be, the differences in opinion that arise even within people from the same culture. Your second sentence definitely refers to this one. On your third sentence, it seems like you are talking about the idea about acceptance, but also meshing it together with ideas about intercultural understanding, showing that differences in opinion are found on a global scale. Then, on your fourth sentence, I felt that you moved back to talk about the differences that come from differences in culture again. Finally, on your last sentence, you seem to be talking about the differences in opinion that arise regardless of culture.
The reason why I went through your comment so carefully was because I thought that there were two kinds of “differences” mixed inside your comment. One is the difference that comes from the differences in culture and customs. Both Nisbett and the authors in the ELP reader go into length about this, and they offer some ideas about how such differences could be overcome. However, I think that there is another difference, and that is the difference in “opinion”. I used the word “opinion” specifically here to illustrate that I am not talking about problems that would arise from misunderstandings based on differences in culture and customs. There are several reasons why I feel this way. One is the fact that, as you have stated, these differences in opinion happens between people of the same culture, which shows that these differences are not based on differences in culture. Also, I think differences in opinion happen even on subjects that have only faint ties with culture. When I say this, people may say that culture and experiences are what influences people to make decisions the way they do. As these people say, experiences may be the things that shape our opinions, but realistically, this doesn’t give any definite solution to the problems that arise when there actually are different opinions between people in real life.
People’s experiences vary, and many ideas that people consider to be reasonable are unfathomable to others. These are not misunderstandings in the sense that one person judges the other to have ideas which are different from the ones that they are truly trying to tell, but they are things that we cannot comprehend without being the other person. It may be possible to accept others’ thoughts that you don’t understand by thinking that if we had the same experiences, we would have the same ideas, but the fact that there are differences will not change, and I feel that this thinking will not give to us a true understanding of the other person’s ideas, short of sharing memories with the other person. Blind acceptance without a bias is, in the real world, probably impossible for humans who must live in some kind of a culture for survival.
1.I thought that the cow and the chicken belonged together. In fact, I first couldn’t guess how the cow and the grass could be related. When I saw the picture of the cow, the chicken, and the grass, I instantly made a distinction that the cow and the chicken were animals, and that the grass was a plant. The idea that the cow and the grass would belong together because cows eat grass didn’t come up in my mind.
ReplyDeleteThe reason that Western people were likely to group the cow with the chicken, and the Asians were likely to group it with grass may be because of their different views about the world. According to Nisbett, Easterners in ancient times thought that they lived in a world which was complex, and interconnected with different relationships. This may be why they tended to focus on the relationship of the cow and grass rather than categorizing them as just animal or plant. Westerners on the other hand, generally considered the world to be more simpler than what the Easterners thought it to be. This may cause them to categorize the cow with the chicken, thinking that they are both animals, and not focus on the relationship as the Easterners did.
To Madoka's comment,
ReplyDeleteIn your comment, there were three examples at the beginning that you showed. Then, I think you said that this is possible only in an ideal world, like Naoko said, and the reason that this cannot happen is because people misunderstand each other. If there was someone who did all three of these examples, would they be able to understand the other person? I felt that “respecting” and ”accepting” is different from “understanding”. People’s acceptance of others’ ideas would not mean that they understood the thoughts behind the ideas, but only that they thought that those ideas were of equal importance as their own. It’s kind of like a variation of the golden rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
I also think it is important for people to try to understand the culture that other people have, even if, as you have said, the methods are unrealistic at the moment.
1)
ReplyDeleteAt first I saw those three pictures of a cow, a chicken, and grass, I had no doubt to group the cow with the grass. I'm suprprised and gradually understood that there is another way to group. I'm rather surprised that most people in our class practiced Eastern way of grouping. I think Westerners picked distinguish characteristics from three objects and simplified their relationships. Logics can be constructed more efficiently in that way. In contrast, Easterners tend to be inclusive. It is easier for them to notice their whole relationships and surrounding environment. When we see objects in one way, we are surprisingly blind to other possible ways. I thought it is sort of dangerous when I read it.
To whom it may concern,
ReplyDeleteI’m one of the group leaders for this week’s blog discussion, and after reading the opinions posted on the blog, I realized there were some comments that said “I agree with~”, making it rather hard for me to respond to everyone who commented without saying much the same things. I wanted to write about some things that I felt while reading everyone’s comments here. Please forgive me if I overlap with some of the responses that I have already written to other people’s comments.
In many people’s comments for question #2, about how people from different cultures would be able to reach an understanding of each other, there was some mention of overcoming “misunderstandings”. The misunderstandings that happen when people from different cultures try to communicate with each other is a main point that both Nisbett and the ELP reader try to address. The writers in the ELP reader try to offer some solutions, or ways to avoid such misunderstanding in order to reach an understanding of each other, like Barna’s six stumbling blocks. The comments about “misunderstandings” feel like they have been written from an assumption of similarities. By this, I mean that arguments about “misunderstandings” are based on an assumption that if humans can get over misunderstandings, they would be able to understand each other. At first, this seems reasonable. After all, aren’t “misunderstandings”, or things that have been understood wrongly by the other side, exactly what we need to solve for true understanding? The answer to this question is, I believe, yes. However, I also think that this is only a partial answer to the question of how to reach a mutual understanding. Talking about “misunderstandings” doesn’t solve people’s differences in “opinion”. We cannot ignore that people often have differing views on the same subject. If we simply “accept” these differences in opinion on the basis that people’s opinions should be “respected” without an understanding of those opinions, we would be evading the question of how to reach a true understanding of one another, and be giving up on trying to understand. If we truly understand the other person’s ideas, there should not have to be any talk about “acceptance”. The concept of misunderstandings also does not solve the problems that arise when people encounter stereotypes. Can you “understand” why people would say things like “People who live in cities are unfriendly” ”Californians are fad-crazy” ”Women are emotional” ”Men can’t express their feelings”(LBH, 104)? You can probably think of reasons why people may say this kind of thing using logic, but those are merely “rationalizations”, not understanding. You may think that people who think in extremes like this are rare, but everyone has stereotypes to some degree, although we don’t notice it. For reasons such as the above, I felt unsure whether the method to reach a mutual understanding was complete just by solving misunderstandings.
I’m sorry to post this after the due day.
ReplyDelete2) This might be a little off topic example but, today, during lunch time, I just talked with Japanese students who had lived America for more than ten years, about how differently we interpret things. We interpret some of the words or things differently, but especially about the sarcasm, we had different definition. According to my friends, in Western, they use sarcasm in order to be humorous. However, in Eastern way, we mostly use it to tell indirect meaning of something. Then I thought it is impossible for me to use Western way of sarcasm, but from now on, I think I will be able to understand it and accept it as their culture. Through this experience, by understanding differences and to be able to accept it, I believe people from Western and the Eastern might be able to reach mutual understandings.
Once again, I'm sorry to post this so late.
To Chisato's comment,
ReplyDeleteYour comment about how people from different cultures perceives things differently was interesting, especially because it was based on personal experience. Sarcasm is a good example that shows a difference betweent cultures. As you say, it would probably be hard for you to use the western style of sarcasm in the Japanese society, since people would not understand what it meant at first. Like the authors in the ELP reader says, we must be careful of misunderstandings that are caused by different understandings about subjects that are translated to be the same.
[2]I think we can reach a mutual understanding though there are such differences, because of some reasons. First of all, there remain a question that the distinction which Nisbett made was correct. It may have some reasons, but it seem to make fallacy like sweeping generalization. If this distinction was wrong, the meaning of this question will disappear.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, even if there are such difference, I think it does not make big problems to our understanding of each other. Of course, it may make some confusion to us when western and eastern meet each other. However, if we don't hesitate to face the different, such confusion would soon disappear. In addition, the difference of perception could make up for our lacking point of view.Therefore, as I wrote above I don't think there emerges some problems because of the difference of perception and think we can reach a mutual understanding as time goes by.