Challenges of Traveling

“So the journey is over and I am back again, richer by much experience and poorer by many exploded convictions, many perished certainties. For convictions and certainties are too often the concomitants of ignorance…. I set out on my travels knowing, or thinking I knew, how men should live, how to be governed, how educated, what they should believe. I had my views on every activity of life. Now, on my return, I find myself without any of these pleasing certainties…. The better you understand the significance of any question, the more difficult it becomes to answer it. Those who attach a high importance to their own opinion should stay at home. When one is traveling, convictions are mislaid as easily as spectacles, but unlike spectacles, they are not easily replaced,” wrote Aldous Huxley, following his first around-the-world trip in 1926.

Case #28

Misunderstandings

A senior executive of a company wanted to present an expensive clock to Chinese customers. The clock is a sign of bad luck in China; it means death. Fortunately, the investor was persuaded to give something else.

A Saudi investor and an American executive met to close a lucrative business deal. They exchanged greetings and sat down. The executive crossed his legs and began to speak, whereupon the Arab got up and walked out. The American had bared his shoe sole to the Saudi – an insult.

Case #29

What Was It that You Said?

The desk clerk at London’s finest intercontinental hotel discovers the hazards of body language when checking in a line of foreign guests. When an Italian in line asks a question, she tugs at her itching ear, a gesture with no special meaning in England. The Italian is insulted and says so. In Italy, tugging the earlobe implies effeminacy. A Spaniard in line thinks she is calling him a sponger. A Maltese reads the action to mean “You’re a sneaky spy.” The Greek considers it a threat. Only the Portuguese is pleased; in Portugal the gesture signifies something good.

Later a Sardinian woman asks the clerk to call a taxi, and the clerk responds with thumbs up. The woman slaps the unfortunate clerk’s face for making such a terribly obscene gesture.

In the lobby, a Japanese businessman asks a person from the USA what the hotel is like. The American replies with the well-known “A-OK” ring gesture. To the Japanese this means “money,” and he concludes that the hotel is expensive. The Tunisian onlooker thinks the American is telling the Japanese that he is a worthless rogue and is going to kill him. The Frenchman, overhearing the question, thinks the hotel is cheap, because the ring gesture in France means “zero.”

Case #30

Gender Issues

Traditionally, in Korea it is taboo for men and women to walk side by side in public. A woman’s place is a few feet behind the man. In the United States the traditional value is “ladies first,” and the men traditionally have helped the ladies with their coats, held doors open for them, and helped them be seated. Some American men help their wives cook (or do it themselves), wash dishes, and do the laundry – unthinkable for men in Korea. Korean men and women have been known to call American males “henpecked.”

Assignment #22