Components & Representation

This week we learnt basic concepts for intercultural communication - Hofstede's dimensions of cultural variability. I think through the exercises, I learnt that while Singapore is by and large a collectivst in culture, we are quite individualistic in some aspects. I think this kind of goes hand-in-hand with the whole idea of meritocracy, where our individual efforts are supposed to pay off (kind of like, you reap what you sow). So maybe we are collectivist in terms of our values (such as, for example, our shared values, one of which is "Nation before society and society before self" and "Family as the basic unit of society") but in terms of economic/academic advancement, we are quite individualist. Maybe that's also why we need to have these 'values' in place, so we don't wind up being too individualist in terms of our culture.

The video at the end reminded me of the need to understand other cultures that we may potentially interact with - kind of like doing some background reading/homework before we go to another country. I thought I'd just share my experience here:

When I went to Spain 3 years ago, I was quite surprised because the shops there were always closed in the mid-afternoon for their siesta, and they always had public holidays. Every religious day was a public holiday, and if their football team won (for example, when I was in Madrid, Real Madrid won La Liga) then it'd be another public holiday. They really have all sorts of holidays. I think compared to them, Singapore has about half the number of public holidays. A lot of the people on tour remarked that they were so lazy etc etc, because even if we had a public holiday here, you'd never find all the shops closed anyway - in fact, in Singapore, it'd probably be better if your shop were open on a public holiday so you could capitalize on sales from all the people who are on leave. Anyway, after I read about Hofstede's 'Masculinity vs. Femininity', and saw how low Spain was ranked on the 'Masculinity' scale, it all quite made sense. I think the people there see life as being easygoing and carefree - it's not that they don't have any ambition or assertivenes, but rather, I think these aren't as important to them as living a good and stress-free life. So it's not that they're lazy or anything, they just abide by different norms.

I guess it's always good to read up and learn about the culture that you're going into, because it's not really very nice to judge another's culture based on YOUR own culture.