Culture is the KEY

Last week, I attend a lecture by an american professor talking about the american laws and as well talking aboutterminology and how can a teacher and a student understand it.


When she was talking about her book, she mentioned something pretty interesting, to me at least, she was talking about culture and how it might affect the work of the firm u r working at... I asked her to explain to me further this point, and so she did..


She explained stating that although all cultures r unique, yet they r different when it comes to dealing with them...


there is a high context culture and a low context culture... a high context culture like Japan for example, everyone shares the same history, the same values and the same traditions... while USA on the other hand, it is a low context country, where there r thousands of different backgrounds as well as values and traditions..


so when dealing with a Japanese country for instance, they r not just signing a contract and that's it, they look more to build communications with that person, going out on dinners and drink Saki and discuss intellectual issues..


while in USA for example, they tend to be more straight to the point, they don't need to bond with the person in front... for them time is money... they just sign the contract and need no further communication with that person...


those small points might affect everything.... a marketing manager who was working with ford, went to Abu Dahbi in the 90's... he was so enthusiastic to start new company campaign... that he started calling different potential clients from 9 am.... this might seem ok for any normal day, but, one thing he didn't notice, he was right in the middle of Ramdan, which is a holy month for Muslims where they fast all day from dawn till sunset, where the companies opens late through this month... so u can imagine how the campaign failed...


Not only in business stuff like this happens, but in many other fields, simply coz we don't know the others and understand their traditions..


For Muslims, it's not such a good idea to go and visit someoneand as a gift u r carrying a bottle of wine.. which is something prohibited by religion...


In religion feasts (Eid el Adha for Muslims), the first day the whole family gather in one big house, so if someone is planning to visit this family, u probably won't find them...


So as u can see, Culture is a key point to everything around us... and by understanding it, a lot of misunderstanding might be eliminated.. just by talking and discussing and reading more about it..