When we move to another culture -- be it a German to Turkey or a Turk to Japan or Canada -- all of us to some degree will have to make adjustments to the new culture. If you have never moved to a new culture, let me just briefly explain what kind of adjustments you will have to make. You will have to adjust or get used to the behavior of the local people of your host country. You will find that some things may annoy, confuse or even unsettle you. You will also have to monitor your own behavior so that it does not do the same to others -- yes, annoy, confuse or unsettle them.
The key to settling into a new culture is twofold: Learning not to do things that provoke or baffle the locals and being careful to not misconstrue or be put off by the behavior of those around you.
When I first came to Turkey I had to get used to not having bacon for breakfast and had to assure my Turkish neighbors that I did not cook with what they called “pork oil.” This struck me as funny as I did not cook with such oil back home, either. We usually used corn or vegetable oil as olive oil was expensive.
Traveling around Mediterranean countries such as Greece I found it interesting how men passed the time by staying up most of night and pacing back and forth arm in arm with their mates in the town squares.
Over the years different Turkish female friends who are devout Muslims have told me how they are amazed that Western women just come and go as they please unaccompanied. Others have said that they feel more comfortable in public wearing more conservative dress and headscarves.
I would like to share a few examples in one of my favorite books on this topic from “The Art of Crossing Cultures” by Craig Storti. The author describes what it’s like to encounter another culture, to be thrown by it and to make the adjustments necessary to succeed and feel at home in an overseas environment.
Here are just three of a number of examples that Storti gives as excepts from other well-known authors to make the point on how important it is to understand one another’s behaviors.
“I was traveling with a few of the nobles by train. Seeing ‘beef’ on the menu, I ordered it. The waiter said the beef was off, so I had something else. Later, back in Dewes, the Maharajah said to me, with great gentleness, ‘Morgan, I want to speak to you on a very serious subject indeed. When you were traveling with my people you asked to eat something, the name of which I cannot even mention. If the waiter had brought it, they would all have had to leave the table. So they spoke to him behind your back and told him to tell you that it was not there. They did this because they knew you did not intend anything wrong, and because they love you.’ “ (E.M. Forster, “The Hill of Devi”)
“The men walked hand-in-hand, laughing sleepily together under blinding vertical glare. Sometimes they put their arms round each other’s necks; they seemed to like each other, as if it made them feel good to know the other man was there. It wasn’t love, it did not mean anything we could understand.” (Graham Greene, “Journey without Maps”)
The last excerpt that I would like to share is one from Harriet Martineau’s book “Eastern Life,” and it goes like this: “[The women of the harem] pitied us European women heartily, that we had to go about travelling, and appearing in the streets without being properly taken care of -- that is, watched. They think us strangely neglected in being left so free, and boast of [how closely they are watched] as a token of the value in which they are held.”
These excerpts show either an expatriate’s cause for concern of the behavior of the local culture and people or an expatriate’s failure to adapt or adjust accordingly to the local culture. Either way, the happiness and effectiveness of the foreigner will be affected.
