Is it a matter of national character?

I’m American and always find it interesting to know what British people think about us Yanks. I think Alistair Cooke expresses the notion of national character well when he says, “I have come to think that a strong belief in national character is the first refuge of the anxious.”

Do you ever feel a little baffled by something you come across in your day-to-day routine in your foreign setting?

Perhaps you are a Turk who has been surprised by the behavior of a foreigner?

Often we tend to put it all down to national character, don’t we?

Let’s consider Turkey: What is meant by traditional behavior? What do we mean by the national character? Can we pin it down so easily? I am always aware that although generalizations are helpful, they are just that -- a generalization can’t describe everyone in a country.

Turkey -- the fascinating country it is that has attracted many travelers over the centuries. Each have had their own share of culture shock.

The land of Asia Minor is the heart of the great multicultural Ottoman Empire and now the Republic of Turkey. The land has experienced waves of migrations, in which one civilization displaced another. Each left a unique and glorious cultural heritage which was to influence the future.

Many of my Turkish friends have served either in the military or as doctors or educators out in eastern Turkey. It is interesting to hear them speak about their experiences. It is as though they are talking about a different place. But it is all Turkey. What’s so different?

Places like Van, Diyarbakir and Hakkari have been influenced greatly by other great civilizations over the centuries and are to some degree influenced by the neighboring nations now. It is all Turkey, but the culture has been immersed to some degree with other cultures. For example, the food is spicier, the dress is more colorful, the dialect of Turkish spoken is slurred and sentences are shortened.

How do you describe Turkey to friends and family back home?

The whole of Turkey is a land of contrast that has a mixture of Oriental mystery and romance and ultramodern city life, deep-rooted religious faith and determined secularism, as well as a fierce national pride and openness to foreign ideas.

Whether you are a visitor writing a postcard home about an event you have seen, or someone giving an orientation to a new foreigner here, you are an interpreter of the subject matter and must avoid the trap of putting everything down to “national character.”

What if we were to consider the national character of the US and Mexico, especially along the borderland?

Humanity, culture and society does not all boil down to national character -- or does it?

Along the US side and the Mexican side of the border, the border-landers have blended the structures, institutions and life expressions of the two societies to create something entirely theirs. Some scholars see this phenomenon as a prime example of bi-national interdependence -- creating a trend toward closer ties among the world’s nations and societies.

Here is something to think about:

Kesing and Kesing share this example in their book “New Perspectives in Cultural Anthropology”: “A couple were entertaining a group of friends one evening. At dinner, when the guests had finished eating what they had been served, the wife, who was Bulgarian, offered them a second helping because it is a disgrace for a Bulgarian hostess to allow a guest to go hungry. One of the guests, an Asian student, accepted a second helping. When the Asian student was offered a third helping, he accepted it also, and the Bulgarian hostess hurried into the kitchen to prepare some more food. Halfway through his fourth helping, the Asian student fell to the floor. As he lay on the floor, he thought to himself, ‘It is better to get sick than to refuse the food, for it is an insult o refuse food when it is offered.”

It’s not always easy portraying your cross-cultural experience to friends and family back home. Try to be fair in what you say or write about what you see and hear in your host country. It may not always be easy but try to understand from the other perspective.