I was recently interviewed by a graduate student currently taking a course on intercultural competence. Perhaps to her disappointment (or delight), this is a topic that I could easily spend hours diving into the nuance about what the heck the term actually means both in theory and in practice. An interview that was only scheduled for twenty minutes bled into an hour.
While it was a challenge answering her questions about culture in the workplace, challenges and delights that emerge from cultural difference, and more, I realized that I had never really been asked these questions in this way. And I appreciated that, as it stimulated a lot of thinking around my personal understanding of what “culture” is.
Typically when conversations around cultural identity come around, I often respond by sharing my identity as “culturally ambiguous.” Growing up as a third-culture kid, I learned certain cultural norms and expectations that weren’t necessarily true or represented in my “home” culture -- whatever that is. I typically illustrate with a simple explanation: “I feel more comfortable in a Chinese supermarket than I do in a Wal-mart.” Due to circumstances growing up immersed in cultural multiplicity (international schools, etc.), my default state in new situations is to tread lightly -- pay attention to what others are doing, notice the patterns of interaction and the norms presenting themselves, understanding the context of who and what I am witnessing… you get the picture. In a word, I chameleon. I try to blend in. I try not to draw attention to myself, for better or worse. Being in this state, especially as a kid, offered a chance to pick up multiple cultural resonance points through osmosis.
Back to the interview. What emerged throughout our conversation was I realized this was an opportunity to pin down what I actually think “culture” means. A google search will yield that culture is defined as “the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.” Sure. Ok. But what happens to this understanding of culture when a person of a particular “social group” in question is constantly moving in between groups? What becomes of their culture? How do we define it with this fluidity in mind?
I’d like to propose a framework: a person’s culture is their own ecosystem of beliefs, practices, values, thought patterns, worldview. Much like an environmental ecosystem, all of these things are constantly in motion and informing, molding, shaping each other in different ways. These aspects of identity can be picked up in the home, in school, on television, through social conditioning, through friend groups, etc., and are always susceptible to change. The change is reinforced by the process of maintaining a homeostasis between our inner world (thought patterns, beliefs, values, etc.) and outer world (influence from other people, including parents, teachers, friends, the media, our environment etc.). Internal and external bits of information swirl together in a soup and as we see from general laws of nature, need to find some sort of a balance.
Wherever we land in that balance is the manifestation of our own personal culture; it is a snapshot of a metaphoric environmental ecosystem. Take a photo of a scene in Autumn in the northern hemisphere, and that same scene will look a lot different in the Spring. I’d like to think that humans are the same way. Shifting and evolving, never the same twice, yet retaining some sort of form.
In thinking about it this way, it makes sense that within my own cultural ecosystem I can enjoy eating latkes and liver with a side of spicy green mango with sugary fish sauce, a nod to my jewish lineage and childhood upbringing in Thailand. I can also be direct with my words and yet perceive when someone is being subtle and indirect with theirs, mirroring my “direct” western household and an “indirect” southeast Asian upbringing . I can wear sneakers to work and yet shudder when I see someone with their shoes on in a house, perhaps a reflection of my San Francisco-living adulthood and of course my Thai cultural influence. My ecosystem is a hodge-podge of socio-cultural baselines, vibrant and diverse like a garden of succulents.
Whether or not you agree with this way of understanding or experiencing “culture,” I think it’s a fun set of lenses to try on through which to see fellow humans a little bit different. Think of it as a pair of glasses sent to you in a cultural Warby Parker Try-at-Home kit. If you don’t like them, try another one. Or perhaps, design some yourself.
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