Sorry that I mention about this, but the date is quite remarkable. 06/06/06 – it will never come again. While I found it merely fascinating, others saw some biblical background in it. The triple six as a might have something mystical but the magic is dependent on its cultural context. Non-Christian cultures would see something else in it maybe or have other numbers for secret conspiracies. …What brings us back to the intercultural topics. But I admit that it is difficult for me now to build a bridge between 666 and international greetings and congresses. (Yea okay, in global astrological meetings it may play a role.)

But we didn’t start with the actual topic anyway. “What is insecurity for you?” and a picture was drawn on the blackboard. “Insecurity” in the middle and our associations around it: fear of unknown situations, fear to make something wrong, no mental preparation, expectation pressure, authority/dominance, lack of practice, language difficulties, lack of self-awareness. Those points with a personal context should be marked in one colour and those with an intercultural context in another. Soon it became clear that there is actually no distinction. All the mentioned facts can play a role in inner-cultural and intercultural situations. The explanation of insecurity can maybe be summarized as the following. It is the non-knowledge in and about certain situations.

Te main part of the lesson was now a game. We should imagine an international congress and divide into groups of four or five people. In the respective groups we should act like people from different countries. We had North Europeans, North Americans, Maghrebis, Vietnamese, South Americans, Japanese and Turks. I was in the group with the Japanese. Every group got a sheet of paper in which a description was given how people from those particular cultures would behave. During the meeting we would meet in our role others acting in their roles. I introduced myself as a Japanese manager with “Konidshiwa” but I could not follow all the points in the instruction. So probably I mixed some things up in the order of introducing. But I always made a deep bow and remained distance to my talking partners. Unfortunately there was not enough time to get to know all the cultures and I only met North Americans, Maghrebis, Vietnamese and South Americans. I was surprised by the way the Vietnamese were characterized. They had two males in their group and they only were – according to the descriptions – only allowed to talk to other males, which of course was difficult in a class with 89% women. They went hand in hand and introduced themselves as brothers. Also their girls came very close which surprised me. I – as Japanese - made automatically a step back. It was more difficult to talk with them, or to find common things, than I have thought. In general I found it quite difficult to talk to someone “normally” because everybody remained in his or her role. In reality there could probably be found a common basis much easier (?). At least I and maybe also my talking partner could try to make contact with each other.

Although it is (for me) rather questionable if this exercise has much relation to reality, it was a good practice. After class I met a Vietnamese girl and discussed the newly acquired knowledge about Vietnamese with her. She said that those things like holding hands, men not allowed to talk to women, coming (much) closer during the talk, men should not look at strange women and so on are not spread in Vietnam. I argued that it might be that she doesn’t know because she is from a bigger city. But she remained her point.

Anyway… some people said they wanted to copy the culture descriptions. I asked Ms Müller where she has it from and she replied that it can be ordered online from the Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst. The next day I send them a letter but still have no reply. Maybe they ran out of the material? I think it might be interesting especially for people from those cultures described to see how others would characterize them.

Short before the lesson ended there was another exciting game: the distance game. One member of each two-people group should come close. The other member should signalize nonverbally when the approaching person is coming too close and shall stop. Unfortunately I was in the only group with three people. I don’t know if it was because of this or because of the fact that we know each other pretty well that it didn’t work. I didn’t know how to signalize them not to come closer. I made a step back but the others just didn’t stop. It was the same with me when I was the approaching person. I didn’t know when to stop. But actually this game was not necessary for me to know how it feels if another one comes too close. I have made the experience for a couple of times before. And I remember a trick to make other people give way. It was called “the third eye” (in a communication or rhetoric seminar). It means that you go exaggerated straight and stretch your chest out, as if you would have another eye in it’s middle. This over-erected body lets people seem to be more self-conscious. Maybe it is because of two things: First, the person feels automatically more self-conscious, and second, for others the person seems to be more determined and also physically stronger, or “unstoppable”. So others would go out of my way. When I heard this I doubted if it really works, but it does. (The best way to try it is the pedestrian precinct ;)