It is an important tool in building cultural understanding, and in turn, breaking down traditional barriers by providing insight into a culture that might otherwise be unknown to a person. While many Americans may never experience the joys, sights and sounds of Incredible India, they can taste the culture through a culinary sampling at their local Indian market or restaurant. By bringing the food to their local communities, these outlets are great for engaging audiences through gastrodiplomacy, one palate at a time.

“Vindaloo Against Violence” is a project one Australian launched in 2010 to combat hostility towards Indians in her city, Melbourne, by encouraging people to dine at Indian eateries. It was effective – 17,000 people signed up to partake (we all know that the prospect of good food is an effective way to gather support!).

I wrote my graduate thesis on how mainstream American society shifted from initially shunning Italian foods to consuming it at very high levels. This started with the en masse migration of Europeans, many of whom were Italian, to North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At first, North American society saw Italian foods in the same way it perceived the people who created and consumed them: suspicious, foreign and unpalatable. The historical trajectory of the cuisine is remarkable, as gastrodiplomacy gradually brought people to love Italian pizza and pasta – foods consumed in countries worldwide. This was in part due to the energies of the Italian diaspora and the success they had as entrepreneurs, restaurant owners and purveyors of food in general. In my thesis, I linked the increasingly saturated Italian food industry to the Italian community’s integration into US society, and how the food acted as a diplomat by building awareness of Italian values and traditions for mainstream society.

Where have you experienced or seen gastrodiplomacy at work? Do you think food has the power to unite people from different countries and different backgrounds?

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

I don’t mean to post yet another story on the challenges related to German culture (here’s another recent post on how to split the restaurant bill in Germany), but re-visiting Mark Twain’s essay on the incredibly difficult nature of the German language was irresistible. Patrick Schmidt of SIETAR Europa updated Twain’s famous satire on the bizarre mechanics of Deutsch (click here to read the original, published in 1880).

One of the poignant thoughts Schmidt shares is that “to be taken seriously in the German language, one needs to conceal the meaning of a sentence by placing the main verb at the very end.” Thus, one must listen to the entire statement, however long, to extract the full meaning. Because the sentence structure follows the subject-object-verb model (and not subject-verb-object, as in English), “action” doesn’t take place until the end…

It seems when Germans are listening to someone, they are intensely waiting for the speaker to tell them the last word. And when it is finally announced, you see an expression of climactic relief on their faces.

I once asked my father, who is native to Hamburg, to tell me the longest German word he could think of. The word that came to mind is of a strange origin, but it illustrates the synthetic nature of German, whereby several words are combined to create a single meaning. The word was impressive: hottentottentittenattentat (that’s 12 t’s!). Four words strung together to become an idea whose meaning (and purpose) may evade the hardiest of German students. However, it’s not only the arcane that merits long winded orthography, but everyday words, I would argue, that are on average longer in German than in English. Instead of using one word to convey a complex idea, many words are synthesized to create a very straightforward approach to communicating concepts and meaning, which relate to the brutally direct nature of the typical German communication style.

How much does language lend itself to cultural values? I’d say a fair amount considering the central value of precision and orderliness in German society. Thoughtfully constructed sentences and products are a result of these cultural values. While English is unarguably a global language and has evolved through numerous cultures and communities around the world, the German language evolved in a much smaller space, which I suspect has allowed for less foreign influence and thus less tinkering over the ages. A language that is based on so many things, often requiring much calculation and foresight (how do you spontaneously express yourself if you don’t already have the ending verbal statement in mind?) have most likely influenced many of the deeply embedded values of Germanic peoples.

What do you think?

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

These findings are presented in his recent MOBILITY article. Sawadogo highlights the challenge of defining general cultural concepts within the scope of “Africa” (the continent) and Sub-Saharan Africa as a region. Just as one can’t look at Europe or Asia as a general cultural region, although many always refer to the “West” and “East” for simplicity’s sake, Africa can’t accurately be understood in this context.

One of the article’s most interesting insights is an expression for losing face from Cote d’Ivoire, which is translated to “you poured my face down on the ground.” This descriptive saying expresses how losing face can severely damage a business relationship and a person’s stature within a business. Culture also informs the definition of risk, which “face” impacts: do you risk loss of face in order to reveal certain facts, or do you save face by avoiding mention of something that would be like “pouring someone’s face on the ground”?

What do you value: saving face or objectivity? What have your personal and professional experiences been in Africa?

Also, to learn more about doing business in Africa, watch this TED talk given by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: Want to help Africa? Do business here.

Sean

RW3 CultureWizard

There were 7 of us, and we drove to the forest in their cars, stayed one night on the way in a friend’s house, who prepared a wonderful barbecue dinner of beef and goat and prepared breakfast the following morning. We were so delighted to be their guests, we later bought everyone drinks at a hotel we visited. I’m sure that at some point, we offered to contribute money towards gas, but the offer was brushed off – “we’ll figure it out later.”

A week later, just as we were leaving Rwanda, we received an itemized matrix outlining what all 7 of us owed to cover the cost of the excursion: food, drink, gas and any other collective expenditure. The entirety of the bill demonstrated a complex, thoughtful calculation (part of the equation was paying entrance to the park for one of the friends as a birthday present, part of it factored in the non-participation of an eighth friend who only joined us for part of the way).

Immediately, our reaction as Americans was, “Whoa, wait a minute. Is this for real? Did someone really keep track of everything and spent their time putting this onerous thing together?” The precise calculation of everything owed, down to the penny, is something an American would easily interpret as a stingy move, especially considering this was between friends and friends of friends. We were bewildered by the precision and energy put into the “invoice”.

We were so grateful to have been invited along that we were happy to contribute, but no one had mentioned this is how it worked, which is often the case with culture. What is “normal” to one person is abnormal to another. To be completely honest, receiving a long-winded, itemized bill was off-putting. However, being half-German myself, I understood the intent and cultural background to this practice.

Fairness, equality and accountability all play into this cultural norm. Orderliness is a central theme of the German culture. “Alles in ordnung?” (literally, “is everything in order?”) is a common expression used to ask if everything is alright. Making sure that everything is in its place and adhering to accepted, efficient processes plays into this.

You experience this when you settle your check at restaurants in Germany where the first waiter’s first question is always, “Do you want to pay together or separately?” Bezahlen sie zusammen oder getrennt? If you choose to pay separately, it’s the waiter’s duty to go around the table and settle each person’s account individually based on exactly what they consumed. I’ve never seen this in any other part of the world. In the US, for example, you can certainly request separate bills (beware: the waiter might get irritated), but many people would prefer to split evenly, however unfair or inefficient it would be (see this interesting study on the matter in the Economic Journal). More often than not, one person would elect to pay the entire bill, silently expecting someone else to do the same on the next occasion.

In any case, I wasn’t able to ask the creator of the invoice more about how often this happens – we had to catch a flight to Nairobi. My friend told me this was pretty customary. Seeing our reaction to this event, she smiled and said, “You know what, I think you Americans are more generous than Germans.”

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

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The three friends from the village were ecstatic. It’s not everyday that one gets to be in presence of one so wise and holy. For the hours long walk home that afternoon, the three longtime mates could hardly even bring themselves to speak.

Finally, said the tall friend, “Wasn’t that wonderful!? And by heaven, I was surprised by how tall the holy man was.”

“It was wonderful,” answered his bearded friend, “And did you see how long and fine his beard was?”

“I didn’t notice,” replied the final friend in the trio, “I was so surprised to see a bald saint that I don’t recall anything else.”

As the story points out, it’s surprising, yet hardly uncommon, how desire, both conscious and unconscious, shapes our experience. So much so that each of the three friends saw only in the holy man what was most like themselves, but did you know that what we see can even be shaped by our culture?

In a social/cultural experiment CNN covered, the above fish scene was shown to groups of Japanese and Americans. They were given a few seconds to study the photo before it was removed and they were then asked to describe the scene in detail.

What do you think they noticed most?

Well, the Americans, by a large majority, were most aware of the placement of the three large fish, while the Japanese paid far more attention to the overall environment. When asked to reproduce the picture, the Japanese could place the kelp and the small fish, but lost site of the three large fish, while for the Americans, it was just the opposite. How do we learn to recognize our own cultural biases?

Might you have an experience where what you saw was so shaped by your cultural bias that you saw something as tall, bearded and bald, when in actuality it was short, clean-shaven and with a full head of hair?

Adam

RW3 CultureWizard