Blunder #1: Just because you find the right word in the language dictionary doesn't mean that you will be understood. I first discovered this on a college band tour to Japan. I was staying by myself with a lovely family in Utsunomiya for a couple days equipped with my Japanese-English dictionary but really little else. My Japanese host mother didn't speak English very well so we made quite the pair flipping through our respective dictionaries to communicate. On my first night, she asked me whether I would rather sleep on a futon mattress or an air mattress. In my typical indecisive fashion I tried to respond that "whichever" or "both" were fine, hoping that she would choose the option most convenient for her. This didn't translate well, judging from her increasingly puzzled expression. Finally I found the word for "both" in my dictionary and showed it to her. This seemed to clarify the question for her so the conversation ended with both of us satisfied. It wasn't until later that I discovered her very literal translation of my answer: She stacked the air mattress on top of the futon mattress and that was how I slept for my entire home-stay.
Blunder #2: Sometimes you can be refusing a gift without realizing it and thereby offend your host. This happened with the same host family I mentioned before. They generously gave me some money to buy gifts for my family (which was an amazingly thoughtful gift as I had previously wondered how I was going to afford gifts at all.) Then on the second night the whole family and I went to a mall. We strolled through a series of traditional craft booths and while I greatly admired their work, they were still a little too expensive for family gifts. When we reached the second to last booth, my host father turned to me, clearly offended, and asked if the crafts displayed weren't good enough for me. It was then that I realized, to my horror, that we had actually been shopping for a gift for me. By walking past all the other booths I had unintentionally been refusing their gift offering. Well, I apologized repeatedly and at the last booth he purchased three glass wind chimes: one for me and the others for his daughters.
Though I have traveled quite a bit since those first experiences in Japan, I haven't lost my knack for cultural blunders (i.e. telling my coworkers in Scotland that my friend and I shared all of our clothes, even our pants; or remarking to an Irish woman that I had people tell me I looked British to which she firmly insisted that I didn't look British, I looked Irish...) I'm fairly certain I will continue to stumble culturally and that's okay. Humility and grace are necessary parts of life.
I love stories like that - except I didn't quite follow the last two - where was the blunder?
ReplyDeleteWhat we call "pants" in the US, they call trousers. "Pants" in the UK = underwear... not typically something you'd want to share :) As for the other, apparently associating myself with the British is still not a good idea in Ireland, or at least not with that particular lady.
ReplyDeleteNot exactly an international cultural blunder, but here's a story I think you were present for. I was sitting at a table with a summer roommate and a new guy friend of hers. We were discussing the origins of our last names, and the guy asked about mine. I had just recently read on the internet that my last name was essentially created in the U.S. - a modified version of a last name that had existed in Europe. So I said my last name was "American", but then realized my blunder, as the guy was Native American, and it sounded like I was ignoring who was really in the US first. I felt so stupid, and so I hastened to add that my family's origins were British, and that seemed to ease things.
ReplyDeleteI do like that photo.
I vaguely recall that happening :)
ReplyDeleteI thought the photo was appropriate since half of it is from Japan and the fact that the double exposing with Hawaii was completely unintentional, a pretty blunder if you will.