List five positive and unique aspects of intercultural relationships:
I. Cultural awareness: having an understanding and appreciation for different cultures as well as your own. Being culturally aware allows you gain more insight and increases your knowledge on the way of life in other countries. You get a different perspective and a better appreciation for other cultures thereby eliminating close-mindedness. (San Diego State University, n.d.)
II. Opportunity to travel abroad: traveling to another country enables you to get a complete picture of the culture, it also helps to enhance your interpersonal skills as well as your communication skills and it enables you to appreciate new customs. (San Diego State University, n.d.)
III. Breaking stereotypes: we live to be different and at the same time, attempt to fit in with the way society dictates. Usually a few people out of certain groups of people who live and do things differently than our standard perspective, we put those groups of people, (after judging only a few), in the proverbial nutshell known as stereotype. Stereotyping is an indication of one group of people exhibiting superiority over another group of people usually by some sort of negative connotation that undermines their values. Intercultural relationships helps to break down these type of negative actions allowing for a different perspective and a better understanding. (Trulymadly, 2014)
IV. Obtaining new abilities: by encountering circumstances in another
There are several different positive and unique aspects of intercultural relationships. Intercultural relationships allow individuals to understand other people of different cultures, ethnicities, gender and etc. It is interesting understanding other peoples beliefs as well as how they have lived there life’s. A positive aspect of intercultural relationships is the difference between the two people. I think it is interesting learning how other people think and how they were brought up. When you are in an intercultural relationship you get to understand how that person feels about certain situations that they have been through. You get to learn who that person truly is.
Adapting to a new environment is challenging for most people who first go abroad to study, so a person must be resourceful and resilient. When encountering numerous challenges, you should find some solutions to overcome it rather than give up. There is nothing quite like being on your own in a foreign country. You might find that studying abroad really brings out your independent nature. Students who study abroad become explorers of their new nation and really discover the curiosity and excitement that they harbor. A benefit to studying abroad is the opportunity to discover yourself while gaining an understanding of a different culture. Being in a new place by yourself can be overwhelming at times, and it tests your ability to adapt to diverse situations while being able to solve the problems. I believe studying abroad bring me a lot. It not only makes me improve my English but also make me how to solve the problems when I
You get to live fully in the culture and be absorb in the community, in how they live. You get to see a different way of life that is not normally seen.
Students will have a better understanding of the meaning culture and the difference of cultures. Students will recognize characteristics of countries other than the United States to which a person can travel. Students will also identify groups of people who live in other countries as well as customary foods from other countries. This will lead students to identify family traditions and holidays from other countries.
The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa defines Cultural Awareness as “observing and being conscious of similarities and contrasts between cultural groups” (Ottawa, "Cultural Awareness or Sensitivity"). To me, I think the meaning of Cultural Awareness is to just be aware and respectful to others from different cultures who surround you. Rather than just ignoring all the different cultures and differences around you, you should be aware to gain more knowledge of your community or society. Cultural Sensitivity is similar to cultural awareness as Cultural Sensitivity builds upon the concept of Cultural Awareness. Cultural Sensitivity includes the awareness aspect and adds the concept of removing prejudice and assumptions, whether positive or negative. To me, I find that Cultural Sensitivity combines awareness with open-mindedness. When we are more respectful and open to learning about others around us we can become more Culturally Sensitive. In addition, Cultural Safety brings together both awareness and sensitivity by gaining and furthering knowledge, understanding, and respect for the other cultures surrounding you. Cultural Humility is the "ability to maintain an interpersonal stance that is other-oriented (or open to the other) in relation to aspects of cultural identity that are most important to the [person]" (Waters & Asbill, "CYF News | August 2013 Reflections on cultural humility", 2013). Put simply, cultural humility is the process of opening yourself up to develop partnerships with other groups or cultures and to maintain equilibrium of power between
Showing honesty that we are trying to learn, involve and engage with their cultural activities makes big difference.
Through intercultural learning and experiences, we can begin to see ourselves and the others around us not by our race, ethnicity, religion, or nationality but by the fact that at the end of the day, we are all human and only have one chance in this life.
After sitting back and thinking how fortunate we are as Americans, there are many other countries whose citizens have many more hardships than Americans do. Cultural awareness is something that people should read up on about Afghanistan to understand what some of the norms are for the people of Afghanistan. According to Charles R. Lister who wrote Cultural Awareness and Count Insurgency in Afghanistan, cultural awareness is defined as local-level understanding and appreciation of the foundational norms, values and expectations that govern and structure individual societies.
This experience allowed me to view life in a healthcare perspective in a poorer country. I was able to compare living standards of U.S. Citizens to those who live in poverty stricken areas of Brazil. I gained new strengths by adapting to an unfamiliar environment and culture differences. Studying abroad gave me the ability to learn quickly to take initiative in handling difficult situations and handle the stress of being in a new environment. I developed an open-mindedness through experience in different ways of living.
The most significant thing that I have learned about building cross-cultural relationships is being aware of differences in different cultures. The best way to achieve cross-cultural relationships is to educate yourself on differences in different cultures by going to a seminar or conference that talks about cross- cultural relationships. This information that I have learn from Dr. Sue book “Counseling the culturally diverse: theory and practice” can be very useful for myself moving forward in my field of study but also it can be very useful for me being able to teach others of the importance of being culturally aware of the environment around them. By being more culturally aware of different cultures you may then began to understand my people responded to things differently and what you might have thought was
I believe that there is a natural need for individuals to interact effectively with each other regardless of their cultural background. However, having the capacity to interact is ineffective. People from my area only interact with others from different cultures for work purposes. Their only reason for interaction is due to being in the same predicament. I do not believe that people should interact only when it is beneficial for themselves. Individuals should interact to build a genuine friendship and to motivate others. Witnessing these issues take place continues to motivate me to pursue a goal of opening my own practice with the endstate of creating a positive environment where people will work on building their self-fulfillment.
Self-awareness: Becoming aware of our own cultural norms, and awareness of one own cultural heritage and how it affects worldviews, values, and assumptions. Not being aware could lead to being mis-understanding, mis-communication and mis-judgment.
There are certain qualities that are necessary for the development of intercultural relationships. An individual who pursues these relationships can find many positive and unique aspects in developing relationships with those from other cultures. In contrast, there are those that tend to avoid people from other cultures due to preconceived ideas about certain people groups and uncertainty in communication as well as the desire to stay in their comfort zone in seeking others that are similar (Samovar pgs. 387-88). Personally, my own experience with intercultural relationships has provided for me a more balanced view of the world and the ability to look at my own culture in a whole new way.
First, I will talk about my personal awareness of cross-cultural that affect by global mindset, and the connection with different people. The global
Globalization is credited for reasons the world we know now is unified and having cross-cultural relations. Technology, trade, business and services require inter-cultural communication and not knowing the strategies and aspects of different cultural communications will lead to many problems. Some of which my book mentions are ethnocentrism, stereotyping and prejudice. Having these problems a society would not get along with one another and misunderstanding can devastate relationships. As I mention earlier, different approaches can be used to develop intercultural communications, these skills can help you avoid unnecessary misunderstandings and misinterpretations due to ineffective communication. We can anticipate frustration, tension and decreased productivity. Improving intercultural communication skills by learning about other peoples ' cultures, behaviors and communication styles; unlock the potential for a creative and dynamic cross-cultural environment plus for keeping the relationship undamaged. From my daily life experience, I am friends and co-worker with different people from different cultural groups. Of course I have things in common with these people, but that does not stop me from relating beyond into understanding and trying to learn about their culture. From the book and my own, I have put together some ways of improving inter-cultural communication.