Worksheet 1 The Ramen Girl Ch 2 Neuliep 7e

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Feb 20, 2024

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Worksheet 1 – The Ramen Girl – Intercultural Communication – Dr. Clark Name _Hannah Housel__________ Ackerman, R. R., Murphy, B., Hall, S., & Narahashi, Y. (Producers), & Ackerman, R. R. (Director) (2008). The Ramen Girl [Motion picture]. USA: Image Entertainment. Neuliep, J. W. (2017). Intercultural communication: A contextual approach (7 th edition). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. The Ramen Girl (2008) is a lighthearted fictional film that tells the story of a European American young woman who goes to Japan to be with her boyfriend, but there is a misunderstanding between them and in her misery she is drawn to a local ramen shop, where she becomes intrigued and wants to learn how to make ramen from the chef. In spite of its fictional this film is helpful to explore many of the issues that come up during attempts to communicate in intercultural interactions. We’ll be watching the film and filling out worksheets today and for the next class(es). What do you notice that is human in the first encounters Abby has with the ramen shop owner and his wife and what do you notice that is a cultural difference in how to handle basic human needs: physical, psychological, emotional, and social? Give examples. Basic human needs are handled much differently, the first noticeable difference is that when shops are open, they have their door open. Closing the doors as they close their shops. This is different for Abby as she is probably used to some type of signage indicating their hours or lights on meaning that the restaurant is open. Spring onion is also something that is common for Japanese and the ramen chef is not certain that this is something that foreigners eat. Abby presents corn and tomato in her ramen later which appears to be more American and frowned upon by the ramen shop owner. He assumes that they must each have spinach because people love spinach. This is their cultural dish. Eating appears to be their way of handling sadness. Although annoyed, the ramen shop owner and his wife do not allow the girl to be sad, they offer help which is a humanistic encounter. The ramen chef also offers up an umbrella for the lady to remain dry walking home which is a humanistic encounter. He does not give up on Abby as he wants her to learn to put in her spirit to the ramen. It appears that the ramen shop owner is typical to drink alcohol to deal with the sadness he feels for his son and any type of stress he is undergoing. This is common within both American and Japanese culture. List some of the ways Abby and the Japanese people she encounters use verbal behavior and nonverbal behavior to communicate with each other when they encounter the problem of not sharing the same language. How do they achieve understanding/shared meaning (if they do)? Notice the difference between non-verbal behavior that is just naturally expressive body language and what non-verbal behavior is more like a code, intended to communication a particular meaning. Give examples. Verbal code (verbal is always a code ): A lot of interactions involve repeating words to try to gain an understanding. They repeated words such as “ eat-o ” to prompt Abby to eat. The ramen chef gave her an umbrella for her to take to remain dry. The ramen chef repeats “ come in ” for everyone that they take at the line of the ramen shop. Hearing these repeating words and tying action to the words helps Abby to gain an understanding and meaning. Nonverbal behavior that is expressive of an emotional state but not necessarily intended to convey meaning: The ramen chef scratches the back of his neck. This expresses discomfort but has no intended meaning. The same happens with the ramen chef ’ s wife when she expresses shock when she is hugged by Abby but there is no directed meaning. Abby sits with her hands holding up her chin at the second interaction with the ramen chef. This shows a state that she is in thought, but it doesn ’ t convey meaning. There is a clip where the ramen chef is concentrated in making the ramen and the action itself does not convey meaning but it shows concentration with the ramen chef ’ s expertise. When Abby serves her broth and ramen, people begin crying and it isn ’ t to convey meaning but to show that Abby has shown improvements into becoming the ramen girl. Abby steps into the ramen shop owner’s house with her shoes on which is shown as a sign of disrespect, he yells at Abby to get out. The ramen shop owner and his wide sleep on the ground area. Nonverbal behavior that is a code, intended to convey a certain meaning without using words: The ramen shop chef took her crying as a thought that she may be hungry while his wife thinks that she may be hurt. They try to fix this by trying different things to see if it helps to have a result of Abby no longer crying. When Abby first meets the chef that runs the
ramen shop, they communicate through hand movements. It is not always clear but when there is a noticeable language gap, he does motions such as raising and lowering his hands and acts to sit. Abby takes this as a bow and then notices that he means to sit at the table, and she follows. The ramen chef gives her chopsticks to understand that he means to eat. The ramen chef ’ s wife holds her hands for her to stop from paying. The ramen shop owner gives her a Japanese lantern to symbolize his gratitude towards her. The ramen shop owner points to Abbys head to indicate that she has a small forehead which symbolizes a small brain. The interaction between Abby and her boyfriend Ethan at the beginning of the film is an example of an interaction between members of a low-context culture. A low-context culture is one in which most of the information for how to interact with other people is worked out by the people themselves. Abby and Ethan are having a conflict and working it out verbally. What are the strategies they use? What is the understanding they come to? Even if they disagree, how do they use the verbal code? What non-verbal aspects are important? Abby and Ethan speak their opinions very directly and Ethan tries to turn the argument onto Abby saying that she had just surprised him with coming while Abby believed that Ethan wanted her to come. They come to an agreement that things are over and Abby tries to convince Ethan not to leave her. Towards the end you can tell that Abby feels humiliated and this results in cutting the ties with Ethan as well. Some of the more non-verbal aspects that are important is seeing how fast Ethan is moving to pack his stuff up, it shows that Ethan is not planning to stay no matter what Abby may say. Later, Abby tries to mend the relationship with Ethan. What are her low-context, direct, verbal strategies? Do you think they will work? Why or why not? Abby seems to guild trip Ethan with stating that she is stuck doing grunt work for the ramen shop over the phone. She pleas for Ethan to come back but he never answers or calls. This does not work as Ethan never shows again within the rest of the show. It is likely that it is implied that Ethan has blocked her and already moved on just as Abby begins moving on. She appears to be desperate and willing to do anything to get Ethan back and she grows into so much more of a person as the movie progresses. What do you notice about how Abby tries to interact with the ramen chef and his wife that is American? How do you notice her learning about how to communicate successfully with the ramen chef, his wife, the customers, and other Japanese people she meets socially? Give examples of both verbal codes and nonverbal codes. She learns to follow others and watch their interactions with each other. This is shown in the second interaction with the ramen chef when she learns to enter upon the ramen chefs “ come in ” request. She can connect the word with the actions that others are taking, and she learns to follow them. She also learns to keep a book of translations with her to help assist her and the Ramen owner when they are not grasping each other. She learns to be patient even when the ramen shop owner throws ramen over the translation book in anger. She learns to slow down and take each translation step by step and to watch their hand motions and facial expressions. She learns further how to communicate by using context clues with words that she has already learned. How does the ramen chef decide to communicate with her? Verbally? Non-verbally? What does he want her to understand? The ramen chef chooses a mixture to see if something would connect to Abby at the start when they first met. He uses a mixture of motion and verbal repeating to see if her expressions or actions change. The ramen chef is a lot less patient with Abby than Abby is with him. He expects her to know and when she doesn’t, he repeats his words with a visual until he gives up on her. Abby takes this information and teaches herself later what they mean so she can use it the next time the word is used.
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