Vietnamese American Communication

As a proud second generation Vietnamese American, I proudly associate myself with my Catholic Vietnamese community. Like all members in my group, we are indoctrinated with the typical immigrant values of perseverance, freedom, and respect for others and our cultural identity. The church that binds us together, Our Lady of Lavang, is the center where most of the Catholic Vietnamese Community gathers all over West Michigan. Since the 1st grade, I went through the Church's school program every Sunday to learn about Christian moral values, Vietnamese traditions, and language. These lessons has heavily influenced my outlook on life, enabling me to use faith to build confidence with myself, maintain integrity, and to love and respect every individual.

Different social, professional and cultural contexts may affect relationships and the way people communicate due to of a lack of understanding or knowledge of one another’s background and culture. This could be through their race, religion, ethnicity or where they come from. Each one of these can have similar or very different ways to communicate. For example

ASSIGNMENT: Achieving competence as an interpersonal communicator in a diverse society is necessary to your personal and professional success. One way to enhance our understanding of interpersonal communication as a relationship-building activity is to engage in first hand dialogue with people from cultures other than your own. This assignment gives you the opportunity to engage in the dual perspective – honoring the perspective of the person with whom you are communicating as well as honoring your own perspective. You are also able to contrast your worldview with the perspective of someone with a different life experience than your

The following paper will discuss Vietnamese Americans and their journey to America. I will talk about how these incredible and resilient people fought to succeed it a world that seemed to hold the odds against them. The culture, beliefs, and challenges of Vietnamese people are a precise paradigm of their strength and perseverance.

The first point in my theory is that you can better your skills as an interpersonal communicator by better understanding your own culture. DeVito states that there are. “several major cultural distinctions that are crucial for more effective communication” they are: individualism or collectivism, high or low context, high or low power distance, masculinity or femininity, high or low ambiguity tolerance, long or short term orientation, and indulgent or (p. 34). To be able to understand your or anyone else’s culture you must be able to understand the ways that these things affect communication. Once you understand the ways that you are oriented in these seven categories due to enculturation you can understand how you communicate and become a more effective

For this paper I will examine Vietnamese culture according to the five essential questions all cultures must answer (according to Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck). I will then take those answers and compare then to out culture here in America. I realize that some might argue that using North American culture as a starting point is an attempt to simplify this writing, but I believe that any initial examination of something new is most effectively done in comparison to what one already knows.

Explain how people from different backgrounds may use and/or interpret communication methods in different ways

People could live in the same country but still have a language barrier, this could be because they may be from a different region. For example: Britain i.e. Bristol, Essex or Glasgow. People from a different region may use the same word but can have a different meaning known as “slang”. When talking to someone, we must use the correct intonation (gestures and body language) so that others know that we are friendly towards them and show that we’re listening.

     In business, successful communication is the key to success, and being able to relate to a customer is the best form of communication. This is why cross-cultural communication is so important as the business world continues to globalize itself. Unfortunately, “A lack of awareness about the culturally prescribed rules and norms of communication behaviors can cause public relations projects to fail, or worse, backfire.” (Zaharna, 2001, p.135).

3.1 Explain how people from different backgrounds may use and/or interpret communication methods in different ways

In our world of expanding technology and shrinking geography, people of different cultures have increasing frequency of contact and need for effective communication on a daily basis. Whether through travel, immigration, or international business, having the ability to communicate across many different cultures is an advantage in and of itself. Speaking a different language is an obvious obstacle to intercultural communication, but a greater and more difficult hurdle is to “speak” a different culture. To understand and comprehend and even apply these tiniest

However, alternating between Hmong and English at school confused this crowd of people I went to school with, thus creating a boulder of stereotypes of the Hmong language. In fifth grade, it was my first time I ever heard, “Do you speak Chinese?” Trying to be in an environment where learning and diversity should be welcome it only confused my sense of self because now I felt that I couldn’t express who I am at school in words that could’ve been explained properly in Hmong. This idea that alternating between languages can produce stereotypes of one’s culture made me aware of how I can speak to others in the public.

I believe that every place around this world have the same purpose of education is to provide an opportunity that helps everyone understands and earn more knowledge because knowledge is an inexhaustible treasure. The person who goes along with students is a teacher. The role of teacher is teaching and passing the valuable knowledge on to students, and the teacher really hope the students will keep the knowledge journal because knowledge is that really need for students to succeed in school and in life. However, because I was born in Vietnam and I immigrated to the United States when I was stepping in high school year, therefore, I believe there are many different from the teaching skill/style and methods, cultural education and environment of school in different countries based on my experience through American education and Vietnamese education.

Intercultural communication competence refers to the ability of an individual to adapt and communicate appropriately and effectively across a wide array of cultural contexts. That is to say, for an individual to be considered an intercultural communicator they must understand other’s cultures as well as they understand their own, and apply this understanding to communication (Chen 1-2). With the increasing diversity at the workplace, school and other social settings, it has become increasingly important to learn how to communicate with people from a diverse array of cultures. More importantly, adapting to a more effective intercultural communication competence model provides us with learning opportunities occasioned by the interaction with people from other backgrounds. The intercultural communication competence model comes with some key components including tolerance for uncertainty, self-knowledge, and motivation. The greatest and most important of these aspects is motivation. An individual must be willing to foster relationships with people from a different cultural background. If an individual lacks the willingness to promote intercultural relationships, then other aspects of the intercultural communication model become moot.

Communication is very essential to humans and is also a fundamental human right. Without communication, no human being, group or community can exist or flourish, meaning society will not function at all. The ability to communicate allows you to share thoughts, ideas, opinions and information. Multiple forms of communication are used everyday such as oral communications which includes television or conversations and written communications which includes newspapers or reports. This research essay will talk about how communications such as print media or telecommunications have developed in Vietnam. The main topics in this essay will be about the history of communication, factors that led to the improvement of communication, communication benefits to the country, issues, problems and solutions of Vietnam’s communication. Vietnam is a communist country with over 85 million people and is part of South East Asia with Laos and Cambodia to the West and China to the North. The country itself is shaped like an S and covers 331,210 square kilometres. Vietnam’s literacy rate is amazingly high for a developing country exceeding 90% for people that can read. Because of Vietnam’s renovation or the “doi moi” policy, the country economy and policies have developed fittingly.