This assignment is to show how cultures affect the way of communication individually. Two 20 years old university students, Chen Yinger from Shanghai, China and Mita Akie from Tokyo, Japan were chosen as my interviewees. I am interested in the culture of these two Asian countries and wanted to know about their culture. In this paper, topics related to verbal communication, conflict management and gender roles will be focused on. When it comes to verbal communication, the two interviewees and I reacted in the same way. We will change the way we speak according to the closeness of the relationship. Instead of telling our real thoughts, we choose to embellish our words when we talk to people we are not too close with because we do not want them to dislike us and hurt their feelings. It is quite cruel to tell some of my bad thoughts about them directly. Chen said that she felt weird to express her real feelings directly to people she was not familiar with. For Akie, she felt bad to convey her thoughts directly to others because she thought that it was quite a rude behaviour. She cares about what others think of her. This showed that we are from high context cultures which emphasize long term good relationship. However, we communicate with our family and friends whom we familiar with in a direct way so that they can clearly know what we think and feel to avoid misunderstanding. When we stay with our family and friends, Akie and I felt comfortable while Chen felt safe. This has showed that we also belong to low context cultures which emphasize true opinions. Besides, we use the same communicate style which is self-effacement mode when we receive someone’s compliment since we have been grown up in a society that considered modesty as a virtue. We use verbal restraints and modest talks in response to others’ praises instead of accepting them with pleasure since we emphasize on harmony and hierarchy. Chen and I think that being humble will not offend others easily. Akie said that being self-effacing will be considered as a polite behaviour for others. This has proved that we are from collectivistic cultures which promote social harmony within group. When discussing conflict, three of us shared the same opinions: we do not like it because it is not a good thing. This has applied the theory that Asian from high context cultures considered conflict as a negative thing and will try to avoid it as much as possible. For me, conflict is so annoying and can ruin my mood for the whole day. For Chen, she thought that conflict was an extremely tired thing. For Akie, she thought that conflict would worsen her relationship with others. However, the ways we managed the inevitable conflict were different. I belong to the accommodate style in daily conflict management because my parents always teach me to have high concern for others. I will give in to others’ reasonable demands as long as they will be happy for my sacrifice. This has applied the theory that Asian considered accommodate style is good and female usually uses accommodate style in conflict management. But when it comes to work, I use the collaboration style to solve the conflict because I want to have the best outcome. I believe that good work will only be created if everyone is concerned about others, so does teamwork. Chen uses compromise style to manage the conflict because she cares about herself and others. She will find a middle ground to solve the conflict so that everyone’s need can be meet. But when conflict happens between the elders of her family, she will use avoidance style by not stepping in because Chinese has a belief that younger does not step into the elder’s conflict. The style of conflict management Akie uses is avoidance, which is same with one of the styles Chen uses. Akie will walk away from any conflict to avoid confrontation and to keep good relationship with others. This has demonstrated that high context cultures practice avoidance style in conflict management. When talking about gender issue, three of us thought that the problem of gender inequality still occurs in our respective countries though the situation now is much better than the past. For example, Chen’s and my grandparents prefer a boy than a girl because Asian believes that men are superior to women in terms of society and family especially the older generation. Chen felt frustrated towards this situation because she encouraged gender equality. Akie said that currently there are still power differences and inequality at workplace as more men are in companies’ important position like CEO because the older generation in Japan looks down upon women in the workforce. This has applied the theory that high context countries endorse high power distance cultures. Akie said that it was unfair to fire some career women who were pregnant due to the view that women should be a good housewife rather than studying or working. Chen, Akie and I have totally different opinions on gender role. I believed that there was no gender role because everyone is free to do whatever they want in this new era. I think that women can start up business and men can even take care of the child as long as both sides are willing to do so. Chen thinks that men are like a slave for women by helping them to carry their handbags and personal belongings because men in Shanghai are quite obeyed to whatever women said. She thinks that women are like a successful career person because women nowadays become more financial independence and show good abilities in the workplace. This has showed that Chen and I are not high context person. Akie considered achievement and money were important and she said the role of men was more likely to earn money and protect the safety of his family while the role of women was to assist and support their men. This showed that Akie is from high context country that emphasizes masculinity cultures which clearly distinct gender roles. Akie also thinks that men are like a leader while women are like an assistant under the influence of Japan’s deep-rooted belief that men are breadwinners, women are homemakers. Having said these, the styles my interviewees and I used for verbal communication and conflict management have a deep connection with culture, environment and our own perception. Also, these factors have affected our opinions about gender issues. For this reason, sometimes we shared the same thoughts but sometimes we do not. From the interviews, I realized that Chen has high and low context characteristics while Akie is more likely a high context people. But I think that I can conduct a better interview if I am more well-prepared with the questions and lead the interviewees to give out better answers. From this assignment, I have explored that why I behave and communicate in such way and learned that lack of cultures knowledge is a disadvantage for me. Moreover, the challenges I have faced are how to construct good interview questions that can produce a good context for this essay as well as how to analyze the content well.
