Cultural Faux Pas

Focusing on settlement issues while teaching my class of immigrant students from all over the world, I often address social blunders many of us make in an alien land. What is culturally acceptable in our own countries may not be so in yet another country, but many of us commit so many cultural faux pas stemming from our ignorance of acceptable local behaviour that we leave the locals reeling from shock and disbelief at our abominable behaviour. Social acculturation is a very important thing we have to learn consciously when we're trying to settle down comfortably in a foreign land. As long as we live in our ethnic silos and persist in following our own ways regardless of what is acceptable in the country of our choice, then assimilation into society becomes a very difficult task.

People from most Asian cultures, in my opinion, have no distinction between the private and the public, and ask way too many inappropriate, personal questions that can leave the other person squirming in the seat. During a session on family law related to abuse and divorce and all that, I was mortified when an elderly Asian student of mine asked the guest speaker if he had ever beaten his wife. During yet another session on banking, another student asked the speaker how much money he made in his job. Sometimes, as their Instructor, I too get asked how much salary I am being paid, which is not something I'd ever disclose to my students. Or when someone tells them he/she has bought a house, pat comes the next question, "How much did you pay for it?" Also, when someone answers in the affirmative about their marital status, and in the negative about having children, almost always the next question is, "How long have you been married?" As if it's any of their business! And more often, they follow up with probing questions about the couple's medical history, offer fertility advice, and so on, completely unmindful of the fact that none of these should ever be addressed in the first place because these are very personal matters and that these are practically strangers they're offering advice to.

Recently, I happened to throw a party where the time was clearly mentioned as 6 PM for the guests to arrive. I had been standing for nearly ten hours in the kitchen lording over the stove, and was putting the finishing touches to the food, when the doorbell rang. The husband was vacuuming the living room one final time, and to our consternation, we discovered that the first of the guests had arrived, almost an hour and a half earlier than the said time. They had no thought if the hosts would be ready to receive them so early, or any consideration at all that they should give us time to get ready. Anyways, their reason for the early arrival was that they had to go to another birthday party, so they thought they should stop at our place on the way. To be honest, I was livid about their insensitivity, and I had to run to the bathroom for a shower, leaving my task in the kitchen midway and asking the husband to complete it. They walked right in, with the vacuum cleaner still sitting in the middle of the living room. These were people I had never met, who were coming to our place for the first time, so not a very good first impression I had of them! And horror of horrors, the woman nonchalantly wandered into the kid's room without invitation and completely took him by surprise ...and worse still, was about to enter the master bedroom where I was having a shower in the adjoining bathroom. The husband had to literally grab her hand and pull her out of the bedroom with a loud , "NO, NO!" Perhaps this was something she could have done in her home country, India, and not much fuss would've been made about it, but not here in North America, for sure! Privacy and personal boundaries are very important here, and one doesn't just wander into someone's private rooms uninvited!

The list of cultural faux pas people commit can go and on, and I can see the value in big companies and corporations offering acculturation lessons for their personnel when they go on trips abroad. It becomes all the more important to learn the cultural do's and don'ts when you immigrate to a foreign land and try to assimilate into society there. It pains me all the more when people from my own country are boorish and behave like uncouth louts and uncivilized morons . Time we all educated ourselves about what is culturally acceptable and not!