Intercultural communicationOnce I had a Chinese friend from Nanjing, China who’s named is Eva (a self-given name, her real name is Zhou Man Yi). She was a really individualistic in nature; she was extrovert, independent and she did not bother to act like a typical collectivist Chinese in common. Normally, people would perceive Chinese as a collectivist society whereby high interdependency, conformity and mutual sympathy are common. However, this is not the case with Eva. She loved English songs, shows and movies. She did everything from writing on her own to travelling with her friends to another city in China during midnight for fun. As an independent girl, she could easily adapt with various groups of friends in different occasions. In contrast to her mother and father who were more conservative, she was open and extremely frank when conversing with others. Her parents were more introvert; they conform to others’ opinion and keep their own opinion so as not to appear to harsh and forceful. For instance, the older Chinese generation used to try very hard to please their business partners; as such they would accompany their clients for rounds of drinks and meals, plus extravagant gifts for the clients to bring home. This is a typical Chinese act of ‘face-saving’. After all, Eva is not alone; so as her parents in terms of generation gap that exists in China today. Many of Eva’s friends were individualistic too. While the older generation, including Eva’s parent, tend to be more collectivist because they still retain strong Chinese identities with them. Looking at the above comparison, one may have to consider certain factors before communicating with people from different generation in a same cultural group. Due to globalization in China, many young Chinese generations experience sudden, drastic cultural revolution like never before. Therefore, to deliver an effective communication, different aspects such as age group and cultural group should be observed carefully. should we teach ourselves to be more sensible when communicating with different group age/culture?
