The Power of Cultural Understanding
Growing up as a mixed-ethnicity child, I was taught to greet differently when visiting families or strangers. I was too young to know the difference, but I understood cues from my parents. When visiting my mom's family, she'll instruct me to "call" or greet everyone in the house, whereas when visiting my dad's family, he would tell me to "salam" as a way of showing respect. As I became more aware of my surroundings, I started to recognise and understand different cultures and how they guided my behaviour within different communities over the years.
Culture is the shared beliefs and behaviours of a group of people. It works as a system and a guide for how we behave based on the shared values and beliefs. Remember that time in school when you had a class monitor saying, "Bangun semua...Selamat pagi, cikgu!"? Yeah, that! That's an example of a system that Malaysian students follow, as it is part of our local school culture of showing respect to teachers.
Malaysians are taught to respect elders and customs, but the ways we demonstrate this vary across different cultures. In Malay culture, when walking past seated elders or people to whom we owe respect, it is customary to bow slightly. Whereas for dining etiquette, it is good manners in Chinese culture to "invite" the elders to dine before you - "Ah Ma, sek fan. Ah Chu, sek fan", and as for the Indians, you eat with your right hand (same goes for Malay culture). As a Malaysian, I do feel lucky to live in a multicultural country, and because of that, I think I'm more accepting of new cultures and experience less "culture shock" wherever I go.
Travelling to a different country is one way to learn about or experience a new culture, and it doesn't always mean traditional customs. Like that time during my first visit to Hong Kong, everything was fast-paced; you needed to walk fast, eat fast. Or when I travelled to Chicago with Amanda, and I was reminded to greet the barista, as it is a custom in the Midwest to be friendly, or I’ll be perceived as rude. Both situations are behaviours and practises that I am not accustomed to, but I was pre-informed of the culture beforehand to avoid offending people.
Culture doesn't apply only to large groups of people, like a nation, nor is it limited to a particular ethnicity. Take the corporate world, for example. I worked in a company where being social with everyone was part of the culture, whereas in another company I worked for, people preferred to mind their own business. Not only that, working in an agency or the service industry means not only getting used to your company culture but also understanding your clients' work culture.
I have clients whose company culture is hectic, with short-lead-time projects or campaigns (a phenomenon agencies will know well). Meanwhile, the company I work for prefers the opposite as a step toward implementing a positive work culture and better work execution. It can be a struggle when two different work cultures and styles collide. But this is manageable!
For the past 10 years of my working life, I've been (and sometimes still am) working in a culture clash "situation", which has also made me realise I've gained an undervalued skill. The skill of multicultural fluency - a skill of understanding culture in order to communicate and act better.
We once had a client who needed to launch a product in two weeks and wanted a specific group of KOLs and media to attend the event. It is not our practice to disseminate invitations very close to the event date, as it can make guests wonder if they're not a priority. But the client is used to working within short timelines. Given the circumstances, we communicated our restrictions and potential outcomes to the client and listened to their reasons for needing the project to be completed within that period. Of course, we all had to make some sacrifices and compromises to make it work for everyone. We had to let go of the assumed perception and try to "PR" our way to secure the specific media and KOLs in a short period of time, and the client needed to be more flexible and trust our implementation approach. In the end, things did work out.
My point is this. Everyone has their own customs or systems that they follow, and it's good to acknowledge them as a form of respect. I know trying to understand each other, be it the way one acts, talks, or believes, takes effort and time, BUT! It's worth it. I think of it as a cheat code for navigating people in my day-to-day life, or as a step toward improving relationships with others. It is easier and faster for me to deal with a matter when I know the context rather than going back and forth trying to find a solution based on assumptions. It may not technically be a superpower, but it's powerful enough to make a difference.
