A thread of "classic cross cultural mistakes" to help others avoid them...

On @SoldierRJ88 's thread about "what to do on meeting the prospective in-laws", @DJB posted this sound advice:

"Simple things can sometimes drop you in the ****e, I once offered to wash the pots after a meal and her Dad's face was a picture LOL"

My biggest single cultural blunder involved not the outlaws but she who is now my wife and her oldest sister. I have spent half my working life in East Asia, and I still did this, and three years on K still seethes with resentment over it!

In December 2013 K's sister asked me for a loan of 20K pesos saying that a cheque that she was expecting from ABS-CBN had not cleared yet and could I tide her over for Christmas and she would pay me back in the New Year. Since this would leave K herself short, I said that I would have to ask her first (but I didn't say why) and so I did. K said "yes".

She meant:

"NOT ON YOUR LIFE SHE IS HOPELESS WITH MONEY; SHE WILL NEVER PAY US BACK AND IF I CANT AFFORD PASALUBONG FOR MY PARENTS I WILL LOSE FACE!!!"

By telling the older sister that I would ask the younger sister I had made it impossible for the younger sister to refuse. And by lending her sister the money that she needed for pasalubong for her parents I had caused her to lose face.. than which nothing is more serious...

I am still in deep, deep kimche.

I just found this useful discussion of cultural issues on a Canadian Government website. I think it's rather good...

https://www.international.gc.ca/cil-cai/country_insights-apercus_pays/ci-ic_ph.aspx?lang=eng

I would like to emphasise two points:

1. The East Asian concept of "face" applies with all Filipinos.

2. The Filipino concept of "S.I.R." (Smooth Inter-personal Relationships) means that it is horribly easy for a foreigner to go around causing enormous offence, particularly by causing people to lose face, and the foreigner will never know, because so far as he or she can tell, everyone is perfectly happy with them.

yep. another good reason why i have no interest in going over there.

I did a belter, where my girl lives its a bit remote (jungle to be precise) and I was staying with her at Nanays house (for the first time) and after having a few Red Horses at 3AM I needed to Pee so Kris says follow me. We go outside into the dead of night with all the critters making noises and running around everywhere and she points to what looks like a Pig Pen in the corner 20 feet from the house.

Go there she says.... so I walk over get the old man out and start piddling away up the side of the Pig Pen resisting the temptation to write my name I might add, Kris storms over looks at me, shakes her head and opens the door off the alleged Pig Pen to reveal a nice shiny porcelain loo.

"When offered a pail and dipper to shower with, do not step into the pail"

DAMHIKT

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At least yours had walls.


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Funny thing when using pale and dipper for the first time, I was stopping in a rough hotel in Indonesia for months and just had the old bucket and scoop for showering, you always tend to stand back when you tip the water over your head, takes a bit of getting used to

We've managed to get a brand new apartment...which still needs a bucket and dipper !

Somehow they forgot to fit a blinkin shower !

Very enjoyable read

Making them lose face can sometimes have serious consequences. Like this sad story.

Hungarian shot dead allegedly over firecrackers
Joyce Ann Clavecillas, ABS-CBN News
Posted at Jan 01 2017 10:47 PM







PAVIA, ILOILO – Hungarian national Daniel Melczer, 37, was shot dead outside their house in a subdivision in Barangay Balabag in Pavia, Iloilo on Sunday, police said.

Initial investigation revealed that around 12:30 a.m.. the victim asked security guards to tell his neighbor, Lucindo Lim, who lives across him, to stop setting off firecrackers because he wanted to sleep already.

The guard went to Lim’s house to accommodate Melczer’s request and Lim agreed.

However, when the security guard left Lim’s house and went back to his roving routine, he suddenly heard a scream and went back again to the area.

He saw Lim holding a .45 caliber pistol, and the responding guards confiscated the gun. However, they did not immediately report the incident.

Around 3 a.m., Melczer’s fiancée, Reka Schule, woke up and was wondering why her fiancé was not in their room. She looked for him and she saw him at the back portion of their house. Upon seeing that her fiancé was shot, she sought help. It was only then that the Pavia police was informed.

Authorities went to the house of Lim after the guards informed them that they confiscated the gun. Lim submitted himself to the authorities and surrendered another gun, a 9mm pistol.

Based on Lim’s statement to the police, Melczer allegedly kicked him and he lost his temper. He then went inside and took his gun.

Aside from investigating the incident itself, the police will check with the Bureau of Immigration regarding the status of the victim’s stay in Iloilo and will also investigate security guards on why they failed to inform them earlier about the confiscated gun.

The Hungarian couple is running a restaurant business in Iloilo City, and the victim had been staying in the city for almost two years.


http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/01/01/17/hungarian-shot-dead-allegedly-over-firecrackers

A little off topic but sort of relevant...To show you need to respect their lives as they can be very different to ours...
The loo at the in-laws is small and low and in an area that is bricked up to about five feet (adequate privacy for most of my 'little' relatives. There is a gap of about three feet from the wall to the roof. Thus the sun can stream in and onto the loo.
Let's just say that after gently lowering myself down...my rear end touched the scorching hot loo....and I got up a lot quicker than I went down!

Thanks Boots for this classic of its kind.

Lim lost his face and reacted violently, as so often happens.

It is worth noting that the Police decided to investigate the immigration status of the VICTIM!

Yes that`s correct...

Often, the attitude of Police here is that if its at all possible , the foreigner is at fault.
Their logic is and they will often tell the foreigner....."If you wasn't here,it would never have happened"..
Turns out in this case they had little choice but to charge the seaman Lim with murder due to his own admission.
A thread like this is important as this type of thing is very easily avoided IMO.

Avoided by not asking to stop using the firecrackers? Does a foreigner have to be subordinate in every social interaction?

Yep...Also it was only 12.30 AM.
I`d have bought them a liter of decent brandy,said Happy new year and checked into a nice quiet hotel for the night.

Basically, yes. That is certainly the wisest course to take. Once an East Asian has lost face the normal cultural restraints which impose good behaviour on her or him cease to apply.

This applies at every level of society. My late friend Freddie Clemo ran a very sucessful business, and lived in Urdaneta Village, perhaps the nicest subdivision in Makati. He was the doyen of the British community, having lived in Manila since 1950 (he held both passports). He was by any standards a very brave man (he had been one of the last to surrender in the Battle of Hong Kong and had then spent the rest of the war as a POW on slave labour in Japan) but he was constantly in fear of his neighbour, the son of a very powerful politician and a known murderer, lest the neighbour "take a fancy" to one of his daughters.

Definitely. A foreigner will always be in the wrong, even when he's in the right "they" will find/manufacture some fault to place him in the wrong; remember that and you stand a good chance of avoiding unintended consequences.

Thats when my adoption of their culture goes right out the window....Ready for blood,guts and war!!

Interesting and also contrasting .Why do you think that the people of the country can be so welcoming and hospitable yet will instantly blame the foreigner in the first instance?