International journal of Science Commerce and Humanities Volume No 2 No 1 January 2014

Transcription

1 TALKING ABOUT INTERCULTURAL ADAPTATION IN INTERNATIONAL TOUR --A CASE STUDY OF ONE CHINESE LADY S TRAVEL IN FRANCE Xiaochi, ZHANG School of Foreign Languages, China West Normal University, No.1 Shi Da Lu, Nanchong, , Sichuan, P. R. China. ABSTRACT With the increasing number of Chinese travelers in international tour, some travelers lack some fundamental knowledge about the foreign countries cultural customs and make some misunderstanding with the foreigner. It does not benefit mutual intercultural communication between the Chinese travelers and foreigners. Therefore, the author takes one Chinese young lady s traveling experience to study on the importance of intercultural adaptation in international tour and discusses about how to avoid the misunderstanding between the Chinese travelers and foreigners and then puts forward some suggestions such as making a good preparation, keeping an open mind, making a good adjustment and appreciating similarities and respecting differences in international tour in order to better improve the Chinese travelers intercultural adaptation and communication in international tour. Keywords: Chinese traveler, international tour, intercultural adaptation, intercultural communication, intercultural competence INTRODUCTION: Globalization enters a world in which people of different cultural backgrounds increasingly come to depend on one another. To understand and accept cultural differences becomes imperative to be effective in intercultural communication in global society (Chen, 2010). In recent years, with the increasing number of the Chinese travelers in international tour, some of their languages and manners is unsatisfied for foreigners. At the same time, some Chinese travelers ignored the international or other countries cultural customs and manners, and made a very bad national image, because they did not learn some things or lack access to information regarding the cultural customs of foreign countries, as well as international behavior guidelines. Therefore, we will discuss some problems that Chinese travelers met from a perspective of intercultural adaptation in international tour. First of all, the author takes one case for example to be comparatively analyzed and then gives some suggestions to improve the Chinese travelers intercultural competence and to seriously keep the requirements and civilized manners in public in the western countries in order to adapt to a new culture in intercultural tour. 137

2 A CASE One day, Miss Wang, young and pretty lady, one of the Chinese traveler went to European countries for her first tour, when he visited Paris one of the famous cities in Europe. When she arrived at the hotel with other members of the touring group, Miss Wang was happy that the luggage carrier helped her to carry her big suitcase to the reserved room and found that the luggage carrier did not move away at the corridor of the room. Meanwhile, the luggage carrier only looked at Miss Wang and requested her for many times with the same question, What can I help you any more? Miss Wang gave a reply in this way with a smile, No more. Thank you! However, the luggage carrier did not go away and still stood there. In the meantime, Miss Wang wondered at the luggage carrier, and did not recognize why the luggage carrier was still there and only asked her for the same question. Miss Wang did not realize how to do in such a context. It was the first time that Miss Wang traveled in foreign country and did not take in any thing about French culture and customs. Especially, the tour guider had forgotten to tell that any traveler should give a tip after she or he received service such as carrying luggage for you and serve you at the hotel or at the restaurant and so on. Therefore, Miss Wang had not any common sense about how to tip and hesitated to say to the luggage carrier: What should I do something for you? Why didn t you go away and do another thing? The luggage carrier replied: Are you satisfied with my service? Miss Wang responded: I think your service is extremely good. I greatly appreciate your help. And the luggage carrier said to Miss Wang: You d better pay some tips if you really appreciate my service. Miss Wang: By the way, how much money I could pay? The luggage carrier gave a reply: As you like. Here is not the regulation. Miss Wang could not help herself to give two dollars to the luggage carrier. The luggage carrier got two dollars and then said to Miss Wang: Would you mind give me more tips? Miss Wang flushed her face and immediately gave another five dollars from her purse to the luggage carrier. The luggage carrier received five dollars and took it away without any words. At that time, Miss Wang felt baffled about what had happened with her just now. Maybe, Miss Wang learned the first lesson about the different cultural customs and some special things about tip. ANALYSIS The case shows that social interactions may vary greatly owing to different cultural backgrounds. In this case, the Chinese traveler s experience reveals not only her ignorance of knowledge about tip but also the 138

3 French cultural customs to pay tips for their good service. Thus, it is worthy studying further about the above case. Every culture has its ways of doing things in daily life, such as ways of eating, drinking, dressing, finding shelter, making friends, marring, and dealing with death. People have to absorb the cultural ways of their community to content their basic human needs.(xu, 2012) In the Chinese cultural customs, people have no habit to give a tip to their service from waiters, taxi drivers or luggage carriers. Therefore, some Chinese travelers are reluctant to give tips or are confused by western customs. With the comparison, in the foreign countries, especially in the western countries, giving a tip is regarded as an expression of your satisfaction with a particular service. A tip (also called a gratuity) is a sum of money tendered to certain service sector workers for a service performed or anticipated. Such payments and their size are a matter of social custom. Tipping varies among cultures and by service industry. In some industries, a certain percentage of the bill is expected as a tip. In some circumstances, such as with U.S. government workers receiving of tips is illegal (Wikipedia, ). The general rule in most western countries is to give tips 10 percent of a hotel bill or restaurant bill, but they may refuse to give a tip if customers are not satisfied with the service they received. However, people must realize that doing so may arouse anger and offense from waiter, taxi drivers or luggage carriers. Also, some jobs may not be ell paid, for example, people do not give a bill to the custom officials, policemen, teachers and professors. To some extent, it means that tips are an essential source of income for waiters, taxi drivers or luggage carriers. To confuse matters even further, giving a tipping is not expected at all in some countries and offering them may even be impolite. Therefore, it is best to familiarize yourself with local customs before visiting a country. In general, a visitor should check the restaurant bill to see if a service charge has already been added, or ask for clarification if you are unsure. Often rounding a bill or leaving the change is enough. In other situations, such as with drivers, tips are not mandatory but are regarded as a gesture of respect. But, do not tip any person of authority as this may be misinterpreted as an attempted bribe. Culture is a complex concept, and permeated into our daily life. When people sojourn in a foreign country, some of them can adapt to the new environment within a short period of time, while others find the new environment to be a nightmare. One of the main reasons why some find new environments problematic is that most familiar symbols they use in daily life have changed suddenly in the strange culture. They then begin to reject, consciously or unconsciously, the new ways of life which cause discomfort, withdrawal from the culture, and fear of contact with people (Chen, 2010, p.4). Due to these different cultural customs in different people s daily life, sometimes, one person from another culture as a newcomer needs to adjust to a new culture. Moreover, any person as a traveler or a visitor for a new country should know to adapt to a new country and to a new culture. In this way, misunderstanding or the above case would be never happened. 139

4 SOME SUGGESTIONS Generally speaking, an international tour is an intercultural communication. Any person in international tour has no rich knowledge about the target culture. One could not really understand or appreciate another cultural custom, and furthermore could not really enjoy life or staying in a new country or in a new culture. Worse enough, the lack of cultural knowledge could also result in the ineffectiveness in the intercultural communication and unhappy journey. As a result, the writer gives some suggestions about tour abroad from a perspective of intercultural adaptation. Only with mastery of intercultural communication competence can persons from different cultures communicate effectively and appropriately in the upcoming global society.(chen, 2010,p.2) The following suggestions have been found to be helpful: Making a good preparation Preparing for a trip abroad is one concrete thing anyone can do to increase the chances of adapting to the new culture successfully. Good preparation will not prevent culture shock, but it can help to make it less severe. Taking the time to learn about the new culture helps the newcomer to anticipate what the new experience will be like. Knowing about the culture, including history, geography, social conditions, arts and customs, is one way to increase cultural awareness and to gain an intellectual appreciation for it. (Davis, 2010). Keeping an open mind When any travelers meet people from other cultural backgrounds, they have an opportunity to learn new ways of seeing and experiencing life which they never knew existed. In a larger framework, they can learn the tremendous potentials humans have for being human. Through intercultural interaction and communication, the travelers can develop more valid and balanced understandings of other cultural ways. They can also better understand themselves, by contrasting their own ways with other life experiences and asking about their own meanings and functions. Facing this opportunity, they should keep an open mind, not only being tolerant of others but also learn from others. The more different ways of experiencing life available to a society, the more resources it has for meeting adaptive challenges. Making a good adjustment First, travelers should maintain contact with the new culture. If necessary, they should learn their language and practice the language that they are learning in a new country. This will help you feel less stress about the new language and learn to use it at the same time when interacting with local people. Furthermore, the travelers should recognize that adjusting is hard work, view change as a challenge instead of a threat. Don t expect everything to fall into place immediately. (Yang and Tao, 2012) Second, traveler should do to facilitate adjustment is to try to develop social relationships with the members of tour group from one own country, with other travelers, and with members of the new culture. It is essential to try to develop a group of people with who on can share new experiences. This is perhaps one of the fastest ways to begin to feel at east in another country. 140

5 Appreciating similarities and respecting differences Everyone knows It is true that cultures are different due to a host of various factors, but it doesn t mean that there are no similarities or commonalities. To the contrary, we share a series of crucial characteristics that link the people of the world together. (Zhang, 2008) Thus, travelers should remember that in meeting and describing a new culture, do not only stress the difference and overlook the similarities. At the same time, there are generally two attitudes toward differences. One is to take differences as polar opposites; the other is to see them as being different in degrees. In intercultural communication, travelers should take the latter attitude towards the cultural differences and know that people from different cultural backgrounds still have a lot in common, although they vary greatly as they are conditioned by their own cultures. Also, the travelers should know that while people share so much when people coexist on the same earth, the ways to realize those cultural values may vary from culture to culture. Differences follow and should never be neglected. The travelers attitude towards the cultural differences should be that of respect. Therefore, the travelers should know that cultural differences will not necessarily create conflict. Instead, they enrich our world. In fact, beauty is in the coexistence of different cultures. CONCLUSION A tip, or gratuity, is a small amount of money given voluntarily as a token of appreciation for a service rendered. People in some cultures tip service, or they may leave a low tip, or sometimes even no tip at all, as a signal that the service was not satisfactory. (Liu, 2008) In cultures where tipping is common, people should be aware of tipping differences in different contexts. An international tour is also an intercultural communication. Any traveler abroad would always misunderstand some cultural customs and habits, if they lack some fundamental knowledge of another culture. Especially, the travelers would not know how to pay tip before they did not get or access to information about the host cultural customs both from tour guider or Internet. As a result, any travelers do not meet any misunderstanding about the cultural customs and habit in a new country and facilitate his trip smoothly and comfortable. They should learn and have a rich knowledge of another culture, such as making a good preparation, keep an open mend, making a good adjustment and appreciating similarities and respecting differences. In this way, the traveler will become real ambassadors of intercultural communication in international tour. REFERENCES [1]Chen, Guoming. (2010). Foundations of Intercultural Communication Competence. Hong Kong: China Review Academic Publishers, p.4 [2]Chen, Guoming. (2010). A Study of Intercultural Communication Competence. Hong Kong: China Review Academic Publisher, p.34 [3]Davis, Linell. (2010). Doing Culture: Cross-cultural Communication in Action. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and 141

6 Research Press, p.310 [4]Liu, Xiaoping. (2008). Intercultural Business Communication. Tianjing: Nankai University Press, p.142 [5]Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved form [6]Xu, Lisheng. (2012). Intercultural Communication in English (Revised Edition). Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, p.42 [7]Yang, Xiaoping and Tao, Yuelian. (2012). A coursebook of Cross-cultural Communication. Beijing: Higher Education Press, p.111 [8]Zhang, Ailing. (2008). Log into the World of Cultures Intercultural communication. Chongqing: Chongqing University Press, p