[Music]
you
[Music]
so I want to start by telling you guys a
story and it’s a very hypothetical but
very realistic story and I want you guys
to immerse yourselves in the roles of
these characters put yourself in their
shoes if you will so imagine yourselves
as team leaders or I have a group of
soldiers in a war-torn country somewhere
very far away from we’re used to with
different culture speaking different
language you have no idea what the
culture is like over there and as you’re
in the city going house to house
clearing looking for the enemy you come
up with a last house you stack up your
team stack up behind you you give the
cue this guy behind you kick open the
door you go in you clear each room and
then you arrive in the living room there
is an old man scared with his hands up
your team with your guns pointing at him
you say put your hands up put your hands
up hands where I can see them now within
your team there’s a combat translator
whose job is to translate to help you
guys communicate with the local
population so then you ask this old man
you ask him is there anyone in the house
is there anyone in the house because I
see me there you need to know if there
are any other possible threats in the
house so this translator then translates
that but unbeknownst to you and your
team the local culture and the language
is quite different it doesn’t go war
forward in English in fact the local
culture language they never refer to
women or children directly so what the
old what the translator end up asking is
are there any men in the house are there
any men in the house so the old man he’s
in fear he has like four or five guys
for him he’s not gonna lie to you
he doesn’t know no there are no other
men in the house then the translator
translates back to you which nobody is
lying because there is no other man in
the house but it is at this moment that
a young girl perhaps fourteen year old
comes into the room and says grandpa
what’s going on right there and then
your soldiers jump into alert mode this
guy just says there’s no one else in the
house with your guns point that this
little girl and US team leader you have
a split second to make decision do you
take the shot or not if you don’t take a
shot it’s possible this little girl
could pull out a handgun empty 15 rounds
into you and your
and but if you take a shot what did this
girls innocent what if it was just a
hamburger a doll that she’s holding me
her back are you willing to live with
that guilt do you want to go get
court-martialed so as you can see the
gravity of this situation and many
people interpret this as the
mistranslation in war but I like to take
it a step further in my opinion I think
this is more than just a issue of
translation mistranslation I think this
is a issue of the lack of understanding
for the local culture you see whenever
you speak with someone from another
culture on the language and/or there’s
some translation involved it’s not just
exchange of words there’s an exchange of
culture going on here and I think the
problem here is that these soldiers over
reliance on the translator to translate
to accurately refer to them the
information they need that’s the problem
so I want to talk about today is
intercultural communication notice the
key word intercultural as I previously
mentioned when you talk to someone from
another culture it’s not just word for
word there is an exchange of culture
going on so let me illustrate that with
an example does I’m a business student
here at Penn State I’m going to use a
more business oriented example from my
experiences most American businessmen
tend to be not all but 10 but a lot of
them tend to be a lot more you know
domina aggressive you know confident
basically but you see when you tout an
Asian where you go to Asia for example
and you tell them hey let’s meet tonight
let’s have a business meeting tonight
they might interpret that as okay let’s
go out for dinner let’s have some food
let’s get to know each other build a
bond because in Asia when you want to do
business you got to get to know the
person you’re buying and selling to and
from you got to have that sense of trust
but I think with a lot of Western
businessmen the value of the transaction
comes first I want to fly to Brazil and
I want to be out by tonight
sign that contract get that do get those
rolling in get that done now imagine
ourselves as now as
businessmen or women going to China for
example alright so going to a new place
understanding the styles of
communication is extremely important
okay so in I remember a class I took
here in Penn State actually marketing
for 10 personal selling great professor
by the way so so in this class you know
we were taught about personal selling
right how does how to sell stuff and as
sales menu or sales agents sales women
you have to be confident so we were
taught the marketing for 10 handshake
got be confident got it you know hey
how’s it going how are you now in this
class I experienced my fair share of
hand crushing handshakes you know guys
girls you know there are a casual that
confidence are dominant over you know
and I experienced my fair share of that
but you if you were to do that in
perhaps where I’m from in Taiwan or in
China or in a lot of parts of Asia this
could be viewed as aggressive or even
unprofessional even so now I want to
introduce a concept called contact zones
now contact zones are closely
intertwined with the concept of
intercultural communication now what are
contact zones contact zones is first
developed by dr. Mary Louise Pratt in
her doubts of the contact zones now in
my own words kind of my interpretation
examples contact zone contactors are
basically spaces where different
cultures meet however when different
cultures meet it’s quite possible that
conflicts may erupt because we don’t
understand each other all right if you
look at historical examples you know
when the Europeans first came to the
Americas what happened you know to the
Aztecs where what happened to the you
know Native Americans this room right
here is a contact zone alright well
contact zones are historically usually
on the battlefield and still is but in
today’s world with the world shrinking
with social media internet technology
neighborhoods your Walmart schools
classrooms have you done contacts almost
why do I say this from the contact zone
I’m from Taiwan you might be from Erie
Pennsylvania
you might be from where my sister in the
crowd Detroit Michigan you know I have
people friends here from China from
Italy every word this room is a contact
zone and I am initiating intercultural
communication with you guys also those
who may be watching online you may ask
me at this point
Anthony why do you care so much about
intercultural communication and contacts
and all that like what does that have to
do with you was I had to do with me you
see I’m no stranger to contact zones an
intercultural communication
I grew up immersed in culture shock I
came to the United States at the age of
seven to study my mom’s doing her PhD so
I came along tact long you know study
here and my English back then was pretty
terrible I only knew how to say you know
the word Apple that’s not gonna help you
much you know to communicate right so I
communicated first through the universal
language of strength and what is that to
put it bluntly with my fists because you
see as you know ice like your little boy
on the playground you know you have a
bunch of boys they’re always vying for
supremacy beating each other up so if
you can beat out the biggest baddest kid
you know you instantly earned respect
from the other kids you know that worked
pretty well for me and it was very fun
but that fun didn’t last you see in high
school I moved back to Taiwan and boy
was that a shock for me you see it’s a
swiping Asia in the spy being from
Taiwan I felt like an outsider within my
own culture in my own country going to
high school in Taiwan the culture there
is or should I say the majority of Asian
cultures um were more about the greater
good the interest of the team of the
group of the majority okay and growing
up in America I had a strong sense of
individualism I’m Anthony I’m me
you know that self-identity is so deeply
rooted in me so going back home it
wasn’t easy for me to get along with
other kids or my teachers so obviously
you know the school wasn’t the most
smooth experience for me in high school
especially imagine coming into the
classroom now my until we had wooden
desks all right it’s like single desk
it’s not like this is connected so
single dads wooden desk
we’ll come in the classroom my desk
would be a pile of wood you might think
that’s not mud that’s not that bad pile
of wood if you put it back together
right no pile of wood with shampoo
dumped over it so now I got to drag
these pieces of woods take it outside
wash it up bring it back into the
classroom dry it put it back together
yeah I wasn’t exactly focused on school
that much and I’m having to do this
almost every day and I always realized
that I’m in high school now I can’t just
beat up whoever I wish you know I got to
be more civilized now to also in this
different culture so I talked to the
teacher you know I think like the most
reasonable thing to do so I talked to my
teacher but I think as you have may have
already guessed my teacher basically
said just bear with it you know you’re
one person well let’s not flip over the
whole classroom trying to find out who
the culprit is although I knew who the
culprit was I know who hated me the most
in the classroom right but see I’ve
always wondered how different things
would have turned out back then if I had
tried to understand the culture away
from the beginning to initiate that
intercultural communication with my
classmates and my teachers away from the
beginning where things have been
different back then but that’s all in
the past now so let’s move on the next
two important steps with my life so
after high school I was in the Taiwanese
army in the military and then I also was
I also worked in a biotech firm that had
me traveling overseas this is all before
college coming here so I worked in a
biotech firm that had me traveling
overseas quite a bit and these two
experiences taught me a lot about why it
is important to be able to communicate
with people who are different than you
so in the Army the military you got to
have trust you gotta have that bond with
the guy next to you
so you’re entrusting your life with me
and he’s doing the same to you so if
there’s no trust that teamwork is not
going to be there in business if you can
communicate efficiently with people who
are different from you and most your
clients are going to be different from
you by the way so if you can’t do that
it oftentimes means no deal no money all
right it means failure so at this point
you might be wondering okay Anthony this
sounds really complicated how exactly do
I go
about doing this well I’m here to tell
you it’s actually not that hard
intercultural communication how to
effectively initiate it how to go about
doing it it all starts with being humble
setting aside your personal opinion
being humble being courteous be nice and
most importantly be genuine you see when
you want to approach someone you want to
talk to them you got to be genuine like
actually interested in this person
because people are dumb people can sense
it if you’re not actually interested in
what they have to say right all of that
you know back when I was working all of
that hey how’s it going how’s your day
you know I’m not actually interested in
what you have to say you know I just
want to get you signed I deal so
actually being interested is really
important and this is something that you
see I see a lot here on campus you know
you might be walking and then you hear a
group of kids you know that’s foreign
right they come from another country
they’re talking their own language
I’ll take Chinese for example because I
uh you know I speak Chinese Mandarin so
you know you might hear group of Chinese
is talking you can go up to them and
just say oh wow what language is higher
you know what you guys talking about you
know at first I might be a little
stunned you know think you’re weird
whatever that you can also take this a
little step further do a little research
before approaching them you know how do
you say hello in Chinese
Nihao next time you can go up and say
hey Niihau right and you can ask you
know ask him about hey you know what’s a
good authentic restaurant you know
around here because you know like
anywhere Asian kids go they’ll find the
real authentic restaurant you know for
me personally when I came back here for
college in America it was very easy for
me to to find kids for like and this is
also the next step of intercultural
communication once you’ve started it the
next step is quite important equally
important in fact is relating to that
person all right once you show genuine
curiosity you can relate to them and
then you’ll find similarity you see when
you start doing that you’ll realize that
we people we we may look different come
from different backgrounds but at the
end
they aren’t all that different we’re
quite alike especially I’m actually so
for me it was quite easy to relate to
local military community having served
in the Army before it’s quite easy you
know we start talking about guns here
you know it’s things just click but
that’s not it like I could also relate
to kids who might be a little more you
know stylish you know the hipster city
kids right I’m looking around
interesting looking where I have my hair
up so you know I obviously an interested
in fashion whatever is trending this way
you might ask you okay okay Anthony but
you know I’m not I’ve been I’ve not been
in the military I’m not really
interested in fashion either how do I go
about doing this and you won’t take it
safe do you eat food how many of you eat
I hope everybody raise your hand right I
mean I eat to see food you can never go
wrong right everybody eats when I came
here I tried everything you know your
stereotypical classic American food your
steak your mac and cheese you know your
hamburger barbecue ribs but eating that
trying that is not it you gotta go take
a step further see I learned that steak
you can pan fry it you can grill it you
can broil in the oven you gotta actually
understand show genuine interest and as
we’re trying these food I tell my
American friends are now it’s your turn
I’m gonna cook some real authentic Asian
food for you this is not something you
can get in the restaurant this is the
real deal
getting that intercultural communication
going so why is it important why is it
important for us to do that you see when
you start initiating intercultural
communication when you are brave enough
to take that first step you’ll find you
you’ll start learning you’ll start
becoming more culturally diverse you see
being comfortable in a contact zone
that’s what will help us eliminate
conflicts the majority of conflicts in
this world comes from the inability to
understand each other so if you can put
yourself in other person’s shoes if
you’re brave enough to take that first
step the benefits are endless but only
if you take that first step
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
[Music]
you
[Music]
so I want to start by telling you guys a
story and it’s a very hypothetical but
very realistic story and I want you guys
to immerse yourselves in the roles of
these characters put yourself in their
shoes if you will so imagine yourselves
as team leaders or I have a group of
soldiers in a war-torn country somewhere
very far away from we’re used to with
different culture speaking different
language you have no idea what the
culture is like over there and as you’re
in the city going house to house
clearing looking for the enemy you come
up with a last house you stack up your
team stack up behind you you give the
cue this guy behind you kick open the
door you go in you clear each room and
then you arrive in the living room there
is an old man scared with his hands up
your team with your guns pointing at him
you say put your hands up put your hands
up hands where I can see them now within
your team there’s a combat translator
whose job is to translate to help you
guys communicate with the local
population so then you ask this old man
you ask him is there anyone in the house
is there anyone in the house because I
see me there you need to know if there
are any other possible threats in the
house so this translator then translates
that but unbeknownst to you and your
team the local culture and the language
is quite different it doesn’t go war
forward in English in fact the local
culture language they never refer to
women or children directly so what the
old what the translator end up asking is
are there any men in the house are there
any men in the house so the old man he’s
in fear he has like four or five guys
for him he’s not gonna lie to you
he doesn’t know no there are no other
men in the house then the translator
translates back to you which nobody is
lying because there is no other man in
the house but it is at this moment that
a young girl perhaps fourteen year old
comes into the room and says grandpa
what’s going on right there and then
your soldiers jump into alert mode this
guy just says there’s no one else in the
house with your guns point that this
little girl and US team leader you have
a split second to make decision do you
take the shot or not if you don’t take a
shot it’s possible this little girl
could pull out a handgun empty 15 rounds
into you and your
and but if you take a shot what did this
girls innocent what if it was just a
hamburger a doll that she’s holding me
her back are you willing to live with
that guilt do you want to go get
court-martialed so as you can see the
gravity of this situation and many
people interpret this as the
mistranslation in war but I like to take
it a step further in my opinion I think
this is more than just a issue of
translation mistranslation I think this
is a issue of the lack of understanding
for the local culture you see whenever
you speak with someone from another
culture on the language and/or there’s
some translation involved it’s not just
exchange of words there’s an exchange of
culture going on here and I think the
problem here is that these soldiers over
reliance on the translator to translate
to accurately refer to them the
information they need that’s the problem
so I want to talk about today is
intercultural communication notice the
key word intercultural as I previously
mentioned when you talk to someone from
another culture it’s not just word for
word there is an exchange of culture
going on so let me illustrate that with
an example does I’m a business student
here at Penn State I’m going to use a
more business oriented example from my
experiences most American businessmen
tend to be not all but 10 but a lot of
them tend to be a lot more you know
domina aggressive you know confident
basically but you see when you tout an
Asian where you go to Asia for example
and you tell them hey let’s meet tonight
let’s have a business meeting tonight
they might interpret that as okay let’s
go out for dinner let’s have some food
let’s get to know each other build a
bond because in Asia when you want to do
business you got to get to know the
person you’re buying and selling to and
from you got to have that sense of trust
but I think with a lot of Western
businessmen the value of the transaction
comes first I want to fly to Brazil and
I want to be out by tonight
sign that contract get that do get those
rolling in get that done now imagine
ourselves as now as
businessmen or women going to China for
example alright so going to a new place
understanding the styles of
communication is extremely important
okay so in I remember a class I took
here in Penn State actually marketing
for 10 personal selling great professor
by the way so so in this class you know
we were taught about personal selling
right how does how to sell stuff and as
sales menu or sales agents sales women
you have to be confident so we were
taught the marketing for 10 handshake
got be confident got it you know hey
how’s it going how are you now in this
class I experienced my fair share of
hand crushing handshakes you know guys
girls you know there are a casual that
confidence are dominant over you know
and I experienced my fair share of that
but you if you were to do that in
perhaps where I’m from in Taiwan or in
China or in a lot of parts of Asia this
could be viewed as aggressive or even
unprofessional even so now I want to
introduce a concept called contact zones
now contact zones are closely
intertwined with the concept of
intercultural communication now what are
contact zones contact zones is first
developed by dr. Mary Louise Pratt in
her doubts of the contact zones now in
my own words kind of my interpretation
examples contact zone contactors are
basically spaces where different
cultures meet however when different
cultures meet it’s quite possible that
conflicts may erupt because we don’t
understand each other all right if you
look at historical examples you know
when the Europeans first came to the
Americas what happened you know to the
Aztecs where what happened to the you
know Native Americans this room right
here is a contact zone alright well
contact zones are historically usually
on the battlefield and still is but in
today’s world with the world shrinking
with social media internet technology
neighborhoods your Walmart schools
classrooms have you done contacts almost
why do I say this from the contact zone
I’m from Taiwan you might be from Erie
Pennsylvania
you might be from where my sister in the
crowd Detroit Michigan you know I have
people friends here from China from
Italy every word this room is a contact
zone and I am initiating intercultural
communication with you guys also those
who may be watching online you may ask
me at this point
Anthony why do you care so much about
intercultural communication and contacts
and all that like what does that have to
do with you was I had to do with me you
see I’m no stranger to contact zones an
intercultural communication
I grew up immersed in culture shock I
came to the United States at the age of
seven to study my mom’s doing her PhD so
I came along tact long you know study
here and my English back then was pretty
terrible I only knew how to say you know
the word Apple that’s not gonna help you
much you know to communicate right so I
communicated first through the universal
language of strength and what is that to
put it bluntly with my fists because you
see as you know ice like your little boy
on the playground you know you have a
bunch of boys they’re always vying for
supremacy beating each other up so if
you can beat out the biggest baddest kid
you know you instantly earned respect
from the other kids you know that worked
pretty well for me and it was very fun
but that fun didn’t last you see in high
school I moved back to Taiwan and boy
was that a shock for me you see it’s a
swiping Asia in the spy being from
Taiwan I felt like an outsider within my
own culture in my own country going to
high school in Taiwan the culture there
is or should I say the majority of Asian
cultures um were more about the greater
good the interest of the team of the
group of the majority okay and growing
up in America I had a strong sense of
individualism I’m Anthony I’m me
you know that self-identity is so deeply
rooted in me so going back home it
wasn’t easy for me to get along with
other kids or my teachers so obviously
you know the school wasn’t the most
smooth experience for me in high school
especially imagine coming into the
classroom now my until we had wooden
desks all right it’s like single desk
it’s not like this is connected so
single dads wooden desk
we’ll come in the classroom my desk
would be a pile of wood you might think
that’s not mud that’s not that bad pile
of wood if you put it back together
right no pile of wood with shampoo
dumped over it so now I got to drag
these pieces of woods take it outside
wash it up bring it back into the
classroom dry it put it back together
yeah I wasn’t exactly focused on school
that much and I’m having to do this
almost every day and I always realized
that I’m in high school now I can’t just
beat up whoever I wish you know I got to
be more civilized now to also in this
different culture so I talked to the
teacher you know I think like the most
reasonable thing to do so I talked to my
teacher but I think as you have may have
already guessed my teacher basically
said just bear with it you know you’re
one person well let’s not flip over the
whole classroom trying to find out who
the culprit is although I knew who the
culprit was I know who hated me the most
in the classroom right but see I’ve
always wondered how different things
would have turned out back then if I had
tried to understand the culture away
from the beginning to initiate that
intercultural communication with my
classmates and my teachers away from the
beginning where things have been
different back then but that’s all in
the past now so let’s move on the next
two important steps with my life so
after high school I was in the Taiwanese
army in the military and then I also was
I also worked in a biotech firm that had
me traveling overseas this is all before
college coming here so I worked in a
biotech firm that had me traveling
overseas quite a bit and these two
experiences taught me a lot about why it
is important to be able to communicate
with people who are different than you
so in the Army the military you got to
have trust you gotta have that bond with
the guy next to you
so you’re entrusting your life with me
and he’s doing the same to you so if
there’s no trust that teamwork is not
going to be there in business if you can
communicate efficiently with people who
are different from you and most your
clients are going to be different from
you by the way so if you can’t do that
it oftentimes means no deal no money all
right it means failure so at this point
you might be wondering okay Anthony this
sounds really complicated how exactly do
I go
about doing this well I’m here to tell
you it’s actually not that hard
intercultural communication how to
effectively initiate it how to go about
doing it it all starts with being humble
setting aside your personal opinion
being humble being courteous be nice and
most importantly be genuine you see when
you want to approach someone you want to
talk to them you got to be genuine like
actually interested in this person
because people are dumb people can sense
it if you’re not actually interested in
what they have to say right all of that
you know back when I was working all of
that hey how’s it going how’s your day
you know I’m not actually interested in
what you have to say you know I just
want to get you signed I deal so
actually being interested is really
important and this is something that you
see I see a lot here on campus you know
you might be walking and then you hear a
group of kids you know that’s foreign
right they come from another country
they’re talking their own language
I’ll take Chinese for example because I
uh you know I speak Chinese Mandarin so
you know you might hear group of Chinese
is talking you can go up to them and
just say oh wow what language is higher
you know what you guys talking about you
know at first I might be a little
stunned you know think you’re weird
whatever that you can also take this a
little step further do a little research
before approaching them you know how do
you say hello in Chinese
Nihao next time you can go up and say
hey Niihau right and you can ask you
know ask him about hey you know what’s a
good authentic restaurant you know
around here because you know like
anywhere Asian kids go they’ll find the
real authentic restaurant you know for
me personally when I came back here for
college in America it was very easy for
me to to find kids for like and this is
also the next step of intercultural
communication once you’ve started it the
next step is quite important equally
important in fact is relating to that
person all right once you show genuine
curiosity you can relate to them and
then you’ll find similarity you see when
you start doing that you’ll realize that
we people we we may look different come
from different backgrounds but at the
end
they aren’t all that different we’re
quite alike especially I’m actually so
for me it was quite easy to relate to
local military community having served
in the Army before it’s quite easy you
know we start talking about guns here
you know it’s things just click but
that’s not it like I could also relate
to kids who might be a little more you
know stylish you know the hipster city
kids right I’m looking around
interesting looking where I have my hair
up so you know I obviously an interested
in fashion whatever is trending this way
you might ask you okay okay Anthony but
you know I’m not I’ve been I’ve not been
in the military I’m not really
interested in fashion either how do I go
about doing this and you won’t take it
safe do you eat food how many of you eat
I hope everybody raise your hand right I
mean I eat to see food you can never go
wrong right everybody eats when I came
here I tried everything you know your
stereotypical classic American food your
steak your mac and cheese you know your
hamburger barbecue ribs but eating that
trying that is not it you gotta go take
a step further see I learned that steak
you can pan fry it you can grill it you
can broil in the oven you gotta actually
understand show genuine interest and as
we’re trying these food I tell my
American friends are now it’s your turn
I’m gonna cook some real authentic Asian
food for you this is not something you
can get in the restaurant this is the
real deal
getting that intercultural communication
going so why is it important why is it
important for us to do that you see when
you start initiating intercultural
communication when you are brave enough
to take that first step you’ll find you
you’ll start learning you’ll start
becoming more culturally diverse you see
being comfortable in a contact zone
that’s what will help us eliminate
conflicts the majority of conflicts in
this world comes from the inability to
understand each other so if you can put
yourself in other person’s shoes if
you’re brave enough to take that first
step the benefits are endless but only
if you take that first step
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
[Music]
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