Continuing Cultural Exchange

Learning from cultural exchange never really ends, something I need to be reminded of as it's all too easy to think that just because I am in the U.S. I no longer need to be reading culture into my interactions with my students.

Case in point was an interaction I had with my group of summer students at Muko. My summer group was positively delightful and we had a great three weeks together. At the end of it they requested we have a pizza party for their final night in the States. I was only too happy to oblige this group of active and eager students, so we ordered four different pizzas according to their preferences.

It was the way that they decided to distribute the pizzas that got onto my culture radar. After I'd laid out all the food, I expected everyone to take a a plate and choose a piece for themselves. I was surprised (and a little dismayed) when I found them taking three! There was enough pizza for everyone to have at least three pieces, but I was worried the more popular kinds would run out before everyone had a chance to try them. Feeling anxious, I almost tried to intervene and suggest that we each start with one piece when I noticed that they were loading up all the plates with three different types of pizza. Once again I felt unsure. What if someone didn't like a particular kind? But this is when I realized that maybe this was a cultural difference, and so instead of trying to lecture them on how I thought things ought to be done, I decided to sit back and observe.

They continued to load up all the plates until all of the pizza was gone. Some plates had four pieces and some had three, but each had only one of each type of pizza. They then carried the plates into the dining room and set them out at different places before anyone sat down. It occurred to me that they were trying to be as equatable as possible. I'd observed similar behavior from my groups before regarding food sharing and other things, but it wasn't until this time that I'd really analyzed it. This way ensured that everyone got to try as many different kinds of pizza as possible and prevented fast eaters and first-comers from hogging all the pizza. While I would have individualistically approached the situation with a "first come first serve" attitude, they made sure that everyone had equal access to the food. I'm not sure how they determined who got four pieces instead of three, but my hunch is that it went to the "sempai" or older members of the group. I was offered a plate with four pieces but declined because I would never be able to eat that much in one sitting.

I always think that approaches to food are an interesting indicator of cultural values. In Thailand much was done in a communal, family style sort of way. In America I'm very much used to having my own choice and clear demarcation of what is my food and what isn't. This approach didn't really fit either cultural stereotype of communal or individualistic. On the one hand, Japanese culture does seem to be pretty group-oriented, but in other ways there does seem to be an emphasis on space and separateness.

This event was a good reminder that I still need to be evaluating things through a cultural lens. The thing with cultural differences is that our gut reaction seems to be to immediately judge behavior that is different, as with my gut reaction that the way they were dishing up pizza was "wrong." When working with other cultures, it's much more productive to first step back and try to identify what is striking you as weird or wrong about the behavior, and then try and come up with explanations as to what might be the advantages or reasoning behind this other approach.