January 30, 2025 • 21 mins
Have you ever been traveling and asked a local person a question and they are saying yes, but the meaning you realize later is no?
Join Paula as she dives into the art of understanding different communication styles, Paula serves up a hearty discussion on how different countries have different communication styles. She sprinkles in personal stories, insights from Erin Meyer's 'Culture Map,' and practical tips to help you connect with people from around the world. Whether it's navigating a bustling market or sharing a meal, Paula shows how a little cultural awareness can turn any travel experience into a dance of delightful connections.
HELPFUL LINKS
- Get my free Travel Planning Tool
- Read The Culture Map by Erin Meyers
- Read Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage by Brown and Levenson
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SAY HELLO
In My Kitchen creates connections one dish at a time, by exploring culture through food. I do this through unique culinary workshops, speaking engagements, and of course, this podcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Paula Mohamed, andwelcome to In My Kitchen with
Paula.
This podcast is a gatheringplace for culinary adventures
who love to travel.
Every week, we'll come togetherwith chefs, cookbook authors,
talented home cooks, andeveryone in between to talk
about their story and theirunique dish.
Using food as the vehicle, we'lltake a ride into the ins and
(00:21):
outs of their culture andcountry.
Come on, let's get this partystarted.
Hey everybody, I have some foodfor thought to share with you
today.
Uh, this past week I have had myhead in Portugal as I curate two
upcoming episodes, onespecifically around the Alentejo
region with a really interestingguest, Alfredo, from Freijo do
(00:44):
Maio.
Alfredo and I have been speakingon the phone and it's got me
thinking more and more aboutcommunicating with people from
other countries.
So, And how important it is thatwe recognize that we all have
different communication styles.
And as someone who loves totravel and explore culture
through food and other vehicles,I see it almost like a dance
(01:04):
where I'm the one that waits,watches, and listens to
recognize the style of theperson that I'm interacting
with, and then I take theirlead.
Have you ever been traveling inanother country where you've
asked a question and you're surethey're saying yes to your
request or question, but inactual fact, you realize later
it is a no, or they say theyunderstand what you said, but
(01:29):
they definitely didn't.
Um, these are experiences that Ihave done.
definitely had, and I hope inthis short episode, I can bring
some awareness around the ideathat you can have stronger
connections to the people youmeet in your travels by
understanding the communicationstyle of the country that you
are going to.
It can affect your experiencefrom asking for directions, to
(01:53):
having conversations with peopleyou meet, to shopping at the
local markets, or asking forclarity on a specific topic.
Through my practical experiencewith In My Kitchen, from
starting the business and thenevolving it through the
pandemic, I had the opportunityto communicate with people from
a variety of culturalbackgrounds, uh, from doing
(02:14):
business together, recipedeveloping, going through a
vetting process together,providing feedback.
Receiving feedback.
I learned quickly how tonavigate the different
communication styles, and I feelso lucky to have had these
experiences, and I recognize theunique position it puts me in,
and I want to share what I havelearned with you.
(02:36):
It was all of theseinteractions, like interacting
for different purposes, uh,communicating with, people from
different countries,facilitating actually over about
a hundred different onlinecultural culinary experiences
during the pandemic where, youknow, the silver lining was of
that time.
I actually really gained anawareness of how to be mindful
(02:59):
in how we communicate withpeople from different countries
than our own.
So just to give some backgroundon the early days of In My
Kitchen, because I'm not surehow many of you, experienced In
My Kitchen in the beginning orare aware of how we started.
I was recruiting the best homecooks from diverse cultures to
provide In My Kitchen culinaryexperiences in their homes.
(03:22):
And what looked like, what thislooked like is, I would find
them or they would find me andthere would be a an email
exchange, and then a phone call,and then we would meet.
I had a very specific vettingprocess, and it was done
strategically to be step bystep.
And I did that so the potentialhost could have an opportunity
(03:46):
to slowly savor what washappening.
ruminate on it, think about ifthis was a good fit for them and
move on to the next step beforethey had to really commit into
the tryout that is much moreinvolved.
And it also gave me a chance toreally determine if this was
going to be a good fit for In MyKitchen.
(04:08):
So we had the email exchange,coffee, a phone call before
that, then a coffee.
Then I would actually go totheir home to see if the space
was suitable to host six peoplefor a culinary event.
And then they would be invitedto do an In My Kitchen tryout
where myself and three to fourIn My Kitchen selection
(04:28):
committee members, aka goodfriends and family, would go to
their home and we would have atwo hour culinary experience
cooking together and eatingtogether.
How great is that, eh?
I mean, that's a whole otherstory about how wonderful that
was.
Um, but I would actually curatea menu in advance with the
potential host.
In My Kitchen would pay for theingredients.
(04:48):
It had to fit into our standardbudget price points.
And we were basically vettingthe host at this point and a
potential menu that we woulduse.
And then after all of that,there would be the moment of,
yes, you're in, or sorry, it isnot a good fit.
And just to give you an example,when we were at our peak, uh,
(05:08):
just before the pandemic, we hadhosts from countries, let me
think now, we had Spain, Japan,Qatar, Taiwan, Mexico, Trinidad,
Finland, Raymond, of course,from Vietnam.
Italy, um, oh, Iran, Leila fromIran.
And I know there were at leasttwo more that I can't think of
(05:30):
at the moment, but I'm sure youcan see that through this
process there was a minefield ofsensitive interactions.
How do you tell someone theirhome is not suitable?
Right?
I mean, that could be veryawkward.
And it wasn't that we werelooking for anything grandiose
or big, fancy, quite theopposite.
It just needed to be configuredin a way that would be conducive
(05:53):
to having six people there forhands on cooking experience and
a sit down, let's eat togethertype experience.
How does someone go through thisprocess only to have the
selection committee determine Itis not the right fit.
And how do you curate menus withsomeone where your goal is to
(06:14):
create a menu that is balancingan interactive hands on
experience with dishes that alsotell the stories of the host and
explore the culture, whereoftentimes the host is thinking
more about their favoriterecipes and their favorite
dishes that they want to share,and it could be a, uh, a
(06:35):
beautiful stew, but it takes 24hours.
Cooking on a very low heat.
Right?
So there is these mind fields,if you will, that I was
navigating.
I quickly recognized that myfavored way of communicating,
which fit beautifully during myevent production career, being
(06:55):
direct and concise, wasn't goingto work in all of these
situations.
Looking back, if I had notrecognized that right away, that
I needed to adjust mycommunication style.
I probably, I know I would haveoffended some people
inadvertently and that wouldjust, that would, oh, that would
just make me feel awful.
I, I, I would not want that tohappen.
(07:17):
As you know, if you've beenlistening to our podcasts and
participated in In My Kitchenevents, I am passionate about
connecting across cultures.
It helps us to understand eachother and our world.
And it's why I started In MyKitchen.
And when we're eating togetherand cooking together, I think it
takes the pressure off our, ofwhat our differences are in how
(07:38):
we communicate.
It bridges those gapsbeautifully.
And that is why I love usingfood as a vehicle to create
connection.
But we can't be cooking andeating together all the time.
And when I started this podcastshow and interviewing people
from diverse culturalbackgrounds, other countries, I
(07:59):
knew being curious would not beenough.
I feel I have a responsibilityto be an excellent cultural
communicator or communicatingacross cultures and make my
guests feel comfortable andtrust me as that is going to
make a better experience foreveryone, including you, my
listeners.
So this has led me to pair mypractical experience and my own
(08:23):
research, so to speak, from InMy Kitchen with evidence based
studies of well being, creatingconnections and intercultural
communication.
And this learning is stillcontinuing and probably will
never stop.
Uh, actually currently I'mreading the book Culture Map by
Erin Meyer, focused more ondoing business across cultures,
(08:45):
but you can, you know, what I'mtalking about now and what she
talks about in her book, theycan cross.
how you use them from businessto travel to teaching crosses
many platforms.
Anyway, this book wasrecommended to me by one of our
next podcast guests, LaraVictoria, and I'm only halfway
through the book and so far Iwould definitely recommend this
(09:07):
to anyone that wants to learnmore about how people think,
lead, and get things done acrosscultures.
This book, uh, takes what I knewintuitively when I started in my
kitchen and has literally mappedout the communication styles of
countries on a low context tohigh context communication
(09:29):
index.
It's really interesting.
So I knew through my, when I wasstarted in my kitchen that I
would be conversing with people.
from different cultures,obviously different countries
and needed to be sensitive towhat I said and what I heard and
be mindful of how wecommunicated and converse.
Uh, so basically what Myers hasdone is these countries sit on
(09:50):
an index or a scale where someare low context communicators
and some are high contextcommunicators.
So low context would be likeCanada, the US, Australia,
we're, we're very direct, veryconcise.
We follow up meetings with emailsummaries and high context is,
as you can probably guess, islike China, uh, Japan, Spain.
(10:15):
Portugal, where there's a lotmore being communicated, not
just in the words, but also inthe what's not being said, and
in the spaces in between thesentences, and the physical
gestures and facial tones aswell.
It's, it's so much more complex.
So after my experience with InMy Kitchen and what I've been
(10:35):
learning more recently in thefields of positive psychology
and intercultural communication,I can confidently say, just as a
caveat to everything, that nomatter what, And like in all
communication, kindness andrespect will always prevail.
If you show you are trying tounderstand and are not
projecting your way as the rightway all the time, I can promise
(10:57):
you, you'll have a positiveconnection.
The key though, is you may notget all the information you need
and you may not obtain theoutcomes you were hoping for.
I am sure none of us want to endup inadvertently offending
someone, right?
So, uh, here's an example ofsomething that Myers shares in
her book, Culture Map, thatshows how we can offend
(11:22):
somebody.
There is a meeting and peopleare in attendance from a variety
of countries.
After the meeting, an email issent out recapping who is
responsible for what actionitems.
For those of us listening fromCanada or the US, this sounds
pretty standard and expected,right?
However, from some countries whohave a rich oral tradition and
(11:44):
written word is less necessary,this email can actually be taken
as an insult as they arethinking, according to Myers,
Don't you think I know this?
Don't you trust that I'm goingto get this done?
Why are you micromanaging me?
Countries that have this styleof communication are an example
of high context communicationcountries like China, Japan,
(12:08):
Korea, Africa, Okay, so what dowe do?
So in this specific situation,it can be as simple as the
person who's sending the emailout recognizing that it's a
group of people from differentcountries with different
communication styles and sayingsomething like, Hey, everyone, a
(12:30):
lot of information was given outtoday.
I'm not always able to pick itall up at once, hoping you can
just review what I've writtenbelow.
Let me know if I've missedanything.
Really appreciate it.
Thanks.
And what that does, just aslight little deprecating, self
deprecating comment, it takesthe possible negativity that you
(12:52):
could project out onto somebodyelse, onto yourself and
alleviates any kind ofmisunderstandings and helps
people understand the why behindwhat you're doing.
When traveling or doing businessor anything that requires
communicating with people fromother countries, what I have
learned is it really helps therelationship or connecting with
(13:14):
someone if you have someunderstanding of where that
country sits on the culture map.
High context and low contextterminology comes from Myers,
but you don't need to read thebook necessarily to start
gaining an awareness of this.
Just listening to this episodeis going to automatically make
you more aware and mindful.
It doesn't take much to uncovera country's communication style.
(13:38):
Watch, listen, and ask.
Like I said in the beginning,it's like dancing with somebody,
but not taking the lead.
For example, are they using lotsof hand gestures?
That is a good sign.
They're probably a higher indexcommunicator.
Listen to how things are saidand what is exactly said, or
more importantly, what is notsaid.
(13:58):
And then reframe your questions,requests, etc.
accordingly.
Here's an example, a personalexample of what I mean.
On a recent trip to Japan, I wasvisiting a little island called
Ikuchijima.
and stayed in this fabulous,place.
And the manager was this lovelywoman who was so gracious and I
(14:20):
really felt I connected with herand I really enjoyed meeting
her.
When we were leaving, I stoppedand spoke with her and I asked
her if she'd be interested to bea podcast guest.
I'd like to have her as apodcast guest on my, In My
Kitchen with Paula show.
She said she was honored that Iasked and gave me her card.
She was very appreciative andagain, very gracious.
(14:42):
And I assumed from thepositivity and the tone of this
exchange that she wanted to beon my show.
Uh, when I got back toVancouver, I emailed her and I
did get a response.
and it was lovely and positive.
I don't know if you haveexperienced this, but, You can
tell if somebody is a high indexor low index communicator often
(15:03):
in how they construct emails.
So high index communicators,there will be some pleasantries
and sincere interest in howyou're doing and then get into
the, the challenge.
the business of things.
More low index communicators,direct communicators.
It's, uh, like no pleasantriesand this can just dive right
(15:24):
into the business.
And it's not lost on me that wecan take this conversation into
different directions and, youknow, is this something that men
do more versus women?
I don't know.
People who are in businessversus people who, maybe are in.
The arts are differentindustries.
(15:44):
I don't know.
But for this purpose, I'mlooking at this through the lens
of communicating with countriesthat we're traveling to.
Okay, so let's go back to myexample.
So she had very lovelypleasantries in the beginning.
And again, my, you know,assumption was that she was
interested in being on thepodcast show.
There was a sentence after the,pleasantries that said she was
(16:09):
worried her English was not goodenough.
And I sort of glossed over that,carried on and, uh, But I
couldn't get her to schedule adate or fill out the podcast
guest form.
Eventually I just let some timego by and I reached out again
and then I never heard back fromher.
And I was so disappointedbecause I really enjoyed meeting
her and I couldn't figure outwhere our conversation went
(16:32):
wrong.
At first I thought perhaps shehas a lot of humility and is
very, being very humble and Ishould have reached out more and
more and really, explained toher how much I wanted her to be
on the show.
And then I recalled aconversation, actually podcast
episodes that I had with Naomi.
So Naomi was one of our originalIn My Kitchen hosts, and she's
(16:54):
from Kobe, Japan.
And, uh, Naomi in our podcastinterview talked a lot about how
the Japanese are raised to thinkabout the group, not in the
individual.
So putting the group first andthe needs and wants of the
community or the group versusyour own.
And it's actually frowned uponto put yourself out there and to
(17:16):
be individual.
So I wondered if this playedinto what happened with my
podcast request.
Also, now when I look back onthe conversation, When I asked
her in person, as I was leavingthe hotel, or it wasn't really a
hotel, but where we werestaying, she never actually, not
(17:36):
once, did she actually say, yes,I'd like to stay here.
to be on your podcast show.
If you recall in the firstexchange, she said she was
honored to be asked and gave meher card.
And then over email, she wastelling me she was worried her
English was not good enough.
And that's very typical of, nondirect communication is, or high
(17:57):
index communicators, is addingin some sort of self deprecating
comments, which could be, youknow, is what she said was kind
of a very polite way of sayingno, which Naomi has also told me
is very typical in Japaneseculture to avoid saying no.
And silence can actually speakvolumes here.
Anyway, as I said, we couldanalyze the scenario in many
(18:18):
different ways, but looking atit through the lens of
connecting through our travelswith the people in the countries
that we visit.
I think it's important if you'reinterested to take some time to
get to know the communicationstyle of the country that you're
going to.
Another sort of aha moment forme I've had around this is
(18:39):
thinking about my dad when hewas alive and his business
dealings.
So my father was from Pakistanand his business was with the
Japanese.
Pakistan and Japan, both beingAsian countries, have
similarities in theircommunication styles.
They both have indirectcommunication styles, according
to Myers, meaning that there isa lot said that is not spoken.
(19:01):
There is a high regard forelders, and I know this from my
experience with my father andour relatives, and what my
father taught me about hisexperience with the Japanese.
Both India and Japan make aneffort to save face.
The following is a quote fromthe book by Brown and Levenson,
Politeness, Some Universals inLanguage Usage, in both Japan
(19:25):
and India.
People tend to avoid publicembarrassment and preserve the
face of others, particularlythose of higher status, through
indirect language and nonverbalcues.
So, I now realize that this iscomparing Japan to India versus
Pakistan, but I think thesimilarities cross the borders
(19:47):
here.
My point here is I often sayjokingly, my father was more
Japanese than he was Pakistani.
And in actual fact, I wasn'tthat far off.
In terms of communication, theyare very similar.
I realize now that my dad'ssuccess in building such strong
and lifelong relationships withhis Japanese customers is most
(20:09):
likely due in large part to thecomfort level in how they
negotiated and negotiated.
Communicated together a naturalunderstanding of each other and
an ease that built trust andrespect quickly.
Well, I hope this has given yousome food for thought, and I'd
love to know what your thoughtsare around this episode.
(20:30):
Feel free to carry on theconversation with me.
I would love to chat to you.
You can email me atpaula@inmykitchen.ca or find me
on Instagram at In My Kitchen,Paula.
And if you enjoyed this episode,please provide a positive review
on Apple Podcasts.
You just go to the show, not theepisode.
You go to the show and click thethree dots on the right.
(20:52):
And it really helps me to getour podcast show out there to
other culinary adventures likeyourself.
Have a look at the show notes.
I'll put in the books that Ireferenced in there and, um,
catch you on the next episode ofIn My Kitchen with Paula.
Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Paula Mohamed, andwelcome to In My Kitchen with
Paula.
This podcast is a gatheringplace for culinary adventures
who love to travel.
Every week, we'll come togetherwith chefs, cookbook authors,
talented home cooks, andeveryone in between to talk
about their story and theirunique dish.
Using food as the vehicle, we'lltake a ride into the ins and
(00:21):
outs of their culture andcountry.
Come on, let's get this partystarted.
Hey everybody, I have some foodfor thought to share with you
today.
Uh, this past week I have had myhead in Portugal as I curate two
upcoming episodes, onespecifically around the Alentejo
region with a really interestingguest, Alfredo, from Freijo do
(00:44):
Maio.
Alfredo and I have been speakingon the phone and it's got me
thinking more and more aboutcommunicating with people from
other countries.
So, And how important it is thatwe recognize that we all have
different communication styles.
And as someone who loves totravel and explore culture
through food and other vehicles,I see it almost like a dance
(01:04):
where I'm the one that waits,watches, and listens to
recognize the style of theperson that I'm interacting
with, and then I take theirlead.
Have you ever been traveling inanother country where you've
asked a question and you're surethey're saying yes to your
request or question, but inactual fact, you realize later
it is a no, or they say theyunderstand what you said, but
(01:29):
they definitely didn't.
Um, these are experiences that Ihave done.
definitely had, and I hope inthis short episode, I can bring
some awareness around the ideathat you can have stronger
connections to the people youmeet in your travels by
understanding the communicationstyle of the country that you
are going to.
It can affect your experiencefrom asking for directions, to
(01:53):
having conversations with peopleyou meet, to shopping at the
local markets, or asking forclarity on a specific topic.
Through my practical experiencewith In My Kitchen, from
starting the business and thenevolving it through the
pandemic, I had the opportunityto communicate with people from
a variety of culturalbackgrounds, uh, from doing
(02:14):
business together, recipedeveloping, going through a
vetting process together,providing feedback.
Receiving feedback.
I learned quickly how tonavigate the different
communication styles, and I feelso lucky to have had these
experiences, and I recognize theunique position it puts me in,
and I want to share what I havelearned with you.
(02:36):
It was all of theseinteractions, like interacting
for different purposes, uh,communicating with, people from
different countries,facilitating actually over about
a hundred different onlinecultural culinary experiences
during the pandemic where, youknow, the silver lining was of
that time.
I actually really gained anawareness of how to be mindful
(02:59):
in how we communicate withpeople from different countries
than our own.
So just to give some backgroundon the early days of In My
Kitchen, because I'm not surehow many of you, experienced In
My Kitchen in the beginning orare aware of how we started.
I was recruiting the best homecooks from diverse cultures to
provide In My Kitchen culinaryexperiences in their homes.
(03:22):
And what looked like, what thislooked like is, I would find
them or they would find me andthere would be a an email
exchange, and then a phone call,and then we would meet.
I had a very specific vettingprocess, and it was done
strategically to be step bystep.
And I did that so the potentialhost could have an opportunity
(03:46):
to slowly savor what washappening.
ruminate on it, think about ifthis was a good fit for them and
move on to the next step beforethey had to really commit into
the tryout that is much moreinvolved.
And it also gave me a chance toreally determine if this was
going to be a good fit for In MyKitchen.
(04:08):
So we had the email exchange,coffee, a phone call before
that, then a coffee.
Then I would actually go totheir home to see if the space
was suitable to host six peoplefor a culinary event.
And then they would be invitedto do an In My Kitchen tryout
where myself and three to fourIn My Kitchen selection
(04:28):
committee members, aka goodfriends and family, would go to
their home and we would have atwo hour culinary experience
cooking together and eatingtogether.
How great is that, eh?
I mean, that's a whole otherstory about how wonderful that
was.
Um, but I would actually curatea menu in advance with the
potential host.
In My Kitchen would pay for theingredients.
(04:48):
It had to fit into our standardbudget price points.
And we were basically vettingthe host at this point and a
potential menu that we woulduse.
And then after all of that,there would be the moment of,
yes, you're in, or sorry, it isnot a good fit.
And just to give you an example,when we were at our peak, uh,
(05:08):
just before the pandemic, we hadhosts from countries, let me
think now, we had Spain, Japan,Qatar, Taiwan, Mexico, Trinidad,
Finland, Raymond, of course,from Vietnam.
Italy, um, oh, Iran, Leila fromIran.
And I know there were at leasttwo more that I can't think of
(05:30):
at the moment, but I'm sure youcan see that through this
process there was a minefield ofsensitive interactions.
How do you tell someone theirhome is not suitable?
Right?
I mean, that could be veryawkward.
And it wasn't that we werelooking for anything grandiose
or big, fancy, quite theopposite.
It just needed to be configuredin a way that would be conducive
(05:53):
to having six people there forhands on cooking experience and
a sit down, let's eat togethertype experience.
How does someone go through thisprocess only to have the
selection committee determine Itis not the right fit.
And how do you curate menus withsomeone where your goal is to
(06:14):
create a menu that is balancingan interactive hands on
experience with dishes that alsotell the stories of the host and
explore the culture, whereoftentimes the host is thinking
more about their favoriterecipes and their favorite
dishes that they want to share,and it could be a, uh, a
(06:35):
beautiful stew, but it takes 24hours.
Cooking on a very low heat.
Right?
So there is these mind fields,if you will, that I was
navigating.
I quickly recognized that myfavored way of communicating,
which fit beautifully during myevent production career, being
(06:55):
direct and concise, wasn't goingto work in all of these
situations.
Looking back, if I had notrecognized that right away, that
I needed to adjust mycommunication style.
I probably, I know I would haveoffended some people
inadvertently and that wouldjust, that would, oh, that would
just make me feel awful.
I, I, I would not want that tohappen.
(07:17):
As you know, if you've beenlistening to our podcasts and
participated in In My Kitchenevents, I am passionate about
connecting across cultures.
It helps us to understand eachother and our world.
And it's why I started In MyKitchen.
And when we're eating togetherand cooking together, I think it
takes the pressure off our, ofwhat our differences are in how
(07:38):
we communicate.
It bridges those gapsbeautifully.
And that is why I love usingfood as a vehicle to create
connection.
But we can't be cooking andeating together all the time.
And when I started this podcastshow and interviewing people
from diverse culturalbackgrounds, other countries, I
(07:59):
knew being curious would not beenough.
I feel I have a responsibilityto be an excellent cultural
communicator or communicatingacross cultures and make my
guests feel comfortable andtrust me as that is going to
make a better experience foreveryone, including you, my
listeners.
So this has led me to pair mypractical experience and my own
(08:23):
research, so to speak, from InMy Kitchen with evidence based
studies of well being, creatingconnections and intercultural
communication.
And this learning is stillcontinuing and probably will
never stop.
Uh, actually currently I'mreading the book Culture Map by
Erin Meyer, focused more ondoing business across cultures,
(08:45):
but you can, you know, what I'mtalking about now and what she
talks about in her book, theycan cross.
how you use them from businessto travel to teaching crosses
many platforms.
Anyway, this book wasrecommended to me by one of our
next podcast guests, LaraVictoria, and I'm only halfway
through the book and so far Iwould definitely recommend this
(09:07):
to anyone that wants to learnmore about how people think,
lead, and get things done acrosscultures.
This book, uh, takes what I knewintuitively when I started in my
kitchen and has literally mappedout the communication styles of
countries on a low context tohigh context communication
(09:29):
index.
It's really interesting.
So I knew through my, when I wasstarted in my kitchen that I
would be conversing with people.
from different cultures,obviously different countries
and needed to be sensitive towhat I said and what I heard and
be mindful of how wecommunicated and converse.
Uh, so basically what Myers hasdone is these countries sit on
(09:50):
an index or a scale where someare low context communicators
and some are high contextcommunicators.
So low context would be likeCanada, the US, Australia,
we're, we're very direct, veryconcise.
We follow up meetings with emailsummaries and high context is,
as you can probably guess, islike China, uh, Japan, Spain.
(10:15):
Portugal, where there's a lotmore being communicated, not
just in the words, but also inthe what's not being said, and
in the spaces in between thesentences, and the physical
gestures and facial tones aswell.
It's, it's so much more complex.
So after my experience with InMy Kitchen and what I've been
(10:35):
learning more recently in thefields of positive psychology
and intercultural communication,I can confidently say, just as a
caveat to everything, that nomatter what, And like in all
communication, kindness andrespect will always prevail.
If you show you are trying tounderstand and are not
projecting your way as the rightway all the time, I can promise
(10:57):
you, you'll have a positiveconnection.
The key though, is you may notget all the information you need
and you may not obtain theoutcomes you were hoping for.
I am sure none of us want to endup inadvertently offending
someone, right?
So, uh, here's an example ofsomething that Myers shares in
her book, Culture Map, thatshows how we can offend
(11:22):
somebody.
There is a meeting and peopleare in attendance from a variety
of countries.
After the meeting, an email issent out recapping who is
responsible for what actionitems.
For those of us listening fromCanada or the US, this sounds
pretty standard and expected,right?
However, from some countries whohave a rich oral tradition and
(11:44):
written word is less necessary,this email can actually be taken
as an insult as they arethinking, according to Myers,
Don't you think I know this?
Don't you trust that I'm goingto get this done?
Why are you micromanaging me?
Countries that have this styleof communication are an example
of high context communicationcountries like China, Japan,
(12:08):
Korea, Africa, Okay, so what dowe do?
So in this specific situation,it can be as simple as the
person who's sending the emailout recognizing that it's a
group of people from differentcountries with different
communication styles and sayingsomething like, Hey, everyone, a
(12:30):
lot of information was given outtoday.
I'm not always able to pick itall up at once, hoping you can
just review what I've writtenbelow.
Let me know if I've missedanything.
Really appreciate it.
Thanks.
And what that does, just aslight little deprecating, self
deprecating comment, it takesthe possible negativity that you
(12:52):
could project out onto somebodyelse, onto yourself and
alleviates any kind ofmisunderstandings and helps
people understand the why behindwhat you're doing.
When traveling or doing businessor anything that requires
communicating with people fromother countries, what I have
learned is it really helps therelationship or connecting with
(13:14):
someone if you have someunderstanding of where that
country sits on the culture map.
High context and low contextterminology comes from Myers,
but you don't need to read thebook necessarily to start
gaining an awareness of this.
Just listening to this episodeis going to automatically make
you more aware and mindful.
It doesn't take much to uncovera country's communication style.
(13:38):
Watch, listen, and ask.
Like I said in the beginning,it's like dancing with somebody,
but not taking the lead.
For example, are they using lotsof hand gestures?
That is a good sign.
They're probably a higher indexcommunicator.
Listen to how things are saidand what is exactly said, or
more importantly, what is notsaid.
(13:58):
And then reframe your questions,requests, etc.
accordingly.
Here's an example, a personalexample of what I mean.
On a recent trip to Japan, I wasvisiting a little island called
Ikuchijima.
and stayed in this fabulous,place.
And the manager was this lovelywoman who was so gracious and I
(14:20):
really felt I connected with herand I really enjoyed meeting
her.
When we were leaving, I stoppedand spoke with her and I asked
her if she'd be interested to bea podcast guest.
I'd like to have her as apodcast guest on my, In My
Kitchen with Paula show.
She said she was honored that Iasked and gave me her card.
She was very appreciative andagain, very gracious.
(14:42):
And I assumed from thepositivity and the tone of this
exchange that she wanted to beon my show.
Uh, when I got back toVancouver, I emailed her and I
did get a response.
and it was lovely and positive.
I don't know if you haveexperienced this, but, You can
tell if somebody is a high indexor low index communicator often
(15:03):
in how they construct emails.
So high index communicators,there will be some pleasantries
and sincere interest in howyou're doing and then get into
the, the challenge.
the business of things.
More low index communicators,direct communicators.
It's, uh, like no pleasantriesand this can just dive right
(15:24):
into the business.
And it's not lost on me that wecan take this conversation into
different directions and, youknow, is this something that men
do more versus women?
I don't know.
People who are in businessversus people who, maybe are in.
The arts are differentindustries.
(15:44):
I don't know.
But for this purpose, I'mlooking at this through the lens
of communicating with countriesthat we're traveling to.
Okay, so let's go back to myexample.
So she had very lovelypleasantries in the beginning.
And again, my, you know,assumption was that she was
interested in being on thepodcast show.
There was a sentence after the,pleasantries that said she was
(16:09):
worried her English was not goodenough.
And I sort of glossed over that,carried on and, uh, But I
couldn't get her to schedule adate or fill out the podcast
guest form.
Eventually I just let some timego by and I reached out again
and then I never heard back fromher.
And I was so disappointedbecause I really enjoyed meeting
her and I couldn't figure outwhere our conversation went
(16:32):
wrong.
At first I thought perhaps shehas a lot of humility and is
very, being very humble and Ishould have reached out more and
more and really, explained toher how much I wanted her to be
on the show.
And then I recalled aconversation, actually podcast
episodes that I had with Naomi.
So Naomi was one of our originalIn My Kitchen hosts, and she's
(16:54):
from Kobe, Japan.
And, uh, Naomi in our podcastinterview talked a lot about how
the Japanese are raised to thinkabout the group, not in the
individual.
So putting the group first andthe needs and wants of the
community or the group versusyour own.
And it's actually frowned uponto put yourself out there and to
(17:16):
be individual.
So I wondered if this playedinto what happened with my
podcast request.
Also, now when I look back onthe conversation, When I asked
her in person, as I was leavingthe hotel, or it wasn't really a
hotel, but where we werestaying, she never actually, not
(17:36):
once, did she actually say, yes,I'd like to stay here.
to be on your podcast show.
If you recall in the firstexchange, she said she was
honored to be asked and gave meher card.
And then over email, she wastelling me she was worried her
English was not good enough.
And that's very typical of, nondirect communication is, or high
(17:57):
index communicators, is addingin some sort of self deprecating
comments, which could be, youknow, is what she said was kind
of a very polite way of sayingno, which Naomi has also told me
is very typical in Japaneseculture to avoid saying no.
And silence can actually speakvolumes here.
Anyway, as I said, we couldanalyze the scenario in many
(18:18):
different ways, but looking atit through the lens of
connecting through our travelswith the people in the countries
that we visit.
I think it's important if you'reinterested to take some time to
get to know the communicationstyle of the country that you're
going to.
Another sort of aha moment forme I've had around this is
(18:39):
thinking about my dad when hewas alive and his business
dealings.
So my father was from Pakistanand his business was with the
Japanese.
Pakistan and Japan, both beingAsian countries, have
similarities in theircommunication styles.
They both have indirectcommunication styles, according
to Myers, meaning that there isa lot said that is not spoken.
(19:01):
There is a high regard forelders, and I know this from my
experience with my father andour relatives, and what my
father taught me about hisexperience with the Japanese.
Both India and Japan make aneffort to save face.
The following is a quote fromthe book by Brown and Levenson,
Politeness, Some Universals inLanguage Usage, in both Japan
(19:25):
and India.
People tend to avoid publicembarrassment and preserve the
face of others, particularlythose of higher status, through
indirect language and nonverbalcues.
So, I now realize that this iscomparing Japan to India versus
Pakistan, but I think thesimilarities cross the borders
(19:47):
here.
My point here is I often sayjokingly, my father was more
Japanese than he was Pakistani.
And in actual fact, I wasn'tthat far off.
In terms of communication, theyare very similar.
I realize now that my dad'ssuccess in building such strong
and lifelong relationships withhis Japanese customers is most
(20:09):
likely due in large part to thecomfort level in how they
negotiated and negotiated.
Communicated together a naturalunderstanding of each other and
an ease that built trust andrespect quickly.
Well, I hope this has given yousome food for thought, and I'd
love to know what your thoughtsare around this episode.
(20:30):
Feel free to carry on theconversation with me.
I would love to chat to you.
You can email me atpaula@inmykitchen.ca or find me
on Instagram at In My Kitchen,Paula.
And if you enjoyed this episode,please provide a positive review
on Apple Podcasts.
You just go to the show, not theepisode.
You go to the show and click thethree dots on the right.
(20:52):
And it really helps me to getour podcast show out there to
other culinary adventures likeyourself.
Have a look at the show notes.
I'll put in the books that Ireferenced in there and, um,
catch you on the next episode ofIn My Kitchen with Paula.
Thanks for listening.
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