Learning by introspection: 2

For an Indian like me, cultural diversity starts at home. I have been an advocate of cultural diversity all along. My family breeds it. We have different religions, different nationalities in it. I always considered cultural diversity as an opportunity to learn from one another and get different perspectives to things. So, here I am:

• Living and adapting to a new culture in Germany
• Working with the most culturally diverse set of colleagues ever
• Married to my husband who is from north india - a different cultural background than mine. I belong to south india.

While the positives of cultural diversity still remains, I now experience the darker sides. The whole concept of diversity falls dangerously when:

• one culture starts to be judgemental about the other
• one culture starts to force itself on the other
• one culture claims superiority over the other
• when the parties are not open minded to give each other their space and time

A multi-cultural experience can become a nightmare when any/one of these situations come up. There are lots of challenges involved in making a culturally diverse relationship to work:

• Striking a balance between keeping ones own identity and integrating with different cultures so one does not stick out like a sore thumb.
• Stereotypes are the first point of easily available reference of any culture. One has to make efforts to break some of them down and communicate the realities that these stereotypes tend to generalize/over simplify.
• Language and spoken communication has its challenges. The sense of humor is different - phrases mean different things in different cultures.
• Remain objective and refrain from being openly judgemental about a culture (despite personal opinions one may harbor within)
• Sometimes visuals work better than words while communicating...because translation can often miscontrued the meaning of words.

However in my experience a BASIC prerequisite to making any headway and achieving the potential of cultural diversity is to be OPEN MINDED and NOT JUDGEMENTAL.

If we start out with a judgement - especially a negative one, on a particular culture, most often it will be counter productive. This is like closing doors instantly on someone who MAY have been curious or interested in knowing more about your culture otherwise.

The idealistic me still looks at cultural diversity as more positive than negative...and I wish people were more receptive to it - treat it like an opportunity to unravel what was a mystery...treat it with the surprise and delight of opening a gift - not knowing what will be inside...

I also realize that every country has its domestic cultural differences as well. A learning here is that dealing with "international" diversity is RELATIVELY easier than "domestic" diversity because domestic diversity carries the baggage of some deep rooted social stigmas, social heirarchies etc - things one tends to be (initially) oblivious about when dealing with an "international" diversity scenario.