Imagine that you are invited to the home of a new acquaintance in a different country, but you are very worried about their cultural practices and customs. You don’t want to offend your host by doing or saying anything that would create discomfort and offense. Unfortunately, understanding other cultures requires a careful understanding of human relationships as well, and just doing a Google search for culture tips can often prove disastrous because people tend to embellish, gloss over, or simply stereotype a culture that they don’t know well.
That said, people sometimes even overgeneralize the behavior of their own people or the customs of their country because they sometimes overlook the wide diversity that exists in different places. Care is always needed in painting a clear and accurate portrait of any group of people and their traditions.
With these ideas in mind, Randall explains some basic tips and concepts on visiting a home in his part of the world and attempts to answer the questions below. Randall hopes to model the types of conversations teachers hope students can learn as they meet others from around the world.
Watch the video and answer the questions. Look for the closed-captions option ( CC ) at the bottom of the video to watch the transcript. [The captions are automatically generated, so they are not perfect.]