Tag: Crosscultural

Success Redefined

Published on by Marilyn17 Comments

It has not been an easy week.

From difficulty with websites to difficulty with people, there are times when I would like life to be easier.

I’m sitting now at one of the two coffee shops in Rania, listening to Adele on repeat. Adele is easy on the ears, and I find myself gradually relaxing. Just before I left the university today, I spoke with two colleagues. “I don’t know how you do it” I said. “You face barriers in every single thing you do, and yet you don’t give up. You continue to face life with hope, joy, and laughter.”

This is the honest truth. Most of our Kurdish friends have life circumstances that are much more difficult than ours. Yet, I don’t hear them complaining. They face every day with far more joy and hope than I have. This is remarkable.

Much of what my husband and I face here is learning to redefine success. Success at our jobs in the United States was easy to define. We had deliverables and performance reviews. We had deadlines and targets. Our lives were both dictated by grants and all that goes into them: problem statements, proposed plan, graphs, evidence, tables, objectives, outcomes, conclusions, and attachments. All of it wove together to create a fairly concrete system of success. It was easy to know if we were doing our jobs well.

We have entered into a system where none of that exists; where we search and search and search to find grants that our university is eligible to apply for. Once we find those proverbial needles in haystacks, we search and search to see if they fit with our universities capability. The amounts of money are tiny. I was used to dealing in hundreds of thousands to a couple million dollars while my husband was used to dealing in millions. Now, we get excited when we see a grant for five thousand dollars. The smaller the grant, the more the funder seems to want in terms of paper work. So we end up spending as much time on writing a grant for five thousand dollars as we used to for a million.

There are times when we are convinced it is a losing battle. We set up our ‘to do’ lists, only to be outdone by lack of electricity, no internet and hard to describe infrastructure challenges.

Lately I’ve come to not try to redefine it. I’ve come to realize that success is an arbitrary losing battle. But faithfulness – that feels possible.

Success is defined by performance. Faithfulness is defined by constancy.

Success is defined by accomplishment. Faithfulness by devotion.

Success is defined by achievement. Faithfulness by commitment.

Success is defined by attaining a goal. Faithfulness by being true to a promise.

As long as we posed the question “How do we redefine success?” we were still coming out as losing. We felt like failures. But changing it to “Are we being faithful?” This feels helpful.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s not just us. Maybe there are others out there that are defining their lives by success when that leaves way too many people out of the equation. Maybe changing the paradigm to faithfulness would change society in indescribable ways. The person who is considered “mentally challenged”, the refugee with no job, the elderly who struggles to move in the morning, the one who is chronically ill, the child, the newborn…. how do they fit into our paradigms of success? How can our world be changed to include faithfulness or mere existence as markers of value?

So what does faithfulness mean to me at this moment? It means that I’ll not complain about lack of resources. That I will learn to love across cultural differences. That I will not rage about no internet. It means that I will be kind and honor others, that I will communicate in spirit and in truth, that I will love hard and pray harder, that I will love God and love others, that I will read, speak, and write words that honor God, that echo truth.  

“Just be faithful.”

Just be faithful – it’s something I’ve written about before, and so I’ll close with some words I wrote some time ago:

The words continue “Marilyn, I know you’re tired. Just be faithful. With my strength be faithful.” There is now a heavy rain falling and those of us on our way to work are leaving the subway. There is a puddle three inches deep on the platform right before the stairs, just deep enough to seep into shoes before going up to dark clouds and rain. I’m still tired but I walk with One who knows tired, with One who knows pain, with One who knows what it is to live out faithful in this beautiful, broken world.

When a Piece of Bread is not a Piece of Bread –

Published on by Marilyn9 Comments

In 2008 HSBC Bank unrolled a brilliant advertising campaign. Called “Different Values”, the campaign showed three pictures side by side.

Sometimes it was three identical pictures with a different word across each picture:

oriental-rug

Other times it was three different pictures with the same word across each picture:

HSBC_accomplishment

The point of their campaign was that we all have different values. The head of marketing at the time, Tracy Britton, said “HSBC’s global footprint gives us the insight and the opportunity not only to be comfortable, but confident in helping people with different values achieve what’s really important to them.” Ideally people would choose HSBC to achieve “what was really important to them”.

Prescribing different meanings to words or having different concepts of the same item is a huge piece of miscommunication. If I think of a Persian carpet as decor, and my Muslim friend sees it as a sacred space for prayer, then there is possibility for offense when she sees it in my front hallway, subject to all the traffic – shoes, dirt, clutter – that comes with a busy household.

A couple of years ago I heard a story that perfectly illustrates this confusion in communication.

A nurse who is a diabetic educator was working with a woman from Brazil who had diabetes. We’ll call her Fernanda. Fernanda was doing well at understanding the need for recording blood sugars during the day, taking insulin based on those blood sugars, and keeping a food journal. At regularly scheduled times she would come to the diabetic educator for review of her journals and further diabetic teaching. Those appointments generally took place early morning.

One day the appointment was a bit later. When Fernanda got to the office the nurse chatted with her, and, as was customary, did a finger stick to check her blood sugar. At a number of 300, the blood sugar was off the charts high. They both looked at each other in alarm. Fernanda’s blood sugars had been consistently in the high 100’s or low 200’s. This was clearly a change.

The nurse began to question her — Did you do anything differently? What did you eat last night? Did you eat anything this morning?

Yes she had eaten something this morning but it was only a piece of bread.

Did the bread have anything on it? Was there honey on it? Sweet jam? Was it just one piece? The questions tumbled over each other. She was determined to get to the root of this extraordinarily high blood sugar.

Yes – there was something shiny on the bread and the bread was thick.

Did you eat it at home?

No – she had bought it at the cafeteria in the hospital.

The nurse’s eyes lit up. “Let’s go to the cafeteria and you can show me what you ate!” she said.

So they went on a field trip. All the breads were lined up on the far right side of the cafeteria. They walked over to the breads and stood before them. In true American style of ‘plenty’ there was a vast array of breads before them.

Had she eaten the white or wheat breads? No. Next in line were the English muffins, both whole wheat and white. No, not those either. Sweet breads? No. 

And then they got to the thick, sweet, gooey, yummy, cinnamon rolls.

“That’s it! That’s what I ate! That’s the bread I had!” The nurse began to laugh and shake her head. It made complete sense that a 4 inch diameter, thick, sugar-filled cinnamon roll would send the woman’s blood sugar soaring.

When is a piece of bread not a piece of bread?

I love this story for many reasons but here are a couple of them: First – as a nurse it’s a reminder to me to dig deeper, especially when working with someone from a culture that is different from mine. Second – it’s a great lesson on cross-cultural communication. I might see cinnamon rolls – but you see bread.

What are your stories of miscommunication around words and phrases? I would love to hear them through the comments!

Related articles – In the spirit of the article I thought I’d post a recipe!

The Magic of Sinterklaas

Published on by Marilyn9 Comments

Earlier in the fall I asked readers for submissions on Christmas traditions around the world. I am delighted to offer you this post on Sinterklaas by Annelies Kanis who wrote the popular post The Trunk That Traveled the World.

Bright December moon is beaming

boys and girls now stop your play

for tonight’s the wondrous evening

eve of good St. Nicholas day

There is nothing quite like the magic of Saint Nicolas. Or as we say, Sinterklaas.

Nederlands: Sinterklaas tijdens het Het Feest ...

Saint Nicolas was a Turkish Saint from the 4th Century A.D. In the Netherlands we celebrate Sinterklaas on the evening before his name day, which is December 6th. The original Saint Nicolas had a reputation for secret gift giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out. And as it goes with legends, the legend of Saint Nicolas got bigger and bigger and somehow turned into the very typical Dutch Sinterklaas celebration that it is today, with elements added on and left behind as we went along. So why is this tradition described in Marilyn’s blog series of Christmas traditions? Sinterklaas is at the root of another tradition,  the Christmas-related tradition of Santa Claus.

The build up for Sinterklaas starts halfway November when Sinterklaas arrives on his steamboat from Spain. The local mayor will welcome him with an appropriate ceremony (he is after all, a Saint). Sinterklaas comes with his helpers, Zwarte Pieten (Black Petes) He is a very wise man who knows all the children in the country by name, and he brings them gifts. When you leave your shoe out and sing by it, he’ll notice and give you a small gift by sending his helpers down the chimney. Not during the day, but when you’re asleep at night, when he travels over rooftops with his horse Amerigo and his helpers. The big celebration is December 5th, when he brings more gifts to families gathered together.

The magical thing about this feast is that all children really believe he exists. It’s a belief stronger and more convinced than the belief in Santa Claus, and it lasts longer. All adults help children believe. For example: Sinterklaas pays a visit to all the Dutch embassies on December 5th. In Islamabad, he used to arrive by tonga (horse-drawn carriage).

Usually kids start asking questions about how it works when they’re around 7 or 8. My eldest son is 7, and I’m dreading the day he doesn’t believe anymore and the magic partly disappears.

But until he and after him his little brother stop believing, we’ll help keep the magic alive. On December 5th, my parents and sister with her family will come to our house. They’ll bring gifts that they’ll smuggle up to the attic. Not just gifts for the kids, but also gifts for the adult whose name you’ve pulled out of a hat. Or more recently, the person that the online tool has picked for you.

We’ll sing Sinterklaas songs, eat traditional candy and Sinterklaas or his helpers will knock on the door and leave gifts behind. He’ll move on to the next house really quickly, because he has to pay many visits. We’ve never really seen him, but my kids say they’ve seen shadows of his helpers on the roof.

But here’s what I love most about Sinterklaas. Gifts, even though they can be well thought out, are in the end easy to purchase (especially online). The attached self-written poem is one of the things that makes this holiday special. We add a poem to at least one of the gifts, in rhyme. The poem is supposedly written by Sinterklaas and his helpers, and reflects on the past year. It can be sweet and loving, but it can also be about specific character traits that you don’t want to address directly and want to tease someone with. The poem is  a great way to reflect on the year behind and it takes time to write a good poem – more time than to shop for gifts. When time is precious, the poem is a gift of attention, of really thinking about the person you’re writing for, what they’ve experienced and who they are.

Advent for me starts after Sinterklaas. Advent and Christmas hold many traditions of their own, enough to fill another blog. But by giving gifts with poems at Sinterklaas (and leaving them out at Christmas), Advent and Christmas are more focused on light that Christmas brings.

When the Easy is Impossible

Published on by Marilyn16 Comments

What happens when everyone tells you something is easy, but you still can’t do it? In this post Robynn Bliss explores “easy”  If you haven’t yet read any of Robynn’s posts you are in for a treat!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

English: A photo of a propane gas grill.

Two years ago we bought a grill. Some people might call it a barbecue but here in Kansas we pride ourselves on our barbecue. What our family has is a grill. The grill is attached to a small propane gas tank. Two years ago we bought that grill. And two years ago we grilled all summer long. We made chicken tikka and hamburgers, we grilled lamb kebabs and vegetables. Nothing is as delicious as food cooked outside. One year ago we grilled. We grilled pork chops and zucchini, gourmet pizzas and roasted mushrooms.

Up until June. In June our propane gas tank ran out. It was empty. There was no more grilling.

I wasn’t sure how to change the tank. I didn’t know where to go or how to do it. I asked several people. Their responses seemed heartening,

“Oh it’s really easy.”

“You just take it to the store.”

“Oh, no big deal!”

“You can exchange those anywhere!”

Everyone said it was so easy. They acted like it was so commonplace. But I had no idea how to do it. It became a momentous thing for me.

So I kept asking. I asked a couple of friends if they’d take my tank in and exchange it when they exchanged theirs. Everyone was agreeable and yet – it never happened. The tank sat empty.

I moved my cooking indoors. We fried hamburgers on the stove in a frying pan. I baked tandoori chicken in my oven in my kitchen. The kids would smell our neighbours grilling hotdogs and burgers. They’d ask if we could grill too. I just shrugged.

I couldn’t figure it out.

Last week some of our dearest friends from India were in town. She grew up in Kansas. She understands how things work here in the Midwest. And yet she’s crossed cultures and she empathizes with the trepidation of crossing into the unknown. She suggested we grill. I shrugged. She took charge. She sent the men out to get a gas tank. And they did. My husband actually went out and got us a new tank. Why hadn’t I asked him to do it earlier? Why hadn’t I communicated how hard this was for me? It really was as easy as that. 

Last Sunday at church a new Indian auntie was in church. When it came time to leave she couldn’t figure out how to open the side door. She tried pushing on the lever. She tried pulling on the latch. She pushed in the button and then pulled. No matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t get it open. I was sitting at a table nearby. When she turned I saw from her face that she was stuck. She couldn’t figure it out. Her eyes met mine and she asked for help. She was specific and told me what she needed. I was on my feet as quick as I could. I rushed to her aid. I showed her how to push firmly on the cross-bar thingy and how to get out. She was so grateful.

It was so easy. It was no big deal…. If you knew how to do it. But if you don’t know it’s impossible.

I’m planning my next meal to grill. Should I make veggie kebabs? Should I grill up some meat for fajitas? As I cook I hope I always keep my eyes open for the person who doesn’t know how to do the easy. Because nothing feels as difficult as the “easy” when you don’t know what you’re doing!

Other Posts from Robynn: