Moving literally to the other side of the world, one year ago, we experience our fair share of culture shock. While Singapore is a lovely, modern country, the city shares little in common with our previous home in the suburbs of Tampa.
Our first time in a hawker center, we were desperately looking for familiar food. One hawker took pity on us and said, “I know what you want, before serving up some tasty (and not too spicy!) butter chicken. Apartment hunting brought other challenges, as most places did not have nearly the storage room that we would need. School was another adventure, as the British pedagogic approach ran roughshod over our American-trained students (what’s an O-level?).
During my first days at work, I was determined to find the similarities in the business. People are people everywhere, I maintained. Customers around the world prefer personal interactions and are looking for value.
Months of being told, “What you have to understand about the culture here…..,” wore me down. Culture must be important, I began to believe. And was perhaps the most important thing. Maybe knowing someone’s home culture was the key to unlock the relationship.
I was wrong.
Over the last year, we have traveled to Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea and New Zealand. My colleagues, my children’s classmates, our friends come these places and also from India, Tunisia, England, Egypt, Australia, Turkey, Ireland, America, Holland and other places.
Nothing we can say about millions or even billions of people can possibly be true.
Culture is interesting. People are what is important.