Cultural Faux-Pas

 "Hello Mr. X, Thank you for inviting me to this international consultation. I am honoured to be part of the meeting. Could you please advice me on the dress code for the meeting?" 

This was roughly the text of an email I sent about 10 years ago to the person who invited me for an international meeting. I was clueless about how I should present myself, what I should say or do. I had never been invited to foreign countries for meetings before. I did not know what I should wear. Everything was new and I was very nervous. My contact person, Mr. X, who subsequently also became a good friend, patiently replied to my email advising me on what one would usually wear to such meetings. I thought I went prepared for the meeting. But on the first day of the meeting, I could not really understand what others were wearing. They all looked like shirts, pants and shoes. They were all black, white, and blue. It took me several such meetings to get a hang of what one wears during these meetings. That was my first tryst with culture. 

The first time I went to this international meeting, I was staying in the Brocher Foundation in Hermance. The host there was organizing dinner for the participants in the meeting and was asking people their choice of main course. The options in offer were lamb, chicken and beef. I am a vegetarian and when it was my turn to answer her, I said I am vegetarian and cannot have either of the three dishes. She was a very kind woman and went out of her way to look up what best she can offer and prepared a Tofu patty with some spices and salt for me with an accompaniment of salads. I remember one thing a colleague of mine asked during this whole episode. "If not meat, I cannot imagine what you eat daily!" 

Courtesy is another major thing in the European countries where I have traveled. A high pitched "Bonjour monsieur" (Good morning sir in French) would always be uttered by strangers on the road, in the bus, in elevators and in shops. I am not an impolite or a rude person in Chennai. In fact some would classify me as overly polite in Chennai. But this courtesy by strangers, to strangers, continues to be extremely challenging to me every time I travel here. Sometimes these pleasantries that are presented to me by strangers, take me by total surprise. I am rendered speechless and the situation is over before I can respond with a pleasantry. 

So many such differences in culture have put me in delicate and embarrassing situations. I have wondered what is the appropriate thing to do when people of different cultures are brought together. Mixing of culture and mutual exchange of cultural ideas is beautiful. Some of the oldest cultures that survive today are ones which have allowed mixing, adaptations and acculturation. It is exciting to see, understand and adapt to new cultures. I remember tasting Ema Datshi during my visit to Bhutan. It is a spicy chilly cheese dish. 

When this was served, I was waiting for some time for them to serve some bread, rice or noodles to have it with. But then my friends told me it must be eaten as it is, and must be eaten with the hand. Then I dug in and it was a delightful experience. The spice hit me right at the top of my head. My eyes started watering and I started sweating. That is when I realised the cultural wisdom of the dish served in the cold mountainous areas in Bhutan. The experience of eating from the Kimchi Hotpot where typical vegetables, soups, noodles and spices are boiled together in one hot pot and the diner makes it themselves and serves portions which they are interested in, was another exciting cultural experience. My friends taught me how to eat from the Kimchi Hotpot. 

These experiences left a permanent impression in my mind. I can never forget the new cultural experiences and the way they made me feel. This culture sharing was not only exciting to me, but was equally exciting to the people of that culture who were proudly explaining and teaching me these things while sharing the wisdom and meaning behind them. I think this is a universal experience of culture exchange enthusiasm, because I remember the excitement I feel every time I take some friends from foreign countries to Kapaleeshwarar temple in Chennai and explain the various deities in the sculpture, or take them to a Bharatanatyam concert and explain the various pieces that are performed. But as you would have noticed from the title of this blog, it is not just about this rosy picture of culture exchange. When people from diverse cultures meet, there is ample scope for miscommunications, misunderstandings and the notorious cultural faux-pas. 

Once, I was traveling in a European country and I stayed in a little hotel, which was a bed-bath-breakfast kind of place owned by an older couple. Hailing from Chennai which is hot and humid for most part of the year, taking bath twice a day is a routine for me. In our home we do not use the shower, so that water, a rather precious commodity, can be conserved. So it is a bucket and mug kind of bathing. I get the satisfaction of bathing only when I feel large mugfuls of water being poured on me and the water rushing down cleansing all the dirt, sweat and grime with it. In this little hotel where I was staying the bathroom was small, and there was one designated corner with a tiny bath area with a shower. The bath area was covered with a bath curtain. I finished bathing as soon as I checked-in in the evening and when I stepped out of the bathing area I noticed that I had wet the entire bathroom floor and walls. I had kept the shower at a high flow and it had splashed all over the bathroom. There was no drain in the bathroom other than the small shower area and so the bathroom was literally flooded. I was so embarrassed by the situation. I had to call the owners for help, got a broom and mop from them and cleaned up the bathroom. The next morning I over-cautiously opened the shower in very low flow, and ended up not even washing off the soap off my body and feeling extremely dissatisfied after the bath. A major cultural faux-pas! 

It was Christmas Eve and I was traveling in the United States. There was a Baptist Church near the hotel where I was staying and in the evening, some beautiful music was wafting through the wind. I stepped into the Church to attend the Christmas Eve service. Due to the bad weather, I had a cold and cough, which was becoming better just then. I continued to have an irritating sensation in the throat because of which I was frequently clearing my throat and making those sounds. Someone from the church walked up to the place where I was seated and handed me a lozenge to stop me from making those throat-clearing sounds. I took it but still my throat irritation did not settle. I kept making the same sound. The same person once again walked back to me and escorted me out of the Church. I then learned from my friend that making any sound inside a Church when a sermon is going on is considered highly disrespectful. Another major cultural faux-pas. 

These are two situations where I understood and realised that I had made a mistake because of cultural differences, and respectfully accepted my mistake and tried to adapt and change myself to suit the culture of the place. But there are also situations, where the cultural adaptation borders on forcing others to adhere to some norms, when they are clearly not comfortable doing it. When my mother first visited America, people advised her to start wearing western style clothes and shoes. When we went to the footwear shop to try on shoes, my mother could barely take a few steps in the shoes. For someone who had spent more than 60 years walking barefoot and with the help of slippers with a strap which her toes can hold on to, adapting to walking with shoes was too hard. We decided that she will wear slippers with socks that were cut to accommodate the slit between the great toe and other toes. She went to America twice in her traditional saree and this footwear arrangement. Forcing her to adapt to the new culture would have been a dishonourable exercise. 

One of the pre-conference dinners in an international conference that I was attending had a researchers' mixer over cocktails. As someone who doesn't drink alcohol, I was the odd man out in this mixer. One of my colleagues advised me to stand in the mixer with at least a glass of some drink in the hand, even if I did not actually drink it. In other words she advised me to pretend like drinking to gain cultural acceptance. I refused to do it and was seen as an odd person in the crowd. "If you want to be part of the group, you have to adopt their culture. Otherwise you will miss out. What is wrong in drinking a little fruit beer? What is wrong in eating a little meat now and then? Why cant you wear that outfit just once?" This is how cultural coersion starts. Cultural exchange is beautiful and exciting only when it is done in a spirit of respect. When the same thing is coerced with the threat of exclusion, it is not longer acculturation or culture exchange, it becomes cultural enforcement. 

A society is rich and flourishing only when it is diverse. It is beautiful when it is inclusive of all kinds of people, of all ages, genders, races, religions, and cultures. A good pre-conference social is enriched when teetotallers are made to feel included. A lecture series is made equitable and accessible when lecturers of different ethnicities and cultures are able to represent themselves as they are without having to adhere to cookie cut norms of appearance. 

A senior person read my previous blog titled "A few painful lessons" and advised me that the whole issue that I had narrated in the blog was a result of cultural miscommunication, a cultural faux-pas which I had committed. I have been asking myself was it an embarrassing situation for me or for my coordinator? Requiring me to look a certain way in the video, according to me, was cultural coercion, especially when it was not something I was comfortable doing. According to me it demonstrated a lack of inclusion of people who look different, dress differently, speak with different accents and facial expressions. I think having a serious person like me with no exaggerated emotions on his face, wearing a modest, not perfectly ironed, but presentable clean clothes, would make some of the audience of the online course from personalities similar to me and from settings similar to mine, feel included. So, why this injustice and exclusion? Which is the cultural faux-pas? Not adhering to the dressing culture that is demanded in the course, or not being inclusive of alternative presentations and cultures?