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Cross cultural communication challenges
Cross cultural communication challenges
Communication issues in an intercultural setting
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I had never seen such affection and care as I did from my family. After all the goodbyes, we made our way into the airport. I held on tight to my rolling suitcase as I walked to my future and I will never forget the love and support that stood there weeping. After waiting in the airport for over two hours, the plane finally arrived. I was sitting in my airplane seat slowly anticipating to see my mom that I hadn’t seen for six years. I remember the first day that I came to America. Getting out of that airplane exhausted and not being able t o walk because I had been sitting in the plane for 24 hours. I was in the Phoenix airport, looking around nervously in a peculiar place filled with strange people. But, the moment I saw my Mom and my family, I was serene once again.
Previous to moving to America, I had lived in Ethiopia my whole life. When I was two years old, my grandmother called my mom to utter the dreadful words “I have stage 4 breast cancer.” Like any other daughter, my mom left Ethiopia with my three month old little brother to take care of my ill grandmother. Being
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separated from my mother and little brother caused emotional pain to both my father and I. After a long and painful six years my parents thought it would be best for us to permanently move to the United States and reunite as a benevolent family. I encountered life changing situations once I settled in America.
It wasn’t only the foreign language barrier, but it was also having to adjust culturally. My biggest obstacle was feeling like an outcast. In the third grade, several students questioned me for the stereotypical living standards in Africa portrayed by the media. They asked me if I lived in a hut, if I starved and, if I had clean drinking water. At the time being only eight years old, I never could fully comprehend why I was the only child that received those types of questions. Later on, I soon realized that it wasn’t because of the way I looked or the way I dressed; it was just because of the preconceived notion that I was born and raised in Africa. Most of the people that I have met assumed that I had an underprivileged life in Ethiopia. The truth is that, I had a big house, a plentiful amount of food and a loving
family. Arizona and Ethiopia are very different in multiple aspects. The most notable would be the contrast of cultures. Everything was different from the food, people, language, traditions, morals, and values. Another contrast is the visual scenery, Ethiopia has warm temperatures year round. It rarely was too hot or too cold. The streets were always crowded. The landscape was filled with vibrant green grass, immense amount of trees and bountiful flowers. On the other hand Arizona is really hot. The streets are rarely as busy as Ethiopia's streets. The scenery is filled with an immense amount of mountains and cactuses. All of these factors made it extremely difficult for me to adapt. In conclusion, being born in a third world country is burden for most but I use it to my advantage. It has given me a better understanding of the world. When I moved away from Ethiopia, I constantly thought about my family. I felt like I had lost something that was a part of me. As time went by, I became somber thinking about all the things I took for granted. I constantly thought about all pleasant things that I had the pleasure of enjoying in Ethiopia that I no longer get to. But over time, I learned how to use that wistful energy to become a driving force for my success. I have so loads of dreams and I aspire to do great things. No matter what, I will never forget my birthplace. I can tell you my quest wasn’t effortless, but I have to keep on moving to complete my prodigious journey. “There comes a time in life where you will have to leave everything behind and start something new”. That was indeed what I had to do. I had to adapt to another country which was opposite from mine. Still to this day, I miss my old life, but I now understand that I now have to think about my future and make my family that was weeping proud.
I remember the first time I came to America; I was 10 years old. Everything was exciting! From getting into an airplane, to viewing magnificent, huge buildings from a bird’s eye view in the plane. It was truly memorable. After staying few days at my mother’s house, my father and I wanted to see what Dallas looks like. But because my mother was working the whole day, it wasn’t convenient for her to show us the area except only on Sundays. Finally, we went out to the nearby mall with my mother. My father and I were astonished after looking at a variety of stores. But after looking at different stores, we were finally tired and hungry, so we went into McDonald’s. Not being familiar with fast food restaurants, we were curious to try American
It was difficult for me because I didn’t always understand certain words or phrases in English that I knew in Spanish, and sometimes I felt left out. In the middle of the year, my family moved me to a school with a Bilingual Program. Again, I had a hard time because now I had to learn all of the letter names and sounds in Spanish that I had been learning in English.
I walked into the room on New Year’s Day and felt a sudden twinge of fear. My eyes already hurt from the tears I had shed and those tears would not stop even then the last viewing before we had to leave. She lay quietly on the bed with her face as void of emotion as a sheet of paper without the writing. Slowly, I approached the cold lifeless form that was once my mother and gave her a goodbye kiss.
Transitioning from Spanish to English was the most difficult thing ever. At age six I didn't know much. I thought Spanish was the only language since that's all I learned and heard. Being told by your parents you have to learn English before school was confusing. I didn't know why I had to learn a new language.
As I boarded the plane to move to the United States, the beginning of September 2005, I couldn’t help but think about all that I left behind; My family, my friends, my school, my clothes, and all of the awesome cultural food. Then again, I looked forward to this new life, a new beginning. I imagined it being like life in the movies, where everything seemed easy and life was just beautiful. After all, I was going to the States; the place where most people only dreamt of. I felt very blessed to have this opportunity because I knew that it wasn’t given to everyone. Coming to America marked my coming of age because I left behind my old life, I started life afresh, and I became a much grateful person.
For me adapting a new language was tough because where I came from we don’t verbalize English. So, before we move to the United States I had to get that primary knowledge of English in a short duration. At that time I consummated my one semester of 9 the grade. My parents thought of dropping me out school, so I can just focus on English. Since then my main focus was to learn English. I think that was the hardest thing I have done in my life. Day by day I was learning incipient thing, but I wasn’t quit understanding the language.
the process of moving to a new country and starting over was not an easy one, but it was very much worth it. Being in America has given me so many new opportunities. Looking at my life now, the fact the I am able to go to college, drive a car, and be independent is a blessing. Many people that are my age don’t get those opportunities in Cameroon. The rights that I have here in America as a woman, are not the same rights that I would’ve had if I were still in Cameroon. Through the process, I learned not to be afraid of new beginnings. New beginnings bring with them new opportunities, friendships, experiences, and
It was the middle of the night when my mother got a phone call. The car ride was silent, my father had a blank stare and my mother was silently crying. I had no idea where we were headed but I knew this empty feeling in my stomach would not go away. Walking through the long bright hallways, passing through an endless amount of doors, we had finally arrived. As we
My parents journey from Vietnam to America has impacted me emotionally through out the years by the stories they tell me. For them to say their aspiration was to come to America to have greater opportunities, for there family is breath taking. Without my parent’s journey and stories, my identity would be so plain and incomplete.
Through this ordeal, the barrier hindered to everything I wanted to achieve. I wanted to make friends, gain a deeper insight on life, but most of all I wanted to be somebody. Granted the language barrier made the goals I had a harder reach, however, in the end my whole character profoundly grew after breaking down the barrier. I changed from being invisible in a corner to a member of the National Honor Society. I changed from being anti-social
It was challenging for me to adapt the language as well as the culture. When I started high school. It was entirely different from the school back home. There was only one Ethiopian out of the school. It took me sometimes to know and be more familiar with the school like Jessica Hernandez, who published her story on Huffington Post magazine company.The title of her story was called “Jessica is An Immigrant.” She talked about her experience when she came to the United States. She started elementary school in the U.S. On the first day of school; she asked the teacher “shoe”. Everyone was laughing at her because she was trying to say “Tissue”(1). That was a turning point for Jessica. She started to study English to improve her English. After a couple of years, she became fluent in English. Like Jessica, I was struggling to improve my English after I came to the U.S, despite the fact that most of my teachers in Ethiopia were from England. It was completely new to me, especially the accent. Hence, to communicate with others, I watched a lot of American Movies and made companions in my neighborhood whose first language are English. Over time, I have been showing improvement. These helped me a lot to cross language border.
WhenI was 4 years old, I remember watching the Olympic games on TV and saying to myself, “I wanttowin a gold medal.” That dream of mine was fulfilled after 10yearswhich was the most cheerful movement of my life so far.
My heart was pounding as I boarded my flight leaving the Bangkok International Airport. A flight attendant in a grey dress with a red bow draped over her shoulder announced; “Welcome aboard flight AA350 to the United States.” My journey began that day.
The first thing that got my attention in this image was the only person that you can clearly see standing with a suitcase on the floor looking at the train. Living in Florida and have not been in another state or country except for Puerto Rico and Tennessee I have never been in a train station. Looking at this picture I see many people that might be coming in or leaving to take another place to start a new life and that particular person wondering if he is taking the right decision on leaving. I can relate with this image taking the place of that person with the suitcase on his feet. Being in college, I have many opportunities to select from where I want to further education in, but I can not ever decide. The train symbolizes the time that
As I stepped out of the airport, I could feel a sense of relief lifting away from my father 's face. Finally, my family and I were officially free from the constraints of a country that limited our sense of freedom. Now we were entering a new country where religious liberty was greatly encouraged. Despite all the new found freedom, life proved to be difficult for both my family and me. I now had to adjust to this new world, which was filled with various English dialects and new cultures. Making friends was especially hard, for now, I was the strange kid at school with parents who had funny accents and weird clothes. As my homesickness grew, I was reminded about the last moments I spent in my home country of Yemen. Yemen was filled with religious