Intercultural Comm Blog Assignment

Megan Howe
I will be discussing five different concepts that I found interesting in An introduction to Intercultural Communications. The Five concepts that I picked are Haptics (pg. 120), Ethnocentrism (pg. 84),  Long-term versus short-term orientation(pg. 180), Individualism versus collectivism (pg. 164), and Pidgin (pg. 139).
Haptics

Haptics is the study of how people use touching for communication. We use Haptics in our everyday life whether its when we meet someone new, if its with someone we already know, or for just saying hi. By using touch as a communication between one another I believe its a polite way of communicating and can give the feeling to one another that you are pleased to be in their presence. This photo below illustrates two people shaking hands, one of my favorite Haptics. When I first meet someone I like to shake their hand to show respect to that person and I also like the same back. When a person doesn't shake my hand I feel as if they are not interested in meeting me and makes me feel unwanted. In my family and culture it is important to shake one anothers hand and shows you are not a rude person.

Growing up in the United States I learned the normal use of touching to communicate like hugging, shaking hands, and kissing as a greeting, but to my surprise as I got older I learned that not everyone uses the types of Haptics I do. When I was younger I grew up in a neighborhood a many different cultures and learned many different things. I once went over to my neighbors house who were Samoan, which at the time had family over. To my surprise all the males were giving each other kisses as they greeted one another. It made me feel awkward and I didn't really know what to think about it until I grew up and realized its just something that they do in their cultures  and also in many other cultures. I feel that its good to learn about different culture haptics just in case you run into a situation where you dont know if you should shake their hand or give them a hug. Overall this subject is really valuable to me and find it very interesting how their are many different ways we can use touching as a communicating tool.
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is when you feel that your culture is better than everyone elses culture and your culture is just the best one in the world. I feel that ethnocentrism is when someone is close minded and is not giving other cultures a chance to broaden their learning experience. I don't consider myself to be an ethnocentrism person, but I find it interesting that their are actually people in the world who are like this.

In this video clip ethnocentrism is being demonstrated by the ladies involved in the organization of the KKK, by believing that the white culture is the best culture. Although this video clip is from years ago there are still people like this in the world. I feel that people like this should give other cultures a chance and although they may think that their culture is just for the white people, I believe the culture they come from is filled with a variety of different races. In my life I've never came across anyone that I know of that demonstrated any ethnocentrism, but if I did in the future I would like to understand their reasoning for their beliefs.
long-term versus short-term orientation
Long-term versus short-term orientation formerly known as Confucian work is when you live a certain lifestyle dealing with responsibility, budgets, and popularity to name a few.
First I want to describe how long-term people like to live, which is by saving their money for a benefit in the long run and sacrificing to be in a lower position for a purpose.
 
This photo above is a collection of coupons that a long-term orientated person may use while shopping to help benefit themselves. Coupons are used for a variety of things such as foods, cleaning supplies, and other household items. These types of coupons over time can save people a large amount of money if they use them wisely, that is why long- term oriented people use this type of saving method.
Now I want to discuss short-term orientation which is people who like to live a lavish life style, do not care about how much money they spend, or how the amount of money they spend will effect them in the future.

In this photo we see Tyra Banks a famous celebrity walking with a very expensive purse known as Louis Vuitton.This photo demonstrates short-term orientation very well because most celebrities have so much money that they don't care how much things are and spend lots of money in a short period of time. They also go shopping on a daily basis and you hardly see them wearing the same outfit twice or seen with the same purse often.
Personally there are times when I spend a lot of money on things with name brands and on certain items where a lot of money shouldn't be spent on that item, for my pleasure. Although I do sometimes act like a short-term person I can also be very thrifty and I like to save my money up for my benefit in the long run just in case an emergency were to come up. For an example I have a large amount of money saved in my savings due too saving a part of my pay check and depositing it in my savings. Overall I seem to be in the middle of short- term and long-term orientation.
Individualism versus collectivism
Individualism and collectivism have to do with how a person is identified and known by. Each are very different and are on two different sides from one another. First is Individualism which has to do with the I, and defined by what that person does and what that persons interest are. I believe that individualist cultures are seen mainly in the united states and growing up in the united states, living here makes it very identifiable. I am from the individualist type of culture because when I am asked questions about myself I answer with where I go to school, work, interest of mine, and activities I like to do. I live near my immediate family and my other members of my family live in different states which makes it hard to see and contact them. Therefore I only really talk to my immediate family which is my mother, father, and brother causing me to be on the individualist culture.

This photo above describes one of the activities I like to do as an individual, which relates to the individualist culture. Dancing is a big part of my life, and I really enjoy doing it. In individualist cultures everyone has special actives they love to do and identify themselves with.
Now I will discuss the collectivism which has to do with the benefit of the group rather than the individual. Also when setting goals it is done in a group and how it will benefit the group overall. I didn't grow up in a collectivist type of culture, which makes it hard for me to relate to this type of culture. I also have a very small family so we tend to do more things for ourselves and base our goals on our individual wants. There may be times when we do things though to benefit one another like living together to save up money together to make it easier to pay bills and by attending school, something my parent encourage me to do because they want me to. Overall Individualism and collectivism cultures are different depending on where you live, what kind of family you have, and what kind of person you are, but that does not make one better than another.

Pidgin  139
Pidgin is a combination of two different languages or more to make a new type of language. Ive learned that this was used way back in time around the slave time, when slaves tried to create a language that slaves owners would not understand. This helped slaves have there own lives and something that didn't involve slave owners. This type of language is used in west Africa in a variety of areas and also other places that are unknown to many people. I find Pidgin interesting because a group of people on their own created a language system they can all understand and speak. I feel like creating a language system is a hard task and hard to get a group of people to agree on a set of words a grammar formation for that language.


In this video above is few people explaining a couple Hawaiian pidgin terms they use daily. Some terms I liked were shoots which means to agree, for example used in a sentence, "We are going to the store," "Shoots, see you later." Another term is Da replacing the word the, for example "da the light is bright." I find that this video is very useful because it give a variety of examples in a fun way and is easy to learn. It also gave me the concept of pidgin language in a fast time and and a good overview overall. Ive never met anyone that spoke any type of pidgin language before, but I hope in the future I get the chance to meet someone to teach me some of their language and expand my knowledge