This subject is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the entire world. Having grown up in a small and somewhat isolated community, I originally had some limited understanding of the world. Two advantages I did have, however, were:

1. An air force base located in my hometown. This meant that kids from totally different parts of the United States moved to and from our town quite regularly.

2. Our town was located on the Canadian border, so I grew up interacting with people from a different country.

Now, many people would say something like, "Canada doesn't count, they speak English." Sorry folks, but less than 1/4 mile from my house, there are people that speak fluent French, have Scottish or other European accents, etc. How many of you have met a Canadian that spoke English without saying "Eh?" after every sentence? I know this does not characterize all Canadians just like all Americans don't say "Y'all." I am addressing the more common conceptions that many people know about.

I learned at an early age not to assume that everyone that was from somewhere else talked, looked, and thought the same way I did. In my experience, many people - especially Americans - do think this way. When I was in college, I had two experiences that helped me to begin to understand the differences and similarities between people from different countries.

My first roommate in college was from Saskatchewan, Canada. He had a different accent than I did and had many different ideas about politics, socially acceptable behaviors, etc., but initially we got along okay regardless of those differences. I think our similarities were as much or more of a problem than our differences. Doug and I were both very self-reliant people and often did things on our own without worrying very much about what the other thought about it. Whenever he did something in our dorm room without discussing it with me first, it bothered me a lot, and vice-versa. Since we didn't want to compete for friends, we made different ones and over the course of the school year ended up hanging around with vastly different groups of people.

The other experience was much more valuable. I became an exchange student to Sweden. This was in my fourth year of college, so I had matured somewhat by that time. I think that helped a lot in my development as well as my understanding of the situation. I was studying Inter-cultural Communication at a Swedish University. The whole point of the

• 1
• 2
• 3
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about Assessing the differences and similarities between countries?
We want to hear your view. Write now!