I would like to ask whether they really learnt new traditions, food and ways of living after we said "Goodbye", as I did when I visited them. I had suggested these colleagues to go for a coffee and piece of cake in one of the oldest and tasty German pastry shops of town. It is a quite fancy old-fashion café, where classical music is played, they have 15 types of coffee and tea, and the cakes are on average about 10 cm tall and very beautifully decorated. I imagined they had never seen anything like that, although they traveled a lot; or at least, nobody ever went with them to the ritual of having coffee and cake as Germans do.
They come from a little town in Asia and their family has Chinese origins. I have been there, they also have nice pastry shops and cafés, but they are different, such cafés are used in different occasions, and the cakes taste... different. And I thought, nobody from work will bring them for a coffee with cake, because either you have a complete meal or you don't go out, busy with all meeting and talks. But I really wanted to show them something that made me happy and glad to have discovered, that time one year ago when by chance I found that place.
And in fact they were looking around the wooden tables and the sugar container and the decorations like they belong to another world. My guests were puzzled discovering a decoration made with sugar: "Oh wonder! Will ants not come?". And they were looking at the cakes with big eyes and asking "Why are there so many layers? Do all layers taste the same? What is a poppy seed?". It was basically the same as when I was there, asking and asking and asking about everything they showed me or ordered to eat.
And, we did not speak about work. I was so happy about that! They had so many questions about how people live here, about where they live, how is life, where is the market, what do you eat... I think this helped us to understand each other better, and then also our business communication will profit of it. Even if we can not see each other while talking during meetings between two sides of the world, and can not see how is the other person's expression when something is said, I believe it is important to know the way of behaving, the background, a bit of the personality of the Asian counterpart. I believe that I can find this feeling also in the phone call, next time.
And I believe that it is so important to just know how other people live in other continents with other cultures. Their traditions, beliefs, foods, and where the culture comes from, so a bit of history. Knowledge makes us all more open and tolerant. And maybe helps us believe that people are nice and worth knowing. And also help relativize and understand ourselves.
They come from a little town in Asia and their family has Chinese origins. I have been there, they also have nice pastry shops and cafés, but they are different, such cafés are used in different occasions, and the cakes taste... different. And I thought, nobody from work will bring them for a coffee with cake, because either you have a complete meal or you don't go out, busy with all meeting and talks. But I really wanted to show them something that made me happy and glad to have discovered, that time one year ago when by chance I found that place.
And in fact they were looking around the wooden tables and the sugar container and the decorations like they belong to another world. My guests were puzzled discovering a decoration made with sugar: "Oh wonder! Will ants not come?". And they were looking at the cakes with big eyes and asking "Why are there so many layers? Do all layers taste the same? What is a poppy seed?". It was basically the same as when I was there, asking and asking and asking about everything they showed me or ordered to eat.
And, we did not speak about work. I was so happy about that! They had so many questions about how people live here, about where they live, how is life, where is the market, what do you eat... I think this helped us to understand each other better, and then also our business communication will profit of it. Even if we can not see each other while talking during meetings between two sides of the world, and can not see how is the other person's expression when something is said, I believe it is important to know the way of behaving, the background, a bit of the personality of the Asian counterpart. I believe that I can find this feeling also in the phone call, next time.
And I believe that it is so important to just know how other people live in other continents with other cultures. Their traditions, beliefs, foods, and where the culture comes from, so a bit of history. Knowledge makes us all more open and tolerant. And maybe helps us believe that people are nice and worth knowing. And also help relativize and understand ourselves.
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