0202a

02、Intercultural Communications

--A Personal Journey

A Heritage Of Interest Once upon a time a young Kansas boy dreamed of travelling the world. As he played with his dog on the prairies, climbed up trees on the nearby creek and marveled at spectacular sunrises and sunsets, he looked beyond those horizons. Farming with his father after high school classes, his mind would wander to places he had read about in Geography and History classes. Sitting on a tractor, his heart would lift with the soaring hawks and would try to imagine life in other lands.

His father told him stories about places around the Atlantic Ocean, visited during his naval service. His mother recalled her international friends while she was an Education student in the university. His grandmother recited their heritage as relatives of Abraham Lincoln and the legacy of being fair and helpful to minorities. And the boy would read and think and dream of this broad world and its diverse peoples.

First Cross-Cultural Exposure That little boy was I. People often ask how I ended up devoting my life to teaching among the Chinese, and I usually refer back to those beginnings. Even though I was raised near a small farming town of only 350 people and in my high school class of 22 only I went directly to a 4-year university, my childhood world was big.

My dad’s grandparents were immigrants from Czechoslovakia and my aunt often told me stories about“the old country.”Dad’s active interest in the world, Mom’s college experiences, Grandma preservation of our family history--each helped cultivate a passion in people and an interest in the world.

When I went to Kansas State University in 1979 I immediately befriended several Black students. In my Chemical Engineering classes, I joined a study group with some students from Iran, Malaysia and Taiwan. The Chinese girl in that group invited me to join her family to eat authentic Chinese food. After that, I often joined the “Chinese table” in the cafeteria to talk about their culture.

An Intercultural Beginning While teaching at Tunghai (East Sea) University in Taiwan, I watched many foreigners come and go. They often encountered difficult culture shock. Some didn’t like the food; others found it difficult to relate to the Chinese; others were frustrated with the bureaucracy.

For some reason, I had a fairly easy adjustment, made some good Chinese friends, and really enjoyed my stay. This positive experience raised an important question, “Why do some people seem to adjust easily, while others seem unable to make the adjustment?”My interest in intercultural communications was born.

After returning home, I sought another job in the Far East. The next position was working as writer and researcher for a communications specialist in Singapore. As his assistant, I traveled throughout Southeast Asia, interviewed many expatriates, read countless books on Asia, helped develop training materials, and met a wide variety of people.

When I left that job in 1986, I decided to focus on improving my Chinese skills and experience. So I enrolled at Xiamen University in the Overseas Correspondence Program. Before school started in September, I traveled briefly through Europe to see some old friends.

An Intercultural Relationship Passing through Germany in two days, I contacted

that group of Germans and they organized a party. Destiny ruled, as that was the night I met Anne, a doctor of my age who was very interested in practicing medicine in Asia. In the course of the evening, our interest in each other grew and an amazing cross-cultural long-distance romance began!

Though we had few days together that year, letters, tapes and an occasional phone call (those were the days before e-mail!) helped our relationship grow. When she visited Xiamen in January 1987, I asked her to marry me! We wed in October in Germany.

For me, those were wonderful years of learning Chinese, relating closely to my best Chinese friend, and helping my wife adjust to Asia. Her adjustments weren’t as easy, but we both realized that we wanted to use our careers to contribute however we could to developing people in China.