When Cultures Collide

There are few things that go as deep and as personal as culture.  It’s the lens in which one views the world, the way others are perceived, the values that are held close. Culture goes deep enough to define identity, and is strong enough to form lifelong bonds.  As I wrestle with thoughts of culture, I wonder what happens when cultures collide, not just within a country or even within a school. What happens when cultures collide within one person’s body, within one person’s soul?

This weekend, I was privileged to be taught by Josephine Kim, a Korean-American woman who received her PhD in counselor education from University of Virginia.  She currently teaches at Harvard and has a non-profit organization called Mustard Seed Generation, which helps struggling Koreans and Korean-Americans.  She is one of the few bi-lingual Korean-American counselors in the U.S.  In 2007, she was the main counselor/consultant involved in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting, since Seung-Hui Cho was Korean-American. 

We covered a variety of topics over 2 intensive days.  These topics were hot-spots for us; topics that need to be discussed, but often are not; topics that are difficult, offensive, personal, and seemingly impossible to implement….

• How to reach TCK’s—Third Culture Kids 
• National staff and foreign staff relationships
• The “Speaking English Only” policy at our school 
• (The only time the staff interact with the Korean language is to give a punishment. What does that say to our Korean students?)
• Respect ...and what that means for different cultures
• Korean Suicide Rates 
• (Number 1 in the world. After a Korean celebrity committed suicide, 7,000 Koreans committed suicide within a 2 month time span)
• The generational gap, especially between Asian parents and their children
• At ISQ, should Bible classes be optional or mandatory?  Does this inoculate them to the Gospel?
• Asian Fail - An Asian student receiving a grade lower than their parent's (or their own) standard.



If you google "Korean Father" you may get
images like this one.  Josephine showed these
images to Korean fathers, and they were
floored, mortified, and saddened.

• Embracing culture vs. tolerating culture
• Creating a safe space for cultural competency
• **The danger of “the single story” 
• The normal Korean family model
• **How to teach empathy to our students (and how to model it) 
• Oppression (in forms that we would never think of)
• Cultural sensitivity and appropriateness

I walk away humbly from this seminar, because… not only do I “not know it all,” but really, I’m not sure of anything.  As Jerry Jones (our wonderful consultant for the school) explained, “I have to be understanding of my own ignorance,” which spoke volumes to me, because he’s been in China for nearly 10 years and seems to have it down pretty well.  

When I got a moment to speak to Josephine, I said, “There’s so much that I don’t know.  I’m so new at what I do.  And right now, I really hate being an American.  I was never taught to think globally.  I never even related to my own culture, I never thought of myself as ‘an American.’ Now, all of the sudden, I have this culture that is so deep and so ingrained in me… Everything I do is ‘American.’ The way I think, the way I behave, the way I believe that I have it all together and that I’m right.  My way is right and your way is wrong.  I was taught by my own culture to be ethnocentric, and I don’t know how to be any different.”

In the seminar, we had about 20 people… White Americans, Koreans, Korean-Americans, Chinese, and an Australian. There were so many different view-points and at times wounded souls in the room.  At the end of the day, I talked with my Chinese friend before we left.  I asked for her thoughts, but she was still processing so much information that she couldn’t formulate much into words.  But what she did say was insightful, “I felt very uncomfortable.  I cannot just speak what I’m thinking, because people are poking at my wounds and asking me to share about this personal thing. I’m not ready to talk about it.”   

Like I said in the beginning...There are few things that go as deep and as personal as culture. 

My Chinese friend and I agreed to go out for coffee soon to discuss some of these things… building a bridge to start the conversation, start the healing and start the growing…  

This weekend was very powerful, and I hope that we can carry these hopes, emotions, and dreams into building something that will last in our students and staff.  Please pray for that in our school… And in my life.

_______

** PLEASE spend a moment to watch these videos.  They were very important to me this weekend as I processed all these things.

Barking up the wrong tree, ...and other idioms that don't work

This entire year, one of the big ideas that I’ve been learning is how to communicate clearly and effectively.  One large barrier to this with my students is my common use of idioms. 

First, a definition of an idiom:

id·i·om [id-ee-uhm]

noun - an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements, as kick the bucket  or hang one's head,  or from the general grammatical rules of a language, as the table round  for the round table,  and that is not a constituent of a larger expression of like characteristics.

1.  a language, dialect, or style of speaking peculiar to a people
2. a construction or expression of one language whose parts correspond to elements in another language but whose total structure or meaning is not matched in the same way in the second language.

Here are just a few of the idioms I’ve used this year, and the confused responses I received from my students, especially the Chinese and Korean students.

“I’m under the gun.”   (Pause, plus disturbed look from student) “What gun?”

“Play it by ear” (Laughter) “What are we doing with our ears?”

“Close, but no cigar” (No response)

“Well, let me play devil’s advocate for a moment… do you know what that means?” “…no.”

“Don’t beat a dead horse” (Laughter) “What? Mrs. Westby, you’re crazy.”

“I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off” “Um…Why?”

“The ball is in your court” (Confused look) “What ball?”

“It’s like water off a duck’s back” (No expression) “What does that mean?

So, as you can see, using an idiom, or at time even a metaphor, is not to my advantage while counseling students, much less having any kind of conversation with students.

For fun, this past week, I went on a quest one lunch period to find Korean Idioms.  Here’s the most popular ones that I heard (obviously translated into English):

“Eating a rice cake lying down” and “Eating cold soup” both mean “It’s really easy.”

“You’ve lost your cow but still finish the barn” means “You’re trying to fix something after it has already gone wrong.”

So, morals of the story:

1.  Every culture has their own idioms, which is a really cool thing.
2. Idioms are really not translatable in an easy way, unless you want to explain it…which is the opposite goal of using an idiom in the first place.
3. If you want to communicate effectively to Asian high school students, don’t use idioms.

A Bad China Day

A bad China day looks something like this….

Ben and I go to a coffee shop.  We ask the waiter if we can go upstairs.  He says no. We ask why. He says something we don't understand.  We sit downstairs. The waiter brings out an ashtray.  We tell him we don’t want an ashtray.  Then he says we can go sit upstairs.  Apparently, upstairs is no smoking and down stairs is smoking.  I get it now.

Ben orders his drink and soon thereafter leaves. I sit and wait for a student to come hang out with me, and work on other things as I wait.  The coffee shop fills up rapidly.  I put in my earphones and listen to music, but can still hear the talking around me.  A couple comes upstairs and sits 2 inches away from me.  They don’t talk, they just stare at the wall and sit very close to me.  In about an hour, I just need to move, so I do.  Someone else comes and sits about 6 inches away from me… now 6 inches I can handle, 2 inches… not so much. 

Unfortunately, the student never shows up, so I end up leaving because I just can’t take how many people are in this small space.   

When I finally leave the Coffee shop, I walk a while.  After about 10 minutes, I realize that the fog is so thick that I can’t see where I am at, in relation to where I want to be… so, I just get a taxi anyways.  It’s cold, I’m wet, I have to pee, and I’m tired.

I flag down a taxi, but it ignores me completely.

I flag down another taxi and explain 3 different ways where I live.

Once the taxi driver pull up to my apartment, he tells me he doesn't have any change, so he charges me more by drive to a nearby shop.  He buys cigarettes with my 100 kuai.  When I eventually get back to the apartment and receive the change, I count it to make you sure I didn't end up paying for his cigarettes.  While I'm counting, he tells me goodbye.

Zaijian (goodbye)

Deng yi xia (Wait one moment)

Zaijian (goodbye)

Deng yi xia (Wait one moment)

5 times later, I get out of the car, very annoyed.

Then, when I am finally home and I sit on the couch, close my eyes, and hear…  an insane amount of honking right outside my window. 

I give up.  I can’t escape bad China days.

(Post Script Note: Okay... so this wasn't my worse day in China, and some of it was even my own fault, but still, I can't help but get super annoyed sometimes.  Does anyone know what I mean?)

Six Simple Validity Counseling Tools

Since we were on the train for about 10 hours over the last 2 days, I was able to finally finish a book I have been reading for work called, The Practical Art of Suicide Assessment by Shawn Christopher Shea, MD. This is an excellent book recommended by my mentor here in China.  She had been a counselor in Illinois, and brought all of her Master’s course-level books with her to China.  And I get to read them!

I will be writing a series of blogs about what I have learned through my reading.  I’m not really expecting anyone to read this… it’s more for me to get my thoughts out, and my blog keeps me accountable to actually write it out.  However, in my biased opinion, I think these ideas and techniques are useful for all types of ministry, not just for the person in a counseling role.

Here is what I will be writing about.

1.     Six Simple Validity Counseling Tools

2.     Other Practical Techniques (Used specifically with suicidal people)

3.     Safe and Effective Decision making within a counseling session

Six Simple Validity Counseling Tools

Behavioral incident: (Asking for the Facts)

When a counselor asks for a patient’s opinion, the patient has an opportunity to distort the truth, due to embarrassment, rationalizations, and resistance among other things.  However, if the counselor asks for only facts or exact thoughts, he or she is much more apt to get truthful information from the patient. “It is best for counselors to make their own judgments based on the details of the story itself as opposed to the client’s interpretations of the details” (Shea 128).  This technique is most used with issues such as sexual abuse, substance abuse, domestic violence, antisocial behavior, and suicide.

Examples: What did your father say then?, Did you put the razor blade up to your wrist?, When you say that you threw a fit, what exactly did you do?

Beware: Use sparingly, if all the details are not necessary, because it can be very time consuming.

Shame attenuation: (Gives an excuse to talk about a subject)

This technique “enhances the counselor’s ability to noninvasively inquire about behaviors that many patients would be hesitant to discuss because of the shame and guilt attached” (Shea 129).  The counselor must ask a question that allows a sense of acceptance and positive regard, in order to receive a truthful answer about a shameful behavior.  For instance, instead of asking, “Do you lie often?” a counselor could say, “You had told me your father was abusive, which sounds like a horrible experience. I’m wondering if you ever found it necessary for you to lie to him in order to protect yourself.”  If a positive answer is given, the counselor could continue with a behavior incident question, “Do you find that you still lie often?” or “Are there other times that you find yourself lying to protect yourself.”

Examples: With all the tremendous financial stresses you’ve encountered recently, have you found that you felt a need to steal just to get food on the table?, With the immense stressors going on in your, have you ever thought about suicide?

Beware: This technique is not meant to condone or endorse inappropriate behavior, but rather it is a “genuine attempt to understand the rationalizations that shape how a patient perceives his or her reality” (Shea 131).

Gentle assumption:

Similar to the last technique, the gentle assumption is “designed to increase the likelihood that sensitive material will be discussed more openly” (Shea 131).  The counselor assumes that a given behavior is occurring, rather than asking if it is occurring.  If the patient is put-off by the assumption, a buffer can be added, such as, “if at all.”

Examples: How often have you been pulled over by the police for a DWI?, What other ways have you thought about killing yourself? How often have you found yourself in a fist-fight, if at all?

Beware: Gentle assumptions should not be used with patient’s who want to please their counselors, since they could potentially answer in the way they feel that ought to answer, rather than with the truth.  This technique should also not be used with children, as they are easily confused or persuaded, especially in the case of sexual abuse.

Symptom amplification: (Looking for a specific number)

At times, patients will downplay the frequency of a specific behavior.  When using symptom amplification, the counselor should set a high number to the behavior, which will likely cause the patient to give a truthful number in response.  The importance of this technique lies in the fact that it does not create a confrontation, but rather allows the patient to still use the defense mechanism of minimization. 

Examples: How many fist-fights have you had in your whole life…twenty-five, forty, fifty?, How many times have you struck your wife…twenty times, thirty times?

Beware: Don’t be absurd.  This can cause a counselor to look foolish or naïve.

Denial of the specific: 

This technique will jar the memory of a patient, and makes it more difficult to falsely deny a specific question, as opposed to a general question.  These questions are basically behavior incident questions, however that’d be asked in a series in order to gain more specific information.

Examples: If discussing suicide ask questions like: Have you ever thought about jumping off of a bridge or building?, Have you ever thought about hanging yourself?

If discussing drugs ask: Have you ever tried cocaine? Have you ever used crystal meth? Have you ever dropped acid?

Beware: Do not overload the patient with question after question. Allow them time to process and answer each question individually.

Normalization: (Allows the patient to feel supported and not alone)

Many times, it helps patients who are anxious or embarrassed to know that others have gone through similar experiences or have dealt with similar destructive behaviors.  Normalizing the issue can give the patient a sense of freedom and support that will keep them from denial or shame.

Examples: Sometimes, when people get really angry, they say things that they later regret.  Has this ever happened to you?, Sometimes, when people are really worried about their weight, they will do things to make sure they won’t gain weight, such as vomiting. Have you ever tried that?

Beware: This can be a counteractive technique with patients who are eager to please or who often exaggerate their situation.  

When Our Heart Condemns Us

These are my thoughts as I read my Bible this Saturday morning:

1 John 2:28 tells us to “abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.”  However, at times, I believe we can have a false sense of shame. There are times when we might hold on to the guilt and shame from sins we have confessed and have been forgiven for. 

Although our sins our forgiven, we often have to deal with the consequences of our sins, however big or small.  The consequences gives us a reminder of sorts that we had lost, failed, and sinned, which can cause a deep wound in our heart if we do not offer that to God.  1 John 3:19-20 says, “By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” 

If we have confessed and are forgiven, let our hearts not condemn us, but rather, give glory to God that he is greater than our hearts, in that he does not condemn us!  And let us live in joy and peace that “he knows everything.”