Intercultural communication with the peterson family Essay

After a year of living with my brother, I moved in to live with the Peterson family in Montclair, California. Jason Peterson was a physics professor at the University of California at Berkeley while Mary Peterson was a schoolteacher. Living with the Peterson family made me grapple with the difference between American and Afghan culture. The American way of expressing affection in public and open intimate relationships at first shocked me. Afghans are very personal and private when it comes to displays of affection. Kissing your wife or girlfriend in front of others would be a serious breach of manners. The expression of affection between Jason and Mary when one of them arrived from work used to make me uncomfortable but I eventually got used to it. I still find it truly paradoxical that while Americans openly display affections, the value they accord to privacy and personal space is very high. I could not comprehend why they value privacy when in fact they could not keep intimate shows of affection in private. At first, I would often innocently intrude into the room of Jason to ask something. Or, when he was deep in thought in the living room wrestling with what looked like a work-related task, I would tactlessly start a conversation with him. In situations like those, his reaction would be one of initial shock. Sensing that my act was prompted by my desire to express belonging with the Peterson family, Jason would break into a knowing smile. I knew he could feel my embarrassment, as I did with his own embarrassment for his initial show of displeasure. Becoming aware of the discomfort I caused in those situations, I eventually resolved to keep my distance in those situations and to respect privacy according to American standards. Like most Americans, Mr. Peterson was direct and to the point when discussing matters with his wife. With me, however, he chose to make me learn American social norms through his reaction to what I did or what I was doing. I took cues from his reaction and I was certain that he simply did not want me to feel ashamed of my actuations. After a month, we got to sit down together from time to time. He started asking me about Afghanistan. Being given the chance to share with him the life and cultural practices in Afghanistan seemed to unburden me. Through our conversations, he began to understand me in a different light and I am grateful that those conversations did happen. I also began to understand and accept American culture for what it is. At first, whenever I encountered a seemingly weird American custom from the Afghan viewpoint, I would automatically and mentally scrounge for a similar custom of Afghanistan and attempt to compare them. I eventually realized that this automatic evaluation of American culture that I usually do as some sort of a reflex action is a contributory factor to my resistance to some aspects of American culture and may perhaps even be a hindrance to my assimilation of the host culture. Even if I was close to Mr. Peterson on account of our â€Å"cultural conversations,† I maintained physical and emotional distance from Mrs. Peterson. In hindsight, I also realize that such aloofness on my part did not spring from the fact I did not like her. In fact she was such a very gracious and accommodating lady that sometimes her concern embarrassed me. I still unconsciously carried with me the Afghan notion that another man’s wife or female children are off limits to others. Afghan strictures relating to the marriage bond are much more demanding than those of Americans. Perhaps I was apprehensive that Mr. Peterson would look at my attempts to communicate with his wife from an Afghan standpoint. In this case, I was on the losing end. I could have had a more profound communication level with Mrs. Peterson as I had with her husband if only I did not have such an apprehension at the back of my mind. The American concept of personal space was something that I could not comprehend at all. For Afghans, one’s family extended to almost all relatives unlike the very exclusive nuclear family of Americans. This extends to the use of gadgets and other household items. When my Afghan friends came to visit me in the residence of the Peterson family, some of my Afghan friends unconsciously behaved as though the family that I was with was Afghan. They engaged in horseplay and laughed boisterously which did not sit well with the Petersons, using their reaction as basis. I cautioned my friends who, to my relief, took my admonition seriously. When they all became very quiet on account of my warning, the atmosphere became unbearably silent. The Peterson couple sensed the sudden change of mood and in their embarrassment took pains to make me and my friends feel welcome. Such an event would not have happened if my friends and I had been conscious of the fact that the American concept of family and belonging did not extend to friends and relatives, the way the Afghan concept does.