Intercultural Communication and Translation News

President Obama’s recent trip to Turkey has brought attention back to the country. A nation rich in resources, an established democracy undergoing liberal reforms and the possibility of joining the EU make Turkey one to watch for the near future. An already expanding export market based in the manufacturing industries means doing business in Turkey is rapidly being recognised as a lucrative venture.

Doing business in Turkey however requires understanding the people, culture, etiquette and approach to business. By acquiring cross cultural skills, international business people can maximise their prospects of success in Turkey.

This brief guide to doing business in Turkey offers some key tips on how to approach business in Turkey, the etiquette you should employ and how best to present yourself to your Turkish clients, colleagues or customers.

Doing Business - Meeting and Greeting

When meeting, shake hands firmly. When departing, it is not always customary to shake hands although it is practised occasionally.

In the business context most women will shake hands with men. However, this may not be the case in Eastern or rural Turkey where people are more conservative. If unsure, wait for the woman to extend her hand.

When addressing a Turk the most common method is to call a man by his first name followed by ‘bey’ (pronounced bay). So, Ertan Gonca, would be Ertan Bey. Similarly a woman’s first name would be followed by ‘hanim’ (pronounced ha-num).

Where professional titles exist such as Doctor or Professor, always use them either on their own of before the first name. Curiously this is also the case with many other professions such as lawyers ‘Avukat’, engineers ‘Muhendis’ and managers ‘Mudur’.

When doing business in Turkey, initial meetings should always concentrate on relationship building. Engage in some light conversation to establish rapport. Questions about children will be welcomed. The Turks are proud of their country and will enjoy answering questions on their culture and history although be sure to avoid political history. Most Turkish men love football (soccer) and usually support one of three teams: Galatasaray, Besiktas or Fenerbahçe. Asking after their team’s recent fortunes will always produce lively and animate responses.

Read more > Doing Business in Turkey

An interesting blog post about the culture of crossing roads by agents of urbanism

As virtual bridges crossing the overwhelming number of black rivers, crosswalks may someday be an anthropological resource. Within the accompanying urban signage exists a multitude of behavioral indicators.

This morning, witnessing suicidal pedestrians, I was reminded of the first time I was struck by the cultural undertones of crosswalks while committing an apparent urban faux pas in Munich.

Street-crossing would appear to be a universal system to provide safety beyond language barriers. It is a system built on common knowledge - look both ways before you cross - and universal symbols. Thus, regardless of your tongue, you should be able to achieve a high level of mobility within this system.

Perhaps it’s not so simple.

We all grow up learning and seeing these rules in action, but we do not learn the same cultural associations to this system. Some of us grow up in a car culture - as urban sprawl reigns supreme - where cultural associations favor cars, others in a neighborhood culture that favors pedestrians.

As a child of suburbia, I first became familiar with the associations of a car culture, and this is pretty much how I think pedestrians were treated ….

This video brings up three behavioral decisions.

* Do you push the button, or wait (most of the crosswalk buttons are dummies in New York.)
* In that respect, do you push the button more times to make it change faster (same goes for elevators)
* If you don’t see any cars, do you cross despite the signal

If it isn’t obvious, the last of these, is the one I am interested in. As a New York resident, I see implications of the pedestrian/car battle on a daily basis.

I first noticed a stark difference in the cultural significance of the digital boxes at crosswalks when I was in Europe. I was living in Paris, and quickly learned that you ignore the safety signs. The decision to cross or not is solely based on oncoming traffic. The city’s density diminishes the reliability on traffic lights for pedestrians. Impatient drivers, buses on schedules, taxis on the go, bikers weaving in and out of cars, none of which are guaranteed to follow the rules of the road. Therefore, one must fend for themselves. Cross at your own risk. Be ready to bolt when you hear the violent horn closing in to your right. These are the rules of Paris.

Hop on a train to Munich, and you’ll discover a different scenario.

I found myself standing at an intersection amongst six or so Germans, no cars in sight, and a static red hand across the street. I’m assuming the role of suave Parisian by now, so I dart across the street. Not sensing the herd behind me, I turn around and discover the glare of a disapproving group still standing on the other side. Tsk Tsk. Shortly the light changed, the “walking man” appeared, and the group crossed the street.

So now, I find myself wondering if there is some sort of law governing when a pedestrian can cross the street in Germany, or if I just came across a cautious bunch that did not appreciate my impatience. My unscientific experiment did not produce any concrete evidence, but did reveal the cultural habit in this German city to wait for the crosswalk signal.

Fast forward to this morning in New York City. I emerge from the subway (a system with its own etiquette ignored by many), find my bearings and approach an intersection. The digital box across the street displays a static red hand. I check for oncoming cars, see one in the distance, but decide I can make it. I make it across without having to pick up speed, but I appear to have developed a herd of followers. This is a phenomenon that happens in New York because people watch the flow of movement, not traffic signals. Not realizing the futility of this method, several pedestrians find themselves before a car barreling down the street, laying it on the horn. Fortunately, New Yorkers are alert and driver’s would rather not be inconvenienced by hitting someone.

So what do we learn from all this? Not much, relative to crosswalk laws. They are relatively the same across cities, however, watching the patterns of pedestrians and cars will shed light on urban attitudes. A dominant form of mobility may be revealed, or an intense competition between two may present itself, as we see here in New York.

Ultimately, I just enjoy considering urban conflicts, and the story they tell. From the streets of New York…

NOËL Coward once travelled by passenger liner from Shanghai to London and on an economy class flight back to Melbourne from London with my family after a Christmas/New Year break, I found myself reading his poetic account of the trip, P&O 1930, in his Collected Verse.

Long-haul flights are a drawback of expat life and hauls don’t come much longer than England to Australia. The contrast between Coward’s descriptions of 1930s shipboard life, with its concerts, intrigues and dressing for dinner at the captain’s table, and the cattle truck reality of modern travel made it far from ideal reading for someone who had just heaved their luggage off the carousel.

Of course, comparing a 1930s P&O liner and an A380 “Super Jumbo” in 2009 is to rather miss the point, for over recent decades travel has been democratised. In Noel’s era, most of us would have been stuck in a terraced house, our experience of the world limited to the BBC Home Service. The fact remains, though, that air travel, when measured by most yardsticks, is not overly pleasant. Some dislikes – the food, the toilet facilities and “destroying the planet” – can probably be taken as givens, but here are a few other pet hates you may or may not share.

• Arriving at check in and asking for one of the seats with the extra legroom (I am over six feet tall) by the emergency exit. I am then informed that they are all taken. On boarding the plane, I invariably find them occupied by smug-looking short people.

• Couples (always couples) with 10 pieces of hand luggage, each obviously bigger than regulations allow. They then spend 10 minutes trying to get them into the overhead lockers, all the while discussing it in loud voices, while the rest of us wait to get past.

• The baggage carousel, which always delivers my bags last, regardless of whether I have checked in early, late, or in between.

• The map of the flight path. Some years ago, when my son was at boarding school in Suffolk, I noticed how the frequent drives from Surrey were made worse when I started to recognise minor landmarks: “I’ve just passed that McDonald’s on the A12 near Ipswich so there’s another 53 minutes to go.” The flight path on the “in-flight entertainment unit” allows you to indulge in a more worldly version: “We’re just passing Uzbekistan so it’s another six hours to the stopover in Hong Kong.”

Read more > The Telegraph

Berlin has launched a new “friendliness” campaign to keep tourists flocking to the German capital during a time of economic crisis.

With the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall looming in November and the World Championships in athletics due in August, police, street cleaners, airport staff and taxi drivers have begun wearing special red pins to signal to visitors that they are ready to lend a helping hand.

The campaign, launched this week by the city government and local companies, mirrors a friendliness drive that was launched back in 2006 when Germany hosted the soccer World Cup.

“Berlin has a reputation in Germany of being a rude city, but we’re a rude city with a heart,” said Rene Gorka, head of Berlin Partners, a marketing group that promotes the city.

Read more > Berlin

The experience of living 13 years abroad in four different countries (USA, Sweden, Poland & Italy), and having an intercultural marriage (with children) has certainly made me a bit less Brazilian than I planned. However, it has probably enlightened my multiple perception of my own Brazilian culture (if not complicated it!). My original curiosity drive to discover the world had slowly turned into a ‘chronic cultural shock syndrome’, when the excitement of being a newcomer was replaced by the constant search for the ‘cultureless’ universal essence of humans wherever. It was when I became an intercultural psychologist and coach. My first thought, when asked to describe ‘foreigners through Brazil eyes’, was to elaborate the answer based on the two most striking cultural differences between Brazilians and foreigners (specially from North America, North Europe & Australia): time orientation, and levels of communication.

Read more > Cultural Insights into Brazil

Kwintessential’s website has recently added two new etiquette guides for both Ecuador and El Salvador. The guides offer an introduction to the culture, people and their values (all at a very general level). Rules of business, protocol, and etiquette tips and then provided on a number of areas such as dress, invitations, business meetings and much more.

Visit the guides:

> Ecuador - Culture, Customs and Etiquette

> El Salvador - Culture, Customs and Etiquette

The People

Cameroon has a diverse population comprising approximately 250 ethnic groups that then form 5 regional/cultural groups. These are western highlanders (also called grassfielders), which include the Bamileke, Bamoun, and many smaller groups in the northwest; coastal tropical forest people, which include the Bassa, Doula, and many smaller groups in the southwest; southern tropical forest people, which include the Beti, Beulu, Fang, and Pygmies; Muslims of the northern semi-arid regions and central highlands, which include the Fulani; and the Kirdi, non-Muslims peoples of the northern desert and central highlands.

Meeting and Greeting

* Cameroonian greetings vary between the Francophone and Anglophone areas.
* In both areas, men shake hands with each other.
* In the Francophone south, close friends may embrace while brushing cheeks and kissing the air along with a handshake.
* In the Anglophone north, close friends have a unique handshake in which, as they pull their hands back they snap the other person’s middle finger with their thumb.
* As a sign of respect men often lower their head and avert their eyes when greeting someone superior to them in age or position.
* Some Muslims will not shake hands across genders.
* Since this is a hierarchical society, elders are greeted first.
* Women tend not to look the other person in the eye even if it is another woman.
* Greetings should never be rushed. It is important to take time to inquire about the person’s family and other matters of general interest during the greeting process.

Gift Giving Etiquette

* If you are invited to a Cameroonian’s home, bring fruit, whiskey, or wine to the host.
* Do not bring alcohol if the host is Muslim.
* A small gift for the children is always a nice touch. School materials or sweets are standard.
* Gifts are not always opened when received.
* Gifts are given with two hands or the right hand only; never the left hand.

Read more > Cameroon - Culture and Etiquette Guide

It’s the Year of the Ox in much of Asia - a good time to vow not to be as clumsy as one in matters of Asian business etiquette.

While not all Asians observe the Lunar New Year that dawned Monday, travel and etiquette expert Mary Murray Bosrock says being culturally savvy and knowing how to avoid offending your international clients has never been more crucial.

“We just can’t afford anymore to be the ugly Americans,” she said.

Bosrock, a Sandusky native who has written numerous books on international business etiquette and has taught diplomats at the Protocol School of Washington, started hearing complaints about boorish American behavior while writing for Foreign Trade magazine.

As soon as she wrapped up her interviews with high-level trade officials and turned off her microphone, they would lean in and ask her, “Mrs. Bosrock, why do Americans do this?” - then go on to describe some terrible American habit that had offended or mortified them.

She would find herself stammering, “I don’t think Americans mean to do that . . . .” She started writing down the blunders, trying to find a way to teach others how not to repeat the mistakes.

Read more > Mrs Bosrock

Meeting and Greeting

* Handshakes are the norm. They should be firm and friendly.
* It is good manners to wait for a woman to offer her hand first.
* Maintain eye contact during the greeting process.
* Professional or academic titles with the surname are used in business. Professional or academic titles may also be used with the honorific title (Mr., Mrs., or Miss), with or without the surname.
* If someone does not have a title, use their honorific title and their surname.
* Wait until invited before moving to a first-name basis, which may occur more slowly than on other Caribbean islands.
* Business cards are exchanged without formal ritual.
* Treat business cards with respect. When you receive a card, place it in a business card case. The manner you treat business cards is taken as a sign of how you will treat the relationship.
* Writing on someone’s business card in front of them is considered rude.

Bahamian Communication Style

Bahamians have a lyrical, musical quality to their language which probably descends from their West African roots. Although they are direct communicators they are also quite adept at modifying their language to make it come across as friendly and insensitive. Humour is also very much part of their communication style.

Read the full guide at > Bahamas - Culture, Etiquette and Protocol

Manners maketh the businessman, with a global survey finding Americans and Britons to be the most easily insulted by lack of workplace etiquette, while Australians are among the most offensive.

The survey, by Australian-based international office space provider Servcorp, listed the top five most offensive workplace behaviors as not saying hello or good morning, not offering office guests a beverage, speaking loudly across the room, using swear words and taking calls on mobile phones.

The use of stationery without permission and asking colleagues about their personal lives were also deemed insulting.

The poll then revealed the United States and Britain to be the most sensitive nations in the world, despite 60 percent of respondents believing Japan has the strictest work etiquette.

English and American businessmen were also more easily offended than their colleagues in the Middle East, Japan and China, nations with cultural traditions spanning centuries.

Almost 25 percent of Australians, however, thought it was perfectly acceptable to swear — something the majority of Japanese and Middle Easterners found deeply offensive.

Read more > Yahoo

What Kwintessential say:

Etiquette is no longer about the rules and protocol of dining, invitations, dress and what kind of flowers to buy people. Displaying good manners is now an essential part of learning to do business on a global level.

At Kwintessential we provide international etiquette courses aimed at helping individuals fit in more comfortably when working in foreign environments or offices.

For more information please visit > Business Etiquette Training