Intercultural & Cross Cultural News

The End of Cross Cultural News

Cross Cultural news has now been running for a few years and has become extremely successful. We get over 4,000 visits a day. As a result we have had to move it over to a new platform to try and make the user-experience that little bit better. So for all your news please visit the new page at Cross Cultural, Intercultural Communication and Translation News. This page will remain to act as a resource for anyone wishing to access the archives.

CILT: Standards in Intercultural Skills

In the global economy, all sectors of UK industry and service provision are now required to operate in multicultural environments, whether in dealing with clients or with their own workforces. Currently, however, there is no national framework for the development or recognition of intercultural skills.

'Intercultural skills' are defined as those skills needed to work effectively with clients and/or colleagues from a range of linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

In early 2006, CILT, the National Centre for Languages completed research into the feasibility of developing National Occupational Standards (NOS) in intercultural skills. The project built on the work of the EU-funded INCA (Intercultural Competence Assessment) project. It involved consultation with employers, employer representatives and regional bodies, Sector Skills Councils, intercultural skills professionals and awarding bodies on whether and how the results of INCA might be used in the development of UK NOS. A summary of the key findings can be downloaded here.

CILT is now leading a project to develop a full set of NOS in intercultural skills.

China says "Pirates of the Caribbean" attacks Chinese honour

China has censored part of the latest installment of hit Hollywood movie "Pirates of the Caribbean" for "vilifying and defacing the Chinese," the official Xinhua news agency said Friday.

The role of Hong Kong star Chow Yun-Fat, who plays pirate lord Captain Sao Feng, had been slashed in half to just about 10 minutes of screen time, the report said. It cited local magazine The Popular Cinema as saying: "The captain played by Chow is bald, his face heavily scarred. He also has a long beard and long nails, whose image is still in line with Hollywood's old tradition of demonizing the Chinese."

Renault endows chair of '’Multicultural management and corporate performance�

Carlos Ghosn, as president of both Renault and the Renault Foundation, has signed a partnership agreement with the Ecole Ecole Polytechnique, Group HEC and the Polytechnique Foundation to create a Renault-Polytechnique-HEC Chair in “Multicultural Management and Corporate Performance� in France.

With capacity for about 40 young graduate students, the chair places particular emphasis on managerial practices geared to economic realities and to all types of cultural diversity : national, professional and organizational. It will also enable academics to conduct independent in-depth studies on multicultural organization and management. The chair is held jointly by Eric Godelier for the Ecole Polytechnique and Eve Chiapelo for HEC.

Intercultural Videos on Youtube

Today we decided to have a look at Youtube to see what videos relating to intercultural matters have been uploaded. We were suprised to see a decent selection from individuals, conferences and students. Some are good, others not so!. Below is a link to some of the intercultural videos you can find on Youtube today.

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Cultural stress linked to suicide

Asian-American women demonstrate a high rate of suicide when compared with women of other ethnicities, California State-Fullerton researcher Eliza Noh found in a recent empirical study.

Noh and Stanford mental health professionals Alejandro Martinez, the director of Counciling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and Rona Hu, director of the Acute Inpatient Unit at Stanford Hospital, told The Daily that parental pressure, cultural differences between the United States and Asian countries and avoidance of mental health issues in Asian-American families can contribute to the prevalence of mental health problems.

How not to be a cultural knucklehead in a global business world

These days, even the smallest-scale entrepreneur working out of her home office in Boise, Idaho can have a circle of clients and partners from around the world. She may have an Australian graphic designer create her logo. She may manufacture her product line in China. She may hire technical developers and e-commerce experts from India. She may have customers from Bolivia and Belarus. But if interacting with global partners is all new to her, she may be missing some important communication skills.

Foreign volunteers bring etiquette to Qingdao

A total of 17 foreign volunteers have begun their teaching mission to explain their various national etiquettes and cultural taboos to around 100 residents of Qingdao city in eastern China.

The students are part of a volunteer network that will provide support during the 2008 Olympic Sailing Competition to be held in Qingdao. The 17 foreign volunteers are from eight countries, including Singapore and the Philippines.

Army Sees Importance of Language & Cultural Sensitivities

As language and cultural sensitivities factor more and more into military operations, defense officials are promoting several initiatives to increase the number of servicemembers and employees with critical language skills.

One of the most innovative programs is the Army's effort to recruit "heritage language" speakers from countries the U.S. is engaged in, Gail McGinn, deputy undersecretary of defense for plans, said in an interview yesterday.

How to communicate across the cultural divide

Until quite recently, company leaders who worked closely with foreign colleagues either travelled regularly or were transferred overseas. But the world of work has changed dramatically. Now, many managers regularly interact with foreign clients, vendors or fellow employees without ever leaving their offices.

Video-cast: Who needs Intercultural Awareness?

Kwintessential are now proud to announce the beginning of a new video-cast service. The monthly presentations will touch on all topics that fall within Kwintessential's remit including intercultural training, translation, interpreting, multilingual website design and more.

Our first installment is entitled, "Who needs Intercultural Awareness?" and can be watched below:

Cultural Differences Influence Government Policy On Electric Vehicle Innovation

Cultural differences between countries run right to the heart of government, thereby influencing technological innovation. This is reported in a comparative study by David Calef and Robert Goble published recently in the journal Policy Sciences(1). The authors outline efforts taken throughout the 1990s by both the US and French governments to adopt legislation fostering technological innovation to improve urban air quality by promoting clean vehicles, specifically electric vehicles (EVs). The study highlights the differences in approach and policy-making style by both governments and how this might have affected the final outcome.

Emoticons: Intercultural Differences

Sadness or confusion? If you are from the U.S. or another western country then this emoticon, :-(, probably means you are blue. But what if you're Asian? Well, in Japan it seems, they view the textual representation of a face a little differently. We shouldn't use the example of what happens in Nihon to generalize across Asia, but those of you based out here know that there ARE similarities in cultural norms in Northeast Asian/Confucian nations. Certainly in Taiwan, folks share a bit with the Japanese.

So what about this emoticon thing? It seems Masaki Yuki, a scientist at Hokkaido University, found that "culture is a huge factor in determining whether we look someone in the eye or the [mouth] to interpret facial expressions."

SAP's Plan to Globalize Hits Cultural Barriers

Five years ago, Germany's largest software company decided it had to become less German.

To get more global, SAP AG hired thousands of programmers in countries such as the U.S. and India. It assigned them to key projects that almost all had been handled from its home base in the small town of Walldorf, Germany. It adopted English for corporate meetings, even in headquarters. SAP recruited hundreds of foreign managers, and non-Germans made up half the company's top ranks by last year, up from one-third in 2000. The newcomers sought to inject a faster pace and open SAP's insular culture ...

Lack of language and cultural knowledge had negative results in Iraq/Afghanistan

One of the biggest deficiencies exposed by the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is the lack of language and cultural knowledge within the ranks of federal employees—especially among men and women in uniform. It’s hard to win a war for hearts and minds if the only way you can communicate with locals is through translators, who may not always be around and whose work varies in quality.

It’s a mystery to me why, since 9/11, we haven’t launched a crash program to teach thousands of young people Near Eastern languages. Dari, Pashto, Urdu, Arabic, Farsi—all these languages are tremendously important in the global war on terrorism. We should look for inspiration to the early days of the cold war, when we ramped up programs to teach Russian and Chinese.

Foreign language expertise & cultural awareness are key competencies

The U.S.Defense Department needs more servicemembers who understand other languages and cultures to meet current and envisioned 21st-century challenges, a senior official said at a Capitol Hill hearing.

“Foreign language and regional expertise, which includes cultural awareness, are emerging as key competencies for our 21st-century Total Force,� Gail H. McGinn, deputy undersecretary of defense for plans and the department’s senior language authority, said in her prepared statement submitted to members of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee April 25.

Test dummies help in Intercultural training

Four medical students examine Juan Lopez, a 54-year-old Spanish speaker who was admitted to the emergency room with chest pains. Through an interpreter, the team ascertains that the patient is a pack-a-day smoker whose pain intensified while doing yard work.

But these students are little concerned with saving Lopez's life. "Mr. Lopez" is a high-fidelity human simulator, part of a cultural-competency pilot program that uses mannequins - predominantly used in medical schools for practicing skills like administering intravenous fluids, resuscitation, or code-blue management - to reinforce softer skills, such as ethics and diversity.

Psychologist Provides Cross-cultural Perspective of Virginia Tech Killing

Tyndale University College psychology professor Paul T. P. Wong says he has identified several culturally-based risk factors which may have contributed to the Virginia Tech shooting.

Dr. Wong, an internationally recognized expert on cross-cultural psychology, comments, "Cho Seung-Hui had experienced difficulties common to many new immigrants. These included acculturation stresses, language barrier, poverty and discrimination. The cumulative stress of these risk factors coupled with problems of mental illness, autism and personal grievances might have pushed Cho over the edge."

American Red Cross Trainings Build Cultural Competency

The American Red Cross today announced a series of four Community Relations Liaison trainings as part of an initiative to build a more culturally competent organization. The training sessions aim to expand the diversity of its employee and volunteer cadre and enable the Red Cross to better reflect the diverse communities it serves. The two-day trainings began last week in Houston, Texas followed by sessions in Atlanta, Ga., San Francisco, Calif. and Chicago, Ill.

CultureVisionâ„¢ by Cook Ross Launches E-tour for Healthcare Cultural Competency

The need for healthcare cultural competency solutions is growing rapidly throughout the industry. For over ten years of Cook Ross’ 18-year history delivering cutting edge solutions in diversity, inclusion, and cultural competency training and consulting services, the firm has been working heavily in healthcare. Their breadth of experiences, coupled with response to emerging client needs, resulted in the genesis of Cook Ross’ product web-based cultural competency solution CultureVision™, an application allowing healthcare practitioners to easily find culturally competent patient care data for a rapidly expanding list of cultural and religious communities. It provides a broad range of information, including concepts of health, communication issues, and a plethora of research on ethnopharmacology and health disparities.