Some Thoughts on How to Approach Finding One's Feet in Unfamiliar Cultural Terrain.

CROSS-cultural communication; COMMUNICATION; EAST-West divide; INTERGROUP communication; CULTURE conflict; CROSS-cultural orientation; CULTURAL competence

In this article the author attempts to give advice to two hypothetical people in hypothetical situations about how they can learn enough about the new culture which they have entered so that they can become intelligent, competent, and effective participants in their new social worlds. The two hypothetical people are described as follows: one person comes to the U.S. from Japan and enrolls in university undergraduate courses that involve discussion groups and another person is a multilingual American living in Seattle, Washington and is confused by the way some Seattle residents communicate with each other.