4 ms·

> I don't know what the solution is for trying to promote better cross cultural understanding. I think that's just it: trying to promote better cross cultural

> I don't know what the solution is for trying to promote better cross cultural understanding. I think that's just it: trying to promote better cross cultural understanding. That's something I tried with the GP here, but I could probably write up an article to be linked to in such discussions. > metrics like "How many meals per day do you get?" and "What kind of shelter do you have?" I think this is a good thought, a focus on qualitative differences in lived experience using quantifiable metrics. With that approach you're less likely to offend rather than inform. Might be best to skip the "less than 1/2 of one percent of Americans were poor by standards in India" since it seems to suggest that American poverty isn't "real" poverty. I would even go so far as to say that communicating the cultural context is far more important than underlining the economics, the former of which TFA is attempting to do.

loopz 5y ago
India has lots of villages, slums and people in between having very poor material standards compared to Western countries. But people are also much more interconnected, rely on each other and find ways to get by. So to get that culture, you have to spend at least 6 months and really get to know what family values are, and how things tend to work out. It's very different than the lonely individualist countries. Many Indians actually move back home to be with family and friends! So superficial analyses may just not be very recognizable to the population, because of very different value systems and nuances.
- sombremesa 5y ago
  That's very true, but I think it's possible to a) have a fact-based approach without being superficial, and b) communicate cultural context without having to plumb the depths of the human condition. Were it necessary to cover the subtle nuances of Eastern and Western culture, it would be hard to get anywhere with prose. I think it's sufficient to convey enough information to demonstrate that the value systems and lived experiences are fundamentally different. The goal is not to "level the playing field" in terms of where people are coming from, but to foster more meaningful discussions by explicitly taking context into account.
  - fragmede 5y ago
    But it takes the plumbing the depths of the human condition to realize that we're not actually a that different, and that the fundamentals are the SAME. Airy eloquent prose may not have the same effect on the data driven as hard metrics, but comparing $20,000 (US) a year to the equivalent of $1 US a day, without capturing, in prose, that person in the US below the poverty line may be going hungry more days a week, and is more exposed to the elements, and more likely to be harrassed by police/others and more likely to die, is superficial. Prose is what's needed to communicate effectively. Tables and charts simply can't do that by themselves. Even they need a legend and labels to be useful.
- euske 5y ago
  Personally, that's the biggest lesson that I got from traveling in India. There's no question that people's living standard needs to be improved there, but I saw something that's lacking in a developed country (especially in the country I live): mutual help, or the "love your neighbor" mindset. I hope that tradition last long.
  - altantiprocrast 5y ago
    As someone who immigrated to the US from India, and was a 'stereotypical nerd' (being on HN duh) nosy neighbors seem nice on the outside but it can get old really quick. (Unless you're perfectly average for the community you live in). I much prefer making friends at work or other common interest places rather than neighbors or family who randomly happen to be next to you.
    - fakedang 5y ago
      Tbh anyone nosy. Every time I visit my parents back home, I realize how exasperatingly nosy they are. They can't stick to minding their own business, and honestly it's something that they picked up with age - I guess to be a part of the general "community". And the amount of mental gymnastics they perform to analyze trivial mind-numbing stuff.... I guess it's something that's as ingrained in the Indian psyche as turmeric is in Indian cuisine.
      - loopz 5y ago
        Same with age here in Europe. I believe they call it family, ugh! ;)
DoreenMichele 5y ago
I'm a former military wife. Just trying to explain how military life is different to other Americans was insanely hard. I lived in the same country. I used the same currency. I spoke the same language. Yet my life was not like that of civilians I knew and their underlying assumptions and mine that informed our decisions just did not match up to such a degree that I eventually stopped trying to explain my life choices even to people quite close to me who simply did not get the context and that their decision-making matrix and mine were largely unrelated. I wish you luck in trying to figure out how to do this.
- sombremesa 5y ago
  Thanks...I think I'm going to give up before I even start. The gap is far wider than I had ever imagined.
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  It's not possible to make people understand. You can try it understand others, and some others can try to understand you, but you can't make someone's open their mind if they don't want to.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - wombatmobile 5y ago
    To help people understand something they've never experienced, stay within their own frame of reference. That's all they've got to work with, because they don't know what they haven't experienced. To explain poverty to a middle class Californian, frame it in culture terms that are familiar, but which still reach the same class of emotional experience you want them to understand. e.g. Have you ever gone shopping at The Gap for jeans with a bunch of pals, and they take forever to decide which 12 pairs of jeans they're going to get, but you only take like 20 minutes because you can only afford 4 pairs? You know how that feels? They'll catch on.
    - 5y ago

loopz 5y ago

India has lots of villages, slums and people in between having very poor material standards compared to Western countries. But people are also much more interconnected, rely on each other and find ways to get by. So to get that culture, you have to spend at least 6 months and really get to know what family values are, and how things tend to work out. It's very different than the lonely individualist countries. Many Indians actually move back home to be with family and friends! So superficial analyses may just not be very recognizable to the population, because of very different value systems and nuances.

sombremesa 5y ago
That's very true, but I think it's possible to a) have a fact-based approach without being superficial, and b) communicate cultural context without having to plumb the depths of the human condition. Were it necessary to cover the subtle nuances of Eastern and Western culture, it would be hard to get anywhere with prose. I think it's sufficient to convey enough information to demonstrate that the value systems and lived experiences are fundamentally different. The goal is not to "level the playing field" in terms of where people are coming from, but to foster more meaningful discussions by explicitly taking context into account.
- fragmede 5y ago
  But it takes the plumbing the depths of the human condition to realize that we're not actually a that different, and that the fundamentals are the SAME. Airy eloquent prose may not have the same effect on the data driven as hard metrics, but comparing $20,000 (US) a year to the equivalent of $1 US a day, without capturing, in prose, that person in the US below the poverty line may be going hungry more days a week, and is more exposed to the elements, and more likely to be harrassed by police/others and more likely to die, is superficial. Prose is what's needed to communicate effectively. Tables and charts simply can't do that by themselves. Even they need a legend and labels to be useful.
euske 5y ago
Personally, that's the biggest lesson that I got from traveling in India. There's no question that people's living standard needs to be improved there, but I saw something that's lacking in a developed country (especially in the country I live): mutual help, or the "love your neighbor" mindset. I hope that tradition last long.
- altantiprocrast 5y ago
  As someone who immigrated to the US from India, and was a 'stereotypical nerd' (being on HN duh) nosy neighbors seem nice on the outside but it can get old really quick. (Unless you're perfectly average for the community you live in). I much prefer making friends at work or other common interest places rather than neighbors or family who randomly happen to be next to you.
  - fakedang 5y ago
    Tbh anyone nosy. Every time I visit my parents back home, I realize how exasperatingly nosy they are. They can't stick to minding their own business, and honestly it's something that they picked up with age - I guess to be a part of the general "community". And the amount of mental gymnastics they perform to analyze trivial mind-numbing stuff.... I guess it's something that's as ingrained in the Indian psyche as turmeric is in Indian cuisine.
    - loopz 5y ago
      Same with age here in Europe. I believe they call it family, ugh! ;)

DoreenMichele 5y ago

I'm a former military wife. Just trying to explain how military life is different to other Americans was insanely hard. I lived in the same country. I used the same currency. I spoke the same language. Yet my life was not like that of civilians I knew and their underlying assumptions and mine that informed our decisions just did not match up to such a degree that I eventually stopped trying to explain my life choices even to people quite close to me who simply did not get the context and that their decision-making matrix and mine were largely unrelated. I wish you luck in trying to figure out how to do this.

sombremesa 5y ago
Thanks...I think I'm going to give up before I even start. The gap is far wider than I had ever imagined.
alisonkisk 5y ago
It's not possible to make people understand. You can try it understand others, and some others can try to understand you, but you can't make someone's open their mind if they don't want to.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  To help people understand something they've never experienced, stay within their own frame of reference. That's all they've got to work with, because they don't know what they haven't experienced. To explain poverty to a middle class Californian, frame it in culture terms that are familiar, but which still reach the same class of emotional experience you want them to understand. e.g. Have you ever gone shopping at The Gap for jeans with a bunch of pals, and they take forever to decide which 12 pairs of jeans they're going to get, but you only take like 20 minutes because you can only afford 4 pairs? You know how that feels? They'll catch on.
  - 5y ago