15.2 Don’t Be Rude: The Dangers of Intercultural Communication

Many travelers have similar stories of inadvertently being rude, despite good intentions. One of the main complaints of people all over the world is how rude others can be, but that rudeness may not be due to thoughtlessness or self-centeredness; it is often just the result of an inability to understand the culture of the place you’re visiting. Being able to speak the local language is one thing, but even if you get the words right, you can still miss nuances that make all the difference between effective communication and disaster.

BBC correspondent Susannah Rigg tells the story of asking for chocolate ice cream from a street vendor in Guadalajara, Mexico. When the vendor said they were out of chocolate, she asked when more would arrive. The vendor replied “ahorita,” and Rigg knew Spanish well enough to know that that word meant ”right now” on the denotative level [LINK TO CHAPTER 10.D]. That put Rigg in a small dilemma: if a vendor says a shipment is going to arrive ”right now,” is it rude to walk away? She waited half an hour before asking again if the ice cream was on its way, and the vendor again replied “ahorita,” this time dragging out the ‘i’ sound, with an expression on his face that was “a mix of confusion and maybe even embarrassment.” She continued to wait, but eventually gave up and left, and when she signaled to the vendor that she was going, he looked even more confused.

Rigg writes: “[C]racking what I came to call the ‘ahorita code’ took not a fluency in the language, but rather a fluency in the culture.” She learned from a Mexican linguistics professor, Dr. Concepcion Company, that “When a Mexican says ‘ahorita,’ it could mean tomorrow, in an hour, within five years or never,” depending entirely on context. What Rigg failed to pick up is that when the vendor stretched out the i in “ahoriiiiiiiita,” the length of the vowel was meant to signal to her not to bother waiting. If this sounds confusing to an English speaker, imagine a non-native speaker trying to sort out when “yeah, right” is a straightforward confirmation and when it is a sarcastic way of saying “I don’t believe you,” which also might come down to exactly how long the ‘i’ sound is.

Obviously, learning the finer points of cultural interpretation takes years, so what can one book chapter hope to accomplish? I won’t set my sights too high: I’ll just try to bring a few basic concepts to light, and include a reading list for those who want to learn more [SEE BOX 15.2]. First, let’s talk about stereotypes.