Yes I can confirm that I was the person Constance got the anecdote from. It was also my belief at the conference and at the time I spoke with Constance that participants were monitored for community health, because I understood that community health 1) had an objective of making sure the event is welcoming and considerate, 2) had power to not admit participants to future events, and 3) had staff walking around the venue looking for something. From other commenters I learned that 3) was false (they were looking for trash, not monitoring interactions).
So re information lost, I want to be clear that nothing was lost when it’s relayed to Constance. I wrongly believed monitoring had taken place and told her just that in our chat.
Re your comment about calling someone pretty: it was meant to be an example of how cross-cultural understanding was difficult. It was the first example that came to mind when I wrote my comment, but certainly not the only example. I thought it was a good example to make the point that normal social interactions in one culture could be considered deeply inappropriate or offensive in a different culture.
Coming back to your comment that “a guy just go up to a random girl on the street and complement her looks, yes that’s considered offensive”. I’d like to refer you to this blog post (may not be the best source, I just Googled it) where it is mentioned that “people in China often address women who they don’t know” “beautiful woman” or “beautiful girl” to create connections and make the person being addressed to feel good. So in the example I gave, whether the person was a good friend of mine would not have mattered.
Just to clarify, my point was that the ‘whether the person was a good friend’ part mattered for the question of whether you were told an accurate statement about what’s ‘offensive’ in the West. This question doesn’t rely on anything that’s true of any other culture, so I’m a bit confused why you mentioned the China example?
Re the communication between you and Constance, that’s my bad. I had understood your comment of “but I hope it’s clear from what I described that the current measure can easily let all interactions feel monitored [emphasis mine]” (in your initial comment before the clarification from others about the trash issue etc) to mean that you were already aware from not long after the experience that monitoring hadn’t actually taken place. ie that the issue you wanted to raise was about CEA staff was that they didn’t consider how easily others would perceive their actions as monitoring.
The point of the example in my original comment is to demonstrate that well-accepted social norms in one culture can be deemed offensive in another.
Your counterargument is that 1) the conclusion is drawn from only one example, and 2) even that example could be due to the person who gave me the feedback misunderstood the situation, ie my example was bad luck and not generally applicable.
In my reply to your counterargument, my claim of this being just one but not the only example is the response to 1). And the China example is the response to 2), that is, even if she were a new EA I just met for the first time, I could still have remarked on her good appearance, a polite and friendly gesture in my local culture, and be correctly deemed offensive by someone from the West. Therefore the main story line in my example still holds and is representative of difficult multi-cultural situations.
Hi Rebecca,
Yes I can confirm that I was the person Constance got the anecdote from. It was also my belief at the conference and at the time I spoke with Constance that participants were monitored for community health, because I understood that community health 1) had an objective of making sure the event is welcoming and considerate, 2) had power to not admit participants to future events, and 3) had staff walking around the venue looking for something. From other commenters I learned that 3) was false (they were looking for trash, not monitoring interactions).
So re information lost, I want to be clear that nothing was lost when it’s relayed to Constance. I wrongly believed monitoring had taken place and told her just that in our chat.
Re your comment about calling someone pretty: it was meant to be an example of how cross-cultural understanding was difficult. It was the first example that came to mind when I wrote my comment, but certainly not the only example. I thought it was a good example to make the point that normal social interactions in one culture could be considered deeply inappropriate or offensive in a different culture.
Coming back to your comment that “a guy just go up to a random girl on the street and complement her looks, yes that’s considered offensive”. I’d like to refer you to this blog post (may not be the best source, I just Googled it) where it is mentioned that “people in China often address women who they don’t know” “beautiful woman” or “beautiful girl” to create connections and make the person being addressed to feel good. So in the example I gave, whether the person was a good friend of mine would not have mattered.
Hi Jonathan, thanks for your response.
Just to clarify, my point was that the ‘whether the person was a good friend’ part mattered for the question of whether you were told an accurate statement about what’s ‘offensive’ in the West. This question doesn’t rely on anything that’s true of any other culture, so I’m a bit confused why you mentioned the China example?
Re the communication between you and Constance, that’s my bad. I had understood your comment of “but I hope it’s clear from what I described that the current measure can easily let all interactions feel monitored [emphasis mine]” (in your initial comment before the clarification from others about the trash issue etc) to mean that you were already aware from not long after the experience that monitoring hadn’t actually taken place. ie that the issue you wanted to raise was about CEA staff was that they didn’t consider how easily others would perceive their actions as monitoring.
Hi Rebecca,
The point of the example in my original comment is to demonstrate that well-accepted social norms in one culture can be deemed offensive in another.
Your counterargument is that 1) the conclusion is drawn from only one example, and 2) even that example could be due to the person who gave me the feedback misunderstood the situation, ie my example was bad luck and not generally applicable.
In my reply to your counterargument, my claim of this being just one but not the only example is the response to 1). And the China example is the response to 2), that is, even if she were a new EA I just met for the first time, I could still have remarked on her good appearance, a polite and friendly gesture in my local culture, and be correctly deemed offensive by someone from the West. Therefore the main story line in my example still holds and is representative of difficult multi-cultural situations.