Learn a New Culture: Julien S. Bourrelle (Full Transcript)

Yeah? Greetings is the outer shelf of culture, and this is one of the first challenges you will meet changing culture.

People like to call me the rocket scientist, which is not entirely true. I studied Astrodynamics, which is a sub-field of mechanical engineering, studying the rigid body motion of human made spacecraft outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Something quite different than culture and social anthropology.

Yet, it is through studying rocket science that I’ve learned about culture. When I was 20 years old, I had never been outside Canada and I could only speak French.

10 years later, I had lived in five different countries and learned four new languages. And in each of these countries, I’ve made a conscious effort to observe how people behaved and communicated, and adapt my own behaviors and ways to communicate to these people so that they feel comfortable around me.

And this is what I’m trying to do today; that’s the reason I’m here today and the reason why I wake up every morning. I go around the world, helping people to communicate across cultures. I help people to see the behaviors of others, not based on what it means in their own culture but based on what it means in the cultures of others.

I was in the very remote region in Sichuan province in China. I was sitting in a bus in the morning and the bus was starting to drive. It was pretty empty when I sat in but then suddenly, people started to come in. And at one point, it was completely full. And a woman that was older than me, came into the bus.

Since I was born and raised in a Latin culture, my mom had always told me to leave my seat for women. And so, I stood up and I indicated, she could sit. And then she said, ‘No.’

And since I had been living in certain countries in Europe and learned that when a woman says no like this, you should just sit down in silence and look down and don’t say anything, yeah?

So, I did that, but then something very special happened. She looked at me, she smiled, and then she sat on me. But not only did she sit on me; in that part of China, people don’t have hair on their arms. So, she was sitting on me, pulling my hair and laughing about it with everyone else in the bus.

As you can imagine, this did not feel very comfortable for me but it seemed to be quite comfortable for her because she sat there for half an hour, yeah? And everyone was laughing. So I thought, ‘Okay Julien, just try to enjoy the moment.’ And so I started to laugh with them.

And you know, well, it was a long bus drive and what that meant was that two families felt very comfortable and they ended up inviting me for dinner that night when we arrived to the village, and I ended up to stay over a couple of nights at one of the family, because I’ve managed to put myself in a situation that was uncomfortable for me and become comfortable, so the locals felt that they were much closer to me.

And this is what we’re trying to do when we learn a new culture: it’s about learning to be comfortable in what is uncomfortable.

How is it possible that it is more comfortable for a Chinese woman to sit on a stranger than it is for us to sit next to someone that we’ve been commuting with for years but never talk to?

Personal space is very cultural. No? But what is culture? Culture is our mental programming. This is our mental programming that tells us what is good behaviors or bad behaviors, wanted or unwanted behaviors; what we should do or don’t do; what is welcome and not welcome.

And now I’m not just talking about national cultures, we also have sub-culture; it could be an organizational culture, the culture you have within a company or an organization, or it could be also a different culture in different social economy group within the same society.

And all of these groups, all of these cultures have rituals and have norms that we need to respect. And if you want to feel part of that group, you need to adapt your own behaviors to that one group.

There’s the outer shelf of culture and there’s also the inner shelf of culture. The outer shelf is everything we can see; the non-verbal, the verbal. The inner self is more of the values, the logic of socialization; how we understand in a deeper way, the cultures we’re interacting with.

I was invited to a wedding in Switzerland and it was a Swiss German girl that was marrying a Lebanese man. And when I came into the church, the two families were sitting there. On the one side was the Swiss German family; they were all sitting in silence, looking straight, waiting for the ceremony to start. On the other side was the Lebanese family.

Before their ceremony even started, the women were crying, the men were talking loudly, the kids were running around. It looked a little bit like this. If you’ve been to a multicultural wedding, you may relate quite easily. You could feel the cultural tension, the cultural differences.

Actually, in the middle of the ceremony when the man kneels down to put the ring in his wife’s finger, three people from the Lebanese side jumped on stage to take a picture of the man kneeling down, to the great despair of the Swiss German well-behaved family.

But luckily that evening, the Lebanese people had brought musical instrument. While they started to play, the Swiss German started to drink. And within a few hours, the Swiss Germans were dancing on the table, on the Lebanese beat; and they’ve been dancing there up until four o’clock the next morning, and both family lived happily since then.

And now, this is what we try to do to bridge culture; we try to find these musical instruments that will make people jump on table and dance on table. We need to try to find these tools that make people understand the world and connect, despite the cultural differences.

And this is a lot about emotion. If you come from a culture where the emotion is very obvious, when you meet someone and you’re very happy, you’re showing it to the person; you’re showing you’re very happy, maybe you’re going to hug the person. You’re showing it very clearly. If you’re angry, you’re going to do the same; you’re going to show that you’re angry and the person will see it very clearly.

So, if you come from a culture like this and you move into a culture where emotions are much more subtle, and you try to interpret the behaviors of others, it may look something like this for you.

So you see that maybe the person is very happy or very angry, however, based in your own cultural perspective, you won’t be able to identify that, because happiness and being angry is expressed in such a much more obvious part. So, you may end up to completely misinterpret the emotional feedback you get from another person.

The key here is to observe and pick up what are the subtle differences; and it’s also to see the world, not based on what it means in your own culture but based on what it means in the cultures of others.

The lens through which your brain sees the world shapes your reality. If you can change the lens, not only can you change the way you perceive other people’s behaviors but you can allow yourself to see the world in someone else’s perspective. And if we manage to do this, we’re going to manage to solve some of the biggest problems we’re facing in society today, which is to make multicultural organization in society work well.

I like to see cultures as extremes, or I like to represent extremes of culture so that people see the differences. And today, I’m going to be using fruits to sort of express different type of culture, extremes of culture.

So, the first one is the warm culture; it is the culture which is very soft from the outside; you feel very welcomed. And I want to use the Peach to represent this. And we can think here about, for example, an American woman, you don’t know her very well and she wants to show that she’s happy to see you so she will be doing something like, “Oh my God! I’m so happy to see you.” And come closer to you, maybe hug you and say, “You know that I love you.” And you feel very soft and she really wants you to be there; and so that’s the soft culture.

The other culture I like to represent is the coconut culture. In a coconut culture, it is different; it’s a bit of the faces we saw just now. It’s much more subtle emotions; you have more physical distance; you may not invite people easily to your activity; there’s a distance. Actually, these are the cultures that very often we consider as cold culture.

But these people are not cold; it’s just that it takes more time to build up trust to actually get to know the people. Once you crack their cold after a few months or a few years, yeah? You’re coming into that coconut and it’s beautiful inside; it’s great inside a coconut. It’s the same in this culture.

In the peach culture, when you try to get to know the person, very often you’re going to hit the stone and it’s actually quite difficult to get to know these people. So, it’s just an inversion.

Being aware of this, when you move to a different culture, when you try to learn a different culture, will give you tools not to misinterpret the behaviors of others.

Up until now, I’ve been concentrating on the outer shelf of culture, I want to finish on something which is much deeper into us; our value.

And to try to represent this, I will talk about equality. Most of the world believes that we should have a certain level of equality. Actually, most of the world believes that we should have a certain level of equality of opportunities.

But what does that mean? The meaning changes a lot, depending on which culture you’re in; one culture may see equality of opportunity as providing the same resources to everyone. Something like this. So, whatever you’re potential, you’re going to provide the same resources so that everyone can flourish to their full potential.

Other cultures around the world, the equality of opportunity doesn’t mean this; what it means is that we’re going to help those who are struggling, the weak in society, so that at any point in time, they will have the same opportunity to succeed as the one that are the strong.

Another representation of equality of opportunity would be, maybe where I am more from, where you will put a threshold and you will say, for example, in the education system you will say, “If you get straight A’s, if you’re in the top 5% of the class, you’re going to get this amazing scholarship to go to this amazing university.” Yeah, you interpret that. It’s the same opportunity for everyone to get that scholarship; you just need to get good grades, right?

But yet, only the strongest people would get that, and then they will get all the resources funneled towards these that have managed to get that threshold.

Now, when you come from a society like this, where the strongest people are being pushed forward, and you come into a society where we have a tendency to help the weak, you may find a lot of frustration because you’re used to working very hard and then getting a reward, because you work very hard.

But in these cultures, if you work very hard, maybe we’re going to give the reward to those who are struggling because this is our understanding of equality.

Challenge yourself to see the world in the perspective of others. Challenge yourself to be more aware of your own biases, of your own expectations, and in the way you perceive other people’s behaviors. If we all do this, we’re going to solve some of the biggest challenges our societies and generations is facing.

Thank you.

SUMMARY OF THIS TALK:

Julien S. Bourrelle’s TEDx Talk titled “Learn a New Culture” discusses about cultural differences and the challenges of adapting to new cultures. In this presentation, Julien shares personal experiences and anecdotes to illustrate various cultural norms and practices. Here’s a summary of the key points from the talk:

1. Greetings and Cultural Differences: Julien starts by highlighting how greetings can vary across cultures. In Spain, for example, people exchange friendly “Hola!” greetings in shops, while in Norway, greetings are more purposeful and might involve starting a conversation.

2. Cultural Rituals and Norms: Julien emphasizes that cultural norms and rituals can differ significantly from one place to another. He shares an example of leaving parties in a French-speaking part of Canada, where specific behaviors like shaking hands and kissing are expected.

3. Adapting to Different Cultures: Julien discusses his own journey of living in different countries, learning new languages, and adapting his behaviors to fit in and make others comfortable. He suggests that understanding and adapting to cultural behaviors is essential for effective communication.

4. Uncomfortable Situations in Cultural Exchange: Julien shares a story from China where a cultural misunderstanding led to an uncomfortable situation. He eventually found a way to embrace the moment and connect with the locals.

5. Cultural Programming: Julien defines culture as mental programming that shapes behaviors, values, and norms. He mentions that culture is not limited to national boundaries and can also exist within organizations or social groups.

6. Outer and Inner Culture: He distinguishes between the “outer shelf” of culture (observable behaviors) and the “inner shelf” (values and deeper understanding) and suggests that both are important to grasp when adapting to a new culture.

7. Bridge Cultural Differences: Julien explains the importance of finding tools or “musical instruments” that help people from different cultures connect and understand each other.

8. Emotions and Cultural Variations: He discusses how the expression of emotions varies across cultures and the challenges of interpreting subtle emotional cues when moving between cultures.

9. Changing Perspective: Julien encourages the audience to change their perspective and see the world through the lens of different cultures. He believes this can help solve societal challenges related to multiculturalism.

10. Extreme Cultural Representations: Julien uses the metaphor of fruits (peach and coconut) to represent warm and cold cultures, highlighting that cultural differences can lead to varying degrees of openness and trust.

11. Equality and Cultural Perspectives: Julien concludes by discussing the concept of equality and how it can be interpreted differently in various cultures. He emphasizes the importance of understanding these differences to avoid frustration and foster effective communication.

Overall, Julien’s presentation underscores the significance of cultural awareness and adaptability when interacting with people from diverse backgrounds. He encourages individuals to challenge their own biases and expectations to bridge cultural gaps and build more inclusive societies.

Resources for Further Reading:

Julien S. Bourrelle: How Culture Drives Behaviours at TEDxTrondheim (Transcript)

The Secret Life of Social Norms: Michele Gelfand (Transcript)

Full Transcript: Pellegrino Riccardi on Cross Cultural Communication at TEDxBergen

Canwen Xu: I Am Not Your Asian Stereotype at TEDxBoise (Transcript)

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