Cultural Differences

I think I have experienced the meaning of 'cultural differences' at a very different level.

When working with overseas colleagues, we talk about the 'cultural difference' referring to work attitudes. When staying here in a different land, we discuss that in terms of traditions and habits. These are pretty superficial observations and probably dosent affect you emotionally. (Though of course, working together can sometimes be emotionally frustrating when you recognize the fact that not everyone does things the same way as you do.)

When mixing with the same classmates from totally different parts of the world, almost everyday, spend all the tea/lunch/short breaks together, communicating all the time at a personal level... 'cultural difference' is at a totally new level.. and may I say, a deeper level. Their reaction to events, their takes on topics, their management of emotions, their treatment of others etc etc. I cant explain this in detail, and I'm saying this because of a recent event that led to conflicts amongst others. Although the conflict was minor, it has magnify that intricateness of ethnic diversity.

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To share something light hearted. In Swedish, most of the verbs end with 'er' or 'ar'.
Eg. - skriver (write), tittar (look), talar (talk) ;
and some words are similar to English - dricker (drink), springer (run), studerar (study)

So today, Ihsan Jana Nattaya and I were chatting in Swedish (and all of us are better at English). Ihsan said " Lärare explainerar till mig att är det..." which translates to 'our teacher explained to us that...'

Nattaya and I were still blur blur, thinking we understood whatever he said.. and it took awhile before Jana exclaimed... hey, is there such a word called 'explainerar'! Ihsan had conveniently pieced together an English word and Swedish form together without realizing it!

Haha.. anyway, that's the problem we all have - mixing up English and Swedish all the time. Jana was complaining that she mixes up English/Swedish WITH German too!