Question

Discuss a situation involving inter-cultural communication that you have either experienced or witnessed at work. Your discussion should include the parties involved , the issue(s), and how the situation was ultimately resolved

Answer 1

Since I was in the Army and had the privilege to do several tours overseas in countries like Korea, Germany I never had any real problems with intercultural communication. As of note, almost all countries their people speak English and very well.

The only situation I can think of with the inter-cultural communication was on my first deployment to Iraq. Being in a third world country that was deprived of many luxuries due to sanctions placed on the country based on the actions of their dictator.

At first, it was very hard when are unit went out into the countryside to little villages to provide basic necessities such as blankets, food, water, and medical supplies. The local villagers did not trust us at all. Many times, people would not come out to receive these supplies, it took several missions to these small towns for the people to warm up to us, outsiders in their country. All they saw was this big military machine that rid the country of the bad man called Saddam Hussam. They did not understand that their country had to be re-built and the military underestimated the devastation that the entire country had endured due to the sanctions.   

One time does come to mind when we had interpreters to assist with the language barrier. The people started to warm up to us. During one of our visits, I and several of my soldiers decided to take some bags of candy to pass out to the kids in the village. Well, these kids went crazy in a good way for a 5-pound bag of skittles. The soldier who was holding the bag had 5-7 kids jumping on him to give them the candy. The bag broke open and all the skittles fell into the sand. This did not stop the kids from eating candy. It was next time we went into the village and no kids where around, that is when we found out that during the night the bad guys went into the village and threatened the people and told them they would be killed if they open up to the Americans. So, for a month all the good work we had done went down the drain and for the next 8 months we never fully regained their trust.