Intercultural self-awareness

As some of you may know (well, none of you), I come from a far, far land called Macedonia. Before you ask, Google it.

In order to present myself, I will just post an assignment I was given in class today. Basically the assignment was to describe your culture (copy it from Geert Hofstede’s web site – now, you should really look that up!) and compare your own, well, subjective culture with your country’s’ and see how they differ. Without further ado, these are my perceptions.

With regards to the scores from the countries and with as much as educated and objective comparison as possible, I wrote up these scores for Macedonia and for myself:

	PD	IND	MAS	UA
Macedonia	75	35	42	75
Me	42	60	40	40

(PD) Power distance factor explanation:
With a supposed score of 75, Macedonia ranks rather high on the Power distance scale. The score would be even higher if we take the current culture in Macedonia in account. In short, less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally, which is quite disappointing for me, since I put my PD at 42.

People in Macedonia accept a hierarchical order as a norm, centralization is popular (almost everything happens in the capital), subordinates (blindly) expect to be told what to do and the ideal boss is a benevolent autocrat. Even though in my personal view, a benevolent autocrat (or oligarchy) is a fine solution, I do question authority and more often than not have little patience for it. For an example, I would never obey an order without question, especially if assertively given, unless maybe if the order is given by a highly proven and competent person (in my eyes).

(IND) Individualism factor explanation:
I ranked Macedonia on 35 because nowadays people are more individualistic, but nevertheless, extended family and friends of family are held in high regard and loyalty is expected from you, just because someone is part of your extended family or circle of acquaintances. Macedonians care a lot about their circles and regard these connections as paramount. They use it often as a way to get a job, or keep one. I on the other hand mostly care about my self-made close circle of friends and think that being in someone’s close circle is a prerogative and not a birth right. Moreover, I dislike being put in a box, or in a group, mostly to avoid being defined and constrained (read: judged), if my own actions don’t do well in accordance to the groups’. So, I differ.

(MAS) Masculinity factor explanation:
Macedonians definitely work in order to live, as in work as less as possible to be paid as much as possible. They are quite cost-efficient that way. Conflict is frowned upon, excelling is not encouraged and teachers usually commend the pupil that is silent and still does a good job. On the other hand, status plays a part and there can be competition, so I guess a score of 42 would be proper.

I don’t contrast much, but only for different reasons. I do value accomplishments and success, but I only measure them by my possibilities and competencies. I dislike competition for the sake of it – I prefer playing the game. I love to work, but I see work as a vital part of life – not as something to do while you are living so you can live better. So life > work, but work is very important to me. In conclusion, I come across assertive and masculine, but my internal system of values gravitates towards feminine.

(UA)Uncertainty Avoidance factor explanation:
The way that Macedonians deal with ambiguity is to perpetuate the status quo that ambiguity brought and not move from there. But, after several changes in the history and several ambiguous status quo, Macedonians learned to face uncertainty more certain and to be less avoidant. So, after being faced with several uncertain times, they learned to cope with it better, albeit they still pretty much hold their orthodox beliefs and institutions in high regard (although seldom practice them). Similar to Albania, even though the focus is on planning, more often than not, it goes back to improvising and innovating (if one can say it like that) on the spot.

Unlike most of the Macedonians, I personally do like new, ambiguous, yet-to-be defined concepts, possibilities and ideas. Moreover, challenging the norm is something that is very appealing to me and finding ways of improvement has always been my strong suit (apparently being modest isn’t). The notion of security I have approached from a naïve standpoint, as in – nothing bad will happen to me if I am a good person. Naïve, but it serves me well.

Conclusion
Nobody can escape their culture, nor they should. But having your own opinions is important. Outgrowing your culture and having thinking critically about the world around you is paramount. Being a part of a culture is a part of who you are, but it doesn’t define you. Knowing more about cultures can help us understand people better, but that doesn’t mean that we know or understand them. It takes much more.