The Advantage of Cultural Knowledge

I’m right, culture knowledge certainly does help in doing business. I’ve always known this but have rarely found this fact so salient as it is now that I am working for a startup company in Silicon Valley in the States. Give me a Singaporean or someone who’s fairly familiar with Singapore or with whom I share some common interests with and I can banter around with that person like we have always been old friends. But recently, I’ve found out to my dismay that culture knowledge does make a difference (at least to a majority of people, am disregarding natural people charmers who can talk to anyone from whichever universe they’re from), albeit a slight one, in being able to truly connect with someone.

Here, “how are you” is a standard greeting to which one must reply along the lines of “good”, “fine”, “never been better” – AND ask the same question back at the person who queried you. What’s more, “have a good one”, “have a good day/afternoon/evening/weekend”, finishes every parting sentence spoken. But that, I’m sure isn’t that alien to us – it’s just how liberally the Americans use them.

But these are minor things. Some of the subject topics that one can bring up whilst in conversation to attempt to make a connection? The weather, horrid traffic conditions, speeding tickets (cops are omnipresent here), and what else have you. For ladies, shopping of course! The universal topic that brings a smile to every female’s face. I’m not a big fan myself, but when the mood strikes, the mood strikes *nods head knowingly*.

Advice: quickly scan your memories and overlap that with your assessment of the stranger whom you’re speaking to. Try to guess possible topics of interest that might be in common and start throwing your fishing line that way. If the stranger responds with merely a whimper, switch topics and creatively pull your fishing line into another way through which you think might stand a better chance of hooking the catch. It’s all about thinking on the spot whilst building up one’s knowledge base of what will and will-not work in connecting with different people of various cultures.

Unfortunately, the amount of knowledge gleaned need not necessarily be proportional to the amount of time spent in another country. If you’re a Singaporean just sitting your ass behind a computer 24/7 in France playing Solitaire without going out into society and meeting people, I can assure you that this loner is just a self-imposed pariah of societal knowledge. So, go out there and yield useful knowledge for your own benefit.

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