Haugen--Intercultural Friendship!

CAPS 6

            In describing intercultural friendships, Martin and Nakayama create a paradox when they explain that individuals befriend people who are similar to themselves, yet opposite personalities attract one another (393). I believe the authors nailed the description of Western culture friendships. I immediately imagined the dozens of superficial greetings exchanged on the University campus each morning. Americans are spontaneous and frequent friend-makers. In some ways we benefit from this tendency because it’s quite easy to find someone to go have a drink with you on Friday night, but the superficiality proves troublesome when crises happen and only the closest friends remain.

            I have one particularly awesome intercultural friendship that I’d like to share with you all. During my semester abroad in Spain I grew close with my host mommy, the fabulous Mama Rosa! Rosa is a wonderful, outgoing and hilarious woman who is fortunate enough to live along the Mediterranean coast in Málaga (southern Spain). Lookit how adorable she is!

          Mama Rosa and I bonded over a shared love of coffee, travel, family and good movies. We’d stay up late watching Spanish flicks and talking about life. Our family histories, we found, are remarkably similar as are our personalities and senses of humor.

          Our differences are visible, but irrelevant in my mind. The communication dialects that came to mind are the Cultural-Individual dialect and the Static-Dynamic. Mama Rosa, as the surname suggests, is quite a bit older than I—old enough to be my mother. Our relationship, however, isn’t so maternal. Rather, we act like straight-up amigas having beers and tanning on the beach. Observe:

          The other major difference lies in language in culture. I attribute most of my Spanish capabilities to this woman and her awesome (sometimes crass) vocabulary. Rosa also taught me a great deal about Spanish culture, and I a fair amount about American culture. Our friendship, then, consists of various cross-cultural references. For instance, we love dancing to Train or Amy Winehouse while drinking Cartojal, a sinfully delicious Spanish wine.

          Though we live so far from each other, Facebook is essential to the maintenance of our friendship. We share weekly happenings, talk about the fam, boys, what have you. I was lucky enough to get to return to Spain this past summer, so we got to reinvigorate our relationship even more. In the meantime, however, our relationship changes and remains strong through the use of technology. For example, my best friend (and fellow roomie at Rosa’s crib ) and I made a fantastic video for her to let her know about the things we missed. The video’s in Spanish, but I’m sure you could get the gist of what’s going on.

It's this link!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQhPzwEqVJA&feature=youtu.be

In conclusion, intercultural friendships are extremely useful in overcoming social anxieties, ditching stereotypes, increasing cultural awareness and establishing meaningful connections with people you might not have gotten to know. I'd like to wrap this up with a humorous jab at cultural integration & stereotypes. Thanks, FailBlog!

Works cited:

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2011). Intercultural Communication in Contexts (5th ed). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.