We have some insights on the importance of intercultural communication in the various contexts during class. So I am here to blog on some intercultural experiences I have gone through.
I used to work in an "authentic" Japanese restaurant and it was a real culture shock to me. I meant authentic because this particular Japanese restaurant (Santouka) is owned by the Japanese people and they have came all the way down to search for manpower for their first outlet in South East Asia. Nevertheless, the experience in Santouka was an unforgettable one.
Having worked various restaurants, I was impressed and sometimes found it awkward while working with the Japanese. There are times I was asked to do what the Japanese usually do back home. For example, the workers have to come half an hour earlier before work starts to begin greeting cheer as a form of encouragement. The Japanese also have a habit of slurping loudly during their consumption of food. Sometimes I found the habits redundant and could not understand the importance of practicing such routines in the local context.
However, I was pretty impressed by the Japanese's relentless attitude to maintain good food hygiene practices. The Japanese believe serving fresh food is the way to keep the restaurant running. To achieve the ideal temperature of the food, they actually monitor the temperature to maintain the standard they have set in Japan. So for example, if a bowl of soup was left for quite some time and the server was late to retrieve it, they would replace another bowl of soup instead. This was in contrast to many typical profit-driven companies found in Singapore where food wastage should be kept minimised.
Intercultural communication involves adjustment to other habits and culture. This is because people from different cultures use different signals to signify quite different things. So perhaps the Japanese feel that by coming early for greeting cheer is a form of motivation for workers but the locals may perceive as a waste of time and loss of payment which did not serve any motivation at all. Thus it is important to recognise that each culture has its own rules and customs to better improve intercultural communication.
