Cultural Differences In Interpersonal Relationships English Language Essay

What is your friendship style. It is probably different for each one of you and you all have your own friendship style as well. Friendship consist of mutual liking, trust, respect, tolerance, and often even love and acceptance under any conditions. They are established usually on the basis of similarities or common ground between the individuals. Friendship in real life may involve intimate touching between individuals. We can be a friend no matter what reasons. It does not matter where we from, which countries. Therefore, I would want to discuss about the difference between friendship styles with cultural background especially, cultural differences in interpersonal relationships.

Many foreigner comers to the United States mention that people from US do not know what true friendship is. Americans seem very friendly at first time, but the friendships do not forward to another step. Americans are usually very friendly and kind to people eventhough they are not really close with, and they also being more generous in what others talk about than people are from many other countries. Because of this, it can be make someone to confuse who comes from a country where people are deserved first. It may seem like some difficulty to other people who from many other countries.

2 Case descriptions

Steve and Yarer first met in their chemistry class at an American university. Yarer was a student from Jordan. He was excited to get to know an American; he wanted to learn more about American culture and hoped that he and Steve would become good friends. At first, Steve seemed very friendly. He always greeted Yarer warmly before class. Sometimes he offered to study with Yarer. He even invited Yarer to eat lunch with him. But after the semester was over, Steve seemed more distant. The two former classmates didn’t see each other very much at school. One day Yarer decided to call Steve. Steve didn’t seem very interested in talking to him. Yarer was hurt by Steve’s change of attitude. “Steve said we were friends”, Yarer complained. “And I said friends forever.”

What was wrong in the relationship between Yarer and Steve? Are Americans fickle? Why did Yarer feel confused? Because he is an outsider to American culture, he doesn’t understand the way Americans view friendship. Americans use the word “friend” in a very general way. They may call both acquaintances and close companions

“Friends”. Americans have school friends, work friends, sports friends and neighbourhood friends. These friendships are based on common interests. When the shared activity ends, the friendship may fade.

3 Analysis and solutions of the case

3.1 Problems and underlying cultural differences

As you can see this case, there is one big problem. Steve and Yarer they did not understand their cultural background. Understanding one’s cultural background is not easy and simple. However, if you want to make effort to make a friend, you should know about his or her cultural differences. What is the most important point to considered an appropriate topic to discuss about with your friends from many other countires. Many international students said that they do not know how to make a good conversation with Americans and suffered from make a friend in US, because of a lack of understanding one’s cultural factors like background information.

People from different cultures have different organizations of interpersonal relationships and they have different expectations of people in the same category. As you know, Steve is from US. He seemed very friendly at first time, but it did not go for long relationship. So Yarer disappointed about Steve’s behave and he confused why Steve changed. From this case, we can find out what is American friendship style like.

According to Cornell University international student and scholars office department, they mentioned that what is American friendship like. The American pattern shows typical Americans friendships are like they initially kind at first time because they do not really put any meaning to word ‘friend’. For instance, in US, word “friend” mean anything like many kinds of friend. There could be work friend, study friend, gym friend and so on. Therefore you do not have to put a big meaning to be a friend. Just try to get use to their friendship style because we all have other kinds of friendship style depends on what countries we are from.

3.2 Solutions and recommendations

Your friendship and the way you look at friendships will be influenced by your culture. In cultures around the earth we observe friendship defined by the way people interact with each other, how they display their affection toward close and loving friends. But the word “friend” has different meanings in different countries. The misunderstanding about friend during intercultural communication sometimes may hurt one’s feeling and cause in bad effects as well.

Many international newcomers or students feel very disappointed that they do not know Americans well. Here are some advices:

– Even though you wish that Americans will invite you to come over and hang it out to get to know each other, do not take it seriously. They may not put any meaning of it. Just try to take it as a refuse to your request. Take the first step as make you to get close with them. Do not be frustrated to ask about certain thing that you need to know.

– talk with them with interesting topics. Such as talk about your country, cultural background and etc. They will interest to those topics because differences between culture factors always sounds fun.

-Approach to them with your own friendship style. Do not frustrated to talk to them and shared your thinking. They will welcome what you think about them and care about them as well.

– If you want to be a good friend, just show them your true heart. It will bring out a trustworthy friendship to you

If you think too much to make friend from many other countries, it will not forward to another steps to move on. You should act with confidence. And do not forget you should try to know other people’s cultural background. Also, you need to understand and respect their cultural background.

4 Conclusion

The meaning of friendship may give everyone to interest but it also sort of difficult to describe. Communication style differences can also bring out misunderstandings about the other person’s intentions and purpose. A main point to having successful intercultural relationship is establishing an effective relational culture. It is true that understanding one’s cultural background is sort of difficult however; we should put our effort to make a good relationship with people from many other countries. If you want to maintain a good friendship with others, you should respect others first and approach to them with your true heart. People from many other countries may have different friendships between you have so we should prepare to comprehend other’s cultural fact and background information. Like any other friendship, intercultural friendships still hold a lot of uniqueness. In fact, friendship rules are individually negotiated so that no two friendships are alike. We create our own relational culture that determines whether we will be successful.

5 Literature

http://www.silvaultramindsystem.com: The Silva Method’s latest and most up to date program for training your intuition

http://www.china-nafsa.aief-usa.org/chpter3.pdf

http://www.friendship.com.au/

http://www.helium.com/knowledge/143177-what-is-friendship