Culture Pulse – Build Your Cultural Skills Through Awareness

Empathy towards different cultures is a vital part of all cross-cultural communication.

Some people think that empathy means that you need to like people of different cultures.  And this poses a problem, because you do not have much control over who you like, do you?

But this is not quite exact.  Here is an oversimplified definition of empathy…

• Empathy = Understanding

And you can then say…

• Understanding = Knowledge

Empathy requires an intimate understanding of different cultures.  And when you have an intimate understanding of people your resistance to liking them usually disappears.

It is much easier to build knowledge than it is to start liking someone who seems so different and who you do not understand.

There are quite a few starting places to build your understanding of different cultures.

One of the very first things you can do from an international business perspective  is to know the different cultural events and national holidays.

This year I will be tweeting as many cultural dates, events, milestones as I find… with a monthly listing here on the first weekend of every month.

I was going to exclude all religious events, simply because this is not a discussion I want to start here. This blog is focused on cross-cultural skills for international business.

But you do need to be aware of different religious holidays when doing business in these countries. And these events have a place here, strictly for this reason.

If I have missed any events, please let me know in the comment section below.

January 2009 Cultural

5 January 2009

• Mungday – on the Discordian calendar
• Twelfth Night – Christian

6 January 2009

• Epiphany – Christian
• Christmas- Armenian Church

7 January 2009

• Christmas – Coptic Church
• Christmas – Orthodox Christian
• Ashura – Islam

10 January 2009

• Sydney Festival

12 January 2009

• Coming of Age Day – Japan

13 January 2009

• 12th Annual Rainbow Push Wall Street Project Economic Summit
  Organizers: Rainbow/PUSH
  Location: New York City
  Telephone: +1 212-425-7874
  www.rainbowpush.org

• 13th Annual Urban Wheel Awards
  Organizers: On Wheels, Inc.
  Location: Detroit
  Telephone: +1 313-963-2209,
  www.urbanwheelawards.com

14 January 2009

• Old New Year - Orthodox

14-29 January 2009

• 18th Annual New York Jewish Film Festival
  Organizers: Film Society of Lincoln
  Location: New York City
  Telephone: +1 212-423-3337
  www.filmlinc.com

18 January 2009

• World Religion Day – 80 countries

19 January 2009

• Martin Luther King Day – US
• Epiphany – Coptic Orthodox

20 January 2009

• Inaugural Day – US

25 January 2009

• My birthday – Look up your birth date
• Burns Night – Scotland

26 January 2009

• Australia Day
• Chinese New Year
• Vietnamese New Year

27 January 2009 “

• DiversityInc Webinar Series: Talent Development
  Organizers: DiversityInc,
  Location: Online Webinar
  Telephone: +1 973-494-0542
  www.diversityinc.com/products/item66.cfm

28 January – 1 February 2009

• Transmediale.09
  Location: House of World Cultures, Berlin
  www.transmediale.de

31 January 2009

• National Day – Nauru
• Vasant Panchami – Hindu
• 110th Golden Dragon Parade and Festival
  Organizers: KSCI-TV and Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles
  Location: Los Angeles Chinatown
  Telephone: +1 213-617-0396
  www.lachinesechamber.org/calendar.html

Sources

The cultural events taking place in the USA are thanks to the 2009 Multicultural Calendar from Multicultural Marketing Resources, Inc., NYC

If you have a calender of cultural events, please let me know.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Cultural Awareness Calendar – January 2009