Collide

Somewhere along the line, our intended message is lost in translation.

We meant this, they perceived that. Even with ubiquitous communication technologies, with Edit button, Delete button and Comment option.

Quick to transmit. Too late to learn we are intrinsically different ( hence, the need for audience analysis, segmentation and not bunching different groups e.g. Asian American into a monolith).

People went to war (WWI) at times because of simple and rectifiable incidents. Other times, manufactured ones (currently).

Cultures do collide, just like cars. When they do, we have culture crash. With no junk yards, body shops or insurance deductible.

In Good Morning Vietnam, our D.J. protagonist eagerly went on a date with an ESL student. He was teaching her “Hello” and “Goodbye”, yet he did not know, he was the one who was supposed to learn the nuances of culture: her whole entourage showed up for the date. I know this well. I was once that little boy in the back seat of the car, playing chaperone on my sister’s frequent outings with her then, not-yet wedded husband.

In Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, Tina Fey and her Afghan interpreter saying goodbye without a hug: their hands touched discretely while he handed over her suitcase in front of those ever watching eyes of the Taliban-entourage at Kabul airport. With Vietnam and Afghan wars, Television and Twitter war respectively, behind us, we can improvise explosive device but we cannot change culture (the women of the village just did not want water into the home. Leave the village well alone . Why? they want to socialise, catch up on gossip and away from watching eyes of men).

Iran today, Saudi today and even Russia today. All come across as strange to American. What’s all the fuss about women driving, covering their heads and cutting their hairs in protest? Culture collide. We need to allow modernity to take its course. Its speed and spread most times, elicit our Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot (May I show you something? the Minister of Culture unveiled a hidden bed in his office. So much for Minister of Vices and Virtues, with American-back dollars).

The Culture Industrial Complex tells us everything is the same, yet everything changes. Pick and choose. Adapt and move on. Some entities might take centuries to come closer together (China vs Vietnam). Others, decades (EU). Most will never meet in the middle (Russia, China and US/EU). Why? Because we still operate on age-old patriarchal structure i.e. one ruler at the top. Command and Control structure doesn’t tolerate nuance and context. Binary is simpler, even machine can handle it. Either/Or. No wonder at the Paris Accord 73, the multiple factions could not agree on the shape of the negotiating table (round or rectangular).

Something always gets lost in translation, hence forced choice. Meanwhile, we’re born and brought up in sub-groups, within a larger group. At times, we wish we’re living in a melting pot. Other time, salad bowl. Currently, a Yin-Yang divide. Who is going to bridge the gap. Technology was designed to help, but it also speeds up mistakes (Reagan hot mike “we’re beginning to bomb Moscow in 5.” Likewise with Gary Hart or Alex Jones. After last year, Facebook and Twitter are no longer the only games in town.

John Keegan said of WWI : “All because most the July crisis were bound to the wheel of the written note, the encipherment routine, the telegraph schedule. The potentialities of the telephone, which might have cut across the barriers to communication, seem to have eluded their imaginative powers. The potentialities of radio, available but unused, evaded them altogether. In the event, the states of Europe proceeded, as if in a dead march and a dialogue of the deaf, to the destruction of their continent and its civilization.”

Bogged down with gears (materialism and efficiency) most of us don’t give enough attention to cultural differences. Just ask the volunteers during the Vietnam War, or Afghan War who came armed with idealism. Stove pipes. Shocked before surrendered.

A few months ago, I ran into an Afghan girl who volunteered as an interpreter for her people at a local Health Fair. I see myself in her (being one myself shortly after my arrival to Indiantown Gap, PA). I wish her the best. And that there wouldn’t be more of her (refugees of a future war). But then I know it’s just a fortune-cookies wish.

In life, people are lucky enough to get by. The poor shall always be with you. Who to help? Are they of an inferior race because they are poor? Instead of heart and hands, we offer guns, germs and steel. It’s always a complexity beyond any one person to solve. As at the end of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Tina Fey visited a wounded vet just to be told: something is always outside of our control. Move on.

My intended message is this (so we don’t misconstrue each other): you and I are different (background etc..). We told the “machine” what we Like after filling out an account with demographic details. It then tailors, limits and filters what we see, hear then repeat/rinse in a machine-generated hypnotic and hyper loop. No surprise we all grow narrow-minded over time, while tech connects and collects.

The 80% non-verbal cues are begging us to play culture detectives. They are more important than the verbalized 20% (tip of the iceberg). BTW, bring extra cash on your first date, if it’s across the cultures.

As a child, along on my sister’s date, I remember she had a fight, slammed the door and walked home. Leaving me stuck in the back seat with her date as my driver. I was in luck: he carried some cash since I wanted an ice-cream for my ordeal and for playing a reconciliatory role in the drama.