Getting along better with other cultures?

Post Reply New Topic

So I am currently renting a room from a Chinese graduate student. She is a student in microbiology. I am yet to see how well she understands English: we haven't talked that much. But what I did notice is that she hasn't been having any friends over. Any time she is in the house, it is just her. And this really helps: because I don't have to envy as to why she has friends and I don't. She did, however, gave me some bed sheets that she picked up at some Chinese house she went to. So maybe my impression that she is just as friendless as me is not correct. But if they are all Chinese, and none of them have any non-Chinese friends, I won't be jealous about their friendships either. It would just be a little irrelevancy.

But then again, I remember a year ago I went to a restaurant where the waiter was Indian and I was thinking about him the same thing I was thinking about my current landlord. But then I noticed that he started laughing with other customers, just not me. And then I felt fooled. Because you see, when he was talking to me, I thought he had that thick Indian accent and could barely say a word. But then when he was laughing with those other customers, I would have assumed he was an American if I were to close my eyes. So was he just pretending to have that thick accent just to avoid me? That made me feel fooled. Here I was, thinking "finally soneone with even worse social skills than me so I don't have to feel bad" but then I realized "nope, he has better social skills than me, since he knows enough to avoid me".

I really hope that is not the case with my current landlord. But I have no idea, i only moved to her place slingtly over a week ago and I wasn't home that much. So who knows.

In high school during lunch I sat at the table of Koreans for 3 years. I'm not Asian, but they didn't seem to mind me.

Every time I'm at some social event, I'm always hanging out with the immigrants. I get along better with them.

A couple of things occur to me which may be relevant.

Firstly, immigrants are often 'outsiders' by their very nature. It's much easier to approach and engage someone who is alone than someone who is already in a protective social bubble.

Secondly, if you're from a different culture you have a certain expectation that people you meet will exhibit different behaviours. They may not know what's ASD behaviour and what's cultural behaviour so we might feel that there's an element of camouflage in that.

I noticed this too. I remember, on few rare occasions, when I saw American girl sitting alone (I mean the regular white girl, not an asian), I was noticing that she tried to look at me in a way that could be interpretted as subtly communicating she wanted to talk to me. And I kept asking myself "so why am I not approaching her?" Every time I made excuses to myself not to. But I have that nagging feeling that it would have been easier to approach those isolated women than others. Of course I can't actually know since I haven't tried either.

But this raises the obvious question: why is it people not approaching me for this very reason? If it is easier to approach someone by themselves and here I am always by myself, why aren't they approaching me? The obvious answer is that "yes it is easier, but they don't want to". Which is the exact reason why I am complaining: if nobody wants to talk to me, how am I supposed to feel?

Speaking of "protective social bubble", what does the word "protective" refer to? Does it by any chance refer to their friends warning them not to talk to me? If so, are you saying that naive reading of the situation isn't correct? My naive reading was that they saw my social signals and knew all on their own not to talk to me. But could it be that the actual situation is that they saw my social signals, discussed it with their friends, and their friends told them not to talk to me?

Or perhaps even they didn't discuss it with their friends but, instead, asked themselves "what would my friends say?" and got an answer.



But then the question is: since I am from Russian culture, why don't Americans assume that my behaiors are just a cultural difference? Could it be that

a) Americans know how other cultures are supposed to act since they have American culture as a point of comparison. But Asians don't have any point of comparison as they have cultural shock so to speak.

b) Both Americans and Asians can assume its cultural. But Asians are self-selected group that is open to other cultures, by the virtue of the fact that they traveled to America for that. Plus since they are "forced" to adjust to other cultures anyway, why not put one more culture on a list.

My wife is a Filipina. I get along better with her and her relatives than with anyone from my own Midwestern-American culture, and that includes my own relatives!

I guess that it may be because we expect to misunderstand each other, so we both try to take the time and make the effort to accommodate each other’s idiosyncrasies.

Illuminating the single most common factor in all your failed relationships - or failure to establish a relationship - maybe provide you with the answer to that question.

Last edited by Fnord on 18 Sep 2022, 11:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

Can you tell me what is that "single most important factor" in your opinion?

It is either every woman who has ever turned you down or ignored you completely, or it is you. Which do you think is more likely?

Both:

a) The common mindset of people (American culture/ Western culture / 21-st century culture / beliefs about Asperger / etc)

b) Me, in particular my Asperger

In any case, I know in your opinion its me. But can you be more specific: can you tell me what is it about me that puts people off?

!	Cornflake wrote:
	Several posts continuing a conversation relating to an insulting generalization about Filipinas have been removed.

Interesting. Where I live, immigrants tend to be from ethnic groups other than my own.

I prefer being around my own people for one simple reason: Even if I'm not able to fit in, I'm at least able to blend in.

It's a double edged sword. Yes, you'd expect immigrants to be outsiders. However, if they settle in a place that already has a lot of immigrants from their ethnic background, they often end up becoming insular (and only wanting to associate with "their own")

Agreed. That is precisely why being around them is so drama-free. I don't have to be wondering why they are associating with all those other people and not me. They don't associate with other people either. They only associate with their own. So then I don't have to take it personally: I am not Chinese, nothing personal about that one.

The other aspect of it is that Chinese don't show emotion. So lets say women associate just with their own. Then I feel "I wish I was a woman so I would be part of their group". But when I see Chinese just hanging with their own, I don't wish I was Chinese. What is the difference? Well, when women hang around their own, they show emotions and I feel left out. But when Chinese hang around their own, they don't show any emotion. So there is nothing to feel left out from. Their tone of voice and facical expression as they talk to each other is emotionally neutral.

I am the opposite. Having been an ‘outsider’ among my own native culture (Midwestern-American “WASPs”) for many decades, I have become more comfortable among people of other cultures, especially Filipinos. So much so that I am currently in the process of learning Tagalog and moving to the Philippines. Better to live among people who accept me AND my differences than to live among people who marginalize me for being ‘weird’.

This is interesting. I don't know anything about the Philippines. Do you think the culture there is perhaps more community-minded, whereas maybe the West has become overly individualistic and competitive? It seems to me that difference would be valued more in societies where the success of the community was emphasised over the success of the individual.