Intercultural Negotiations

In an overview, I have not really had too many problems adapting to the "new" culture in Lancaster, England. As a child, I grew up fascinated with British culture. Anything that took place in England, I knew about it. My favorite Disney movie growing up took place in England during the Blitz in World War II. As a teenager and early during my college career, my anglophenia grew even more. Through the television shows and movies of Britain, I became to think I was fairly knowledgable in all things British. When I got to England, though, I was surprised at the little differences between American and England.

The biggest difference I met as soon as I hit the ground in London. Heathrow Airport, in my opinion, was a mess. It had been my fifth airport in three days. I had been to Erie International Airport, Chicago O'Hare Airport, Newark Airport, and John F. Kennedy Airport. I had travelled these airports, alone. Following the overhead signs, attempting to run from one end of the airport to the other in places I had never been to. I was able to find my way in the twenty minutes between my flights. Everything was clearly marked, and usually marked multiple times. As it was my first time traveling completely alone, this was a comforting fact.

Luckily, I had caught up with Angela, who was also going to be studying in Lancaster, by the time I had to brave an airport in a different airport. We were exhausted by the time we reached Heathrow. We had been traveling for hours. We hadn't slept very much during the previous few days. After departing the plane (which was amazing and fantastic, thanks to British Airlines), we had to navigate to where we were going to spend the night. Our connecting flight was not until the next morning. We were not able to get a hotel room. It was an absolute mess. We were told to go to different terminals by different people, sent through security, and herded into the main terminal for the night. Then we were told to move yet again, and then finally given blankets and were told we had to be out of that gate by 4:30 am, which was four hours later.

Things were not clearly marked. People were a bit short with us. It was just different than I was used to. I felt lost. People had to ask me to repeat myself, as they did not understand what I was saying. It was odd.

In all of my so called "study" of British pop culture, I thought I had prepared for the change in scene. And for the most part, I had. I only realized once I got to uni. But Heathrow seemed like a completely different place. We had minor issues with security and bonded with a really nice American family who had the same trouble. But when we had first gotten there, we were utterly lost.

After reading the article, "Intercultural Communication", I began to think of things in that light. The first step that the article presents is "you will have a new slant or angle from which to think about potential communication situations". I had done this at first, partially, or at least I thought. All of my references were from British popular culture. I had not accounted for the difference between the portrayed culture and the actual culture.  Looking back, that was an awfully naive outlook. I see that now. After getting to know my flatmates and my new uni, I began to see how things really are. It is far different from what is portrayed and what is "popular". And I know it sounds dumb, but I am happy I moved on from that as quickly as I did. After navigating Heathrow and getting to uni, the biggest problems I had were that I had two separate taps in my bathroom sink and that the paper was about two inches longer than in America. I now felt secure in my dealings with people, and as humans are social creatures, I feel like I can successfully deal with people of all backgrounds.