Evaluating Intercultural Behaviour

This scenario took place in a Chinese language class in Taiwan during an Immersion Programme. The class consisted of Singaporeans and one exchange student from Germany. Lets call the exchange student Friedrich. Friedrich received a lot of attention in class for being the only exchange student. Occasionally, our Taiwanese Teacher would call names and directed questions to us during lesson. However, we did notice that Friedrich got called more often than the rest of us. After being called multiple times to answer, Friedrich started to feel sullen and exclaimed "Why me AGAIN?”. Our teacher noticed that he was unhappy and subsequently stopped calling him. In the later part of the lesson, we were instructed by our teacher to create a sentence using a verb we had just learned. The adjective was "漂亮" which means "beautiful". Some of us, including Friedrich, volunteered to share our answers with the rest. Friedrich sentence was "台北机场 不漂亮" which translates to "Taipei airport is not beautiful". Our teacher was taken aback by his answer. She regained her composure and then explained to Friedrich that in Taiwan, it is not very nice to give negative comments in a direct manner and especially something negative on a country that you are visiting.

In my opinion, I think Friedrich felt that our teacher was picking on him although I would not think that way if I were Friedrich. I would think that she wants to ensure that I learn well. I think the reason she kept selecting him was that she was fond of him and being a non-asian, she probably thought that he would need more help to learn Chinese. It is quite clear that Friedrich did not feel the same way. While I am not sure if this is a result from culture differences, I do think that the directness in Friedrich's words could be due to his culture. According to an online source, Germans have a blunt communication style. He probably thought voicing out his honest opinion was innocent. However, the teacher was offended by it. Conflict could occur when there are cultural differences in communication styles. In some culture, it is better not to say anything if we do not have anything nice to say.