Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue (Encounters between East and West) 981197571X, 9789811975714

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Encounters between East and West: Intercultural Perspectives

Fred Dervin Huiyu Tan

Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue

Encounters between East and West Intercultural Perspectives

Series Editor Fred Dervin, The University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

This book series publishes volumes problematizing the issue of East versus West. The topics covered in the series represent past, current and future trends in intercultural encounters and communication between the East and West, including: - The role of language in such encounters, for example plurilingualism and English as a global language. - The impact of digital technologies in East/West interactions. The construction of the East/West in different kinds of discourses, such as in media, fiction, educational products and services, marketing and tourism. - Diachronic examinations of encounters between the East/West. - The impact of mobility/migration. - Comparison of different but similar populations in the East/West (e.g. migrants, teachers, etc.). - Redefinitions of the East/West, in terms of changing frontiers, political terms. The series also demonstrates innovative ways of conducting intercultural research. It has now become a cliché to say that intercultural encounters have increased over recent decades. Interculturality is not new – far from it! Encounters between people from different backgrounds speaking different languages have always taken place, but the difference today is the speed and ease with which they occur. Research on interculturality and intercultural communication dates back to the 1950s with different paradigms emerging over the years. However, we have now reached a mature stage of scientific development and discussions on this topic. While initially a simple understanding of ‘national culture’ was used to explain what happened when people from different countries met, today analyses of interculturality are more complex and also take into account elements such as gender, religion, social class and age. The last decade has seen major changes in the way interculturality is studied, with a shift from an overemphasis on culture to a focus on identity. Global politics has also changed since the 1950s and some countries that used to be colonies or ‘closed’ societies have (re-)emerged and in some cases taken on economic, political and symbolic positions. The dichotomy of the East vs. West has also reappeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This largely imaginary and political characterization of our world now deserves more attention, especially in relation to intercultural encounters and communication between these two spheres.

Fred Dervin · Huiyu Tan

Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue

Fred Dervin Faculty of Educational Sciences University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland

Huiyu Tan Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Shanghai, China

ISSN 2364-6721 ISSN 2364-673X (electronic) Encounters between East and West ISBN 978-981-19-7571-4 ISBN 978-981-19-7572-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the students whose voices are included in this book: Zhang Daojing, Xiang Xinquan, Yue Zixuan, Xi Meifen, Wang Yizhi, Tang Yiran, Shi Huilin, Si Zehe, Bai Changqing, Peng Jiayi, Yan Huizhu, Xie Zhanwei, Xu Jiaqi, Li Yiling, Zhang Yajie, Min Yue, Chen Fan, Qiu Qi, Xu Yasong, Han Wei, Zhang Qiqi, Gong Zhishu, Ling Xiaoying, Li Juhua, Hong Yang, Wang Yihui, Zhao Jiaxin, Zhang Tong, Chen Jiayi and Zhu Lilan. Without them, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue would be mere illusions.

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Praise for Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue

“I cannot enough emphasize the importance of this volume on supercriticality and intercultural dimensions in the current world of empty antagonisms between people and conspiracy replacement theories. It is a pure joy to read this book and engage with the empirical examples that Dervin and Tan have excellently managed to collect and sensitively present. These insightful conversations on the broad subject of interculturality and criticality between students and teachers in various constellations offer a precise view of the world’s complex cultural realities in the making. The volume also offers practical solutions to engage with everyday systematic linkages between language, communication and funds of Bildung and literature in various cultures. In this way, Dervin and Tan help us to awaken our curiosity of the other and to formulate adequate questions that allow us to explore treasures of comprehension under the thick surface of “flags, foods, and festivals”.” —Ylva Lindberg, Jönköping University, Sweden “Yet another remarkable work by Dervin and Tan that extends our understanding of interculturality and how it permeates our daily lives. This valuable contribution is another example of the alternative epistemologies and knowledges needed to advance our theorizations of interculturality. Supercriticality is introduced as a working principle that captures the importance of actively including multiple voices about interculturality and examining the affordances and limitations of different perspectives. The use of dialogue and questions to consider beautifully engages the readers in constructing the workings of interculturality. Also, the inclusion of photographs delivers a novel taste and perception of how interculturality is unfolding. It features refreshing and innovative perspectives that challenge the traditional underpinnings of interculturality that are usually taken for granted. The essence of this book can be located in the particularly profound statement that “we cannot continue to work on interculturality with the illusion that we can ‘control’ it by means of a limited selection of dominating ideologies”.” —Hamza R’boul, The Education University of Hong Kong, China

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Praise for Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue

“It’s time to read through the supercritical lens! This new book by Fred Dervin and Huiyu Tan opens a new road to the broad notion of interculturality in a supercritical perspective, as the lens! Under this lens, interculturality could be considered as a Janus-notion, with different faces and meanings which oppose each other, spreading different flavours and ‘menus’-agendas! The authors’ endeavour through this inspiring book, which consists of 17 chapters and revolves around five main dialogues between the students and their teachers, forms a good source for rethinking the notion of interculturality in its development so far, in its usage in research and education. It’s time to think bigger and deeper to promote intercultural dialogue between East and West!” —Nektaria Palaiologou, Hellenic Open University, Greece “I commend Dervin and Tan for their innovative book on interculturality based on dialogues between the authors—including Dervin in Helsinki—and Tan’s students in China. Written during the COVID-19 pandemic when isolationist sentiments were rising globally, the authors emphasize the learning of intercultural communication cannot take place in a prescriptive manner; instead, we need to engage with diverse perspectives. By drawing upon the indigenous views within the Chinese context, the authors further distinguish their arguments from the West-centric models of intercultural communication. I strongly recommend this book to researchers and students who work with intercultural education.” —Wenhao Diao, The University of Arizona, USA

Contents

1

Invigorating Interculturality Through Supercriticality and Dialogue (Fred Dervin) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Supercriticality as a Central Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 About the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 3 8 11

2

Dialogue I: Crossing Bridges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Three Questions to Consider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13 22 24

3

Thinking Big and Thinking Deep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Asking More ‘Whys’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25 30

4

The ‘Crash Course’ of Identity, Othering and Chinese Stories . . . . . 4.1 Discussion 1: Fluid Identity on the Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Discussion 2: Taking Othering Onboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Discussion 3: Exploring ‘Chinese Stories of Interculturality’ (Dervin, 2022) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Curiosity-Sincerity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33 34 35

5

Dialogue II: Advising Versus Preparing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Newness in Interculturality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Interpreting Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Reflecting Together on Fragments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43 43 46 48 51

6

Resonating with Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53

7

On Being Affected Implicitly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Discussion 1: Problematizing Cultural Arrogance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Discussion 2: Silent Transformations in Interculturality . . . . . . . . 7.3 Reflections from Huiyu on Dialogue 2—Peeking Behind the Stage of the Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

61 61 65

39 40 41

69 ix

x

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Contents

Dialogue III: Balance and Chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Performance, Stage and Backstage in Interculturality . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 On the Need to Experience Linguistic Depaysement in Interculturality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Two Quotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73 73

Acts of Compromise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

81 87

10 There is no Formula for Intercultural Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

89 95

9

77 78 80

11 Dialogue IV: From Whose Perspective? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 11.1 Comments on Students’ Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 11.2 Surveying Oneself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 11.3 More Fragments and Quotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 12 Refreshing Our Ideas, Thoughts and Attitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 13 Politics of Interculturality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1 Discussion 1: Making sense of the Discourse Instrument of Cultural Appropriation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2 Discussion 2: The ‘Post-Pandemic’ World and Interculturality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

115

14 Dialogue V: Daring to Ask, Daring to Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.1 Languages in Interculturality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.2 Criticality and Reflexivity: Towards Supercriticality? . . . . . . . . . . 14.3 Can we be Good at Interculturality After All? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.4 Summarizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.5 Final Questions and Answers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

129 130 131 132 133 134

115 120 127

15 The Indispensable Collision of Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 16 Instilling Interculturality in Our Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 16.1 Interculturalizing Interculturality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 16.2 Huiyu Reflects on the Last Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 17 Conclusions: Supercriticality as a Way of Dealing with ‘Interculturalese’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.1 Beyond Being Overwhelmed by the Reality of the Problem . . . . . 17.2 Paying Attention to ‘Interculturalese’ as a Priority . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

153 154 156 158

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 11.1 Fig. 11.2

A guide for supercriticality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I Love China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grandmother and grandson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7 100 102

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Chapter 1

Invigorating Interculturality Through Supercriticality and Dialogue (Fred Dervin)

Abstract This chapter serves as an introduction to the book. It starts by reminding the reader that interculturality is an omnipresent phenomenon in both daily life and scholarship. The polysemy and various ideological positions of interculturality are also highlighted. The central concept of supercriticality is then defined and the author explains how it will serve the purpose of dialoguing in the book. The end of the chapter contextualises the content of the book and guides the reader in approaching it. Keywords Interculturality · Supercriticality · Polysemy · Ideology · Dialoguing Interculturality is all around us. Interculturality is inevitable. Interculturality has always been with us. We cannot choose to opt out of it, to be unaffected by it or to ignore it. Sometimes, interculturality is obvious. As I am typing on this computer, I know that hundreds of brains and fingers from different parts of the world have merged to produce it. In fashion today, many houses ‘interculturalize’ their products by collaborating with other companies, synthetizing values, traditions, strengths, images: Gucci × Adidas, Vuitton × Nike, Jil Sander × Birkenstock, Loewe × On, Ami × Puma, Gucci × Balenciaga, Balenciaga × Crocs, Gucci × North Face, Li-Ning × Pierre Hardy… In most cases, interculturality is occurring ‘underground’ and we don’t even notice that it is there. As such, as soon as I switch on my phone and surf the internet, interculturality is always there… but do I notice? When I watch a series on Netflix, do I pay attention to its intercultural components? This book is not about interculturality—not about the kind of interculturality that we each expect to read about, the kind of interculturality that we have made to believe in. Interculturality is manifold in meanings and colours. What is more, this book will not teach you about what it is or how to do it ‘effectively’ and/or ‘properly’ in terms of, e.g., communication or encounters (to borrow adverbs often used by some scholars to discuss interculturality). Finally, it will not tell you how you should think about it but let you draw conclusions for yourself as to what you can do with it. This book aims to offer a snapshot of what interculturality as a complex, unstable and highly political object of research and education (rather than as a communicative phenomenon) is when it is placed at the centre of various dialogues between © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_1

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1 Invigorating Interculturality Through Supercriticality and Dialogue …

teachers and students, with one teacher from another geo-economic-political context. Supercriticality is proposed as a working principle in this experiment. In research and education, interculturality has become some kind of a stock phrase. It is also omnipresent. At times, it is problematized, deconstructed and critiqued. At other times, it is used like an automaton, with some scholars and educators assuming that the notion means the same to everyone globally. In many cases, it is not even defined… As a multi-ideological construct, interculturality can be considered as a ‘Janus-notion’, with different faces which oppose each other and give away different flavours, meanings and… ‘orders’ (do’s and don’ts, e.g., be tolerant, be democratic!). Huiyu and I decided to work on this book after having interviewed tens of students about their experiences of learning about interculturality in higher education in different countries. We felt somewhat disheartened by the fact that most of these students recited like ‘robots’ the (sometimes problematic and mostly Westerncentric1 ) ideologies passed onto them by their lecturers and the textbooks set for the courses they followed. In our discussions with the students, we often felt that they were not convinced by what they rehearsed, using terms automatically, without engaging critically with them. Pavlovization of discourses on interculturality! However, when the discussions revolved around their own experiences of interculturality, more complex and stimulating voices emerged, often contradicting what had been recited from the courses they had taken. What also surprised us was the kind of atelophobia (fear of making mistakes) that the type of intercultural training that they had received seemed to trigger in them. It is important to note here that the students ‘overdosed’ both on culturalist/essentialist ideologies (culture as a ‘block’, the only explanatory force for interculturality) and on so-called non-essentialism (a fashionable way to engage with interculturality today, beyond culturalism—a new abstract option turned into an idol). These were repeated like litanies and seemed to form discursive straightjackets on the students, leading some of them to assert, e.g., that stereotypes must be suppressed… “Sixty-two thousand four hundred repetitions make one truth”, as Huxley (1966: 31) puts it in Brave New World. We both felt that we had to listen to the students’ voices, beyond what they were reciting by heart from the lectures they had followed… This book is also the result of what I see as the current inertia of interculturality, either going around in circles or not going anywhere at all. Proper and correct opinions, orthè doxa in Greek, orthodoxies in English, seem to ‘order’ us to take on interculturality in very specific ways and to talk about it in somewhat limited ways, ignoring the complexities of the notion around the world. Recent attempts to modify the way interculturality has been researched and taught, have focused on the ideology of non-essentialism—moving away from ‘solid’, ‘stereotypical’ and ‘hierarchical’ perspectives. However, although it sounds praiseworthy and attractive at first, non-essentialism is an ideal which, educationally and academically, is too much of an illusion to be workable. As social beings, we cannot live in a nonessentialistic world, we cannot act non-essentialistically. I suspect that, in many 1

On Western-centrism in intercultural scholarship, see R’Boul (2021) where he deconstructs North/South imbalances in intercultural communication education.

1.1 Supercriticality as a Central Principle

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cases, some scholars and educators use non-essentialism as a mask that they don to play the superheroes who ‘hold the truth’. In the French language to hold the truth is détenir la vérité, which shares the same root as détension for imprisonment, possession, incarceration and confinement… But this is too unconvincing and, as we noticed in some of our students, this ideological position too easily creates illusions, unfair feelings of superiority (“they are essentialists! We are better”) and misguided idealism, hijacking the truth. I have coined the concept of ideomaginary (ideology + imaginary) to describe how dominant ideologies of interculturality push individuals to develop imaginaries around the notion. The following statement is a good example of an ideomaginary: “individuals who are highly interculturally competent have more ethnorelative cultural worldviews and cosmopolitan outlooks”. As a direct consequence of the students’ interviews and of our experiences as teachers of interculturality in higher education, we decided to try something different with two groups of students in China—a “living laboratory” as one of the reviewers of this book rightly put it. Since the 2020 pandemic was underway, we seized the opportunity to be able to work online to organize dialogues between all of us—Fred was located in Finland, Huiyu and her students in China. We need to be aware of the word dialogue here, which does not refer to an interaction between two entities, but to ‘speaking across’, moving across to the other… The word dialogue is being overused and abused in relation to interculturality. It is thus understood here as limitless ‘backs’ and ‘forths’ between individuals engaged in conversations. Although many will link our work with so-called ‘Socratic dialogues’, we did not have such references in our heads when we planned the dialogues and this book (see, e.g., Marshall, 2022 on the use of Socrates for enhancing students’ motivation and skills for ‘democratic and civil engagement’). The ‘model’ of Socratic dialogues might have been subconsciously present in our heads, as much as, e.g., Confucius’s ways of interacting with his students in The Analects. Yet, our dialogues are so multifaceted and multilayered that they move beyond any ‘static’ (and often imaginary) models of engaging students and teachers around a notion like interculturality. This take on dialogue goes hand in hand with the need for supercriticality—a central concept in this book.

1.1 Supercriticality as a Central Principle The calamity of knowledge when it is passed on unchanged. Canetti (2021: 26) I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too. Dostoevsky (2011: 34)

I have often heard teachers and scholars remarking that their students “are not critical”—often pointing at specific groups of students or generalizing about all their

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1 Invigorating Interculturality Through Supercriticality and Dialogue …

students. In recent years I have been reacting to these comments by asking two questions that I also keep asking myself: 1. What do you mean by ‘critical’? 2. Are you yourself ‘critical’? These questions are often met with embarrassment. In this section, I introduce the idea of supercriticality, which guided us in the design of our dialogues. We also use this concept in the book as a counterreaction to the inclusion of the word criticality in almost ‘everything intercultural’ today—but with either one-sidedness or no real meaning. The concept is a proposal, a work in progress—neither a truth nor a litany to be rehearsed. In this book, it is a working principle for us the teachers-authors working with our students (and vice versa). The prefix super is meant to add many elements to criticality.2 Latin super means above, over, beyond, besides (among others). To us, being supercritical means that crescendi (a gradually increasing sound) and decrescendi (a gradual decrease in ‘volume’) alternate in the way we unthink, rethink and ‘do’ interculturality. Our motto for supercriticality is: “No one really knows, but everybody knows”. Supercriticality places itself above and goes beyond the robot-like use of the word criticality. In the dialogues between us, the students and us the teachers, supercriticality entails: – Inspired by global approaches to philosophy, the first important aspect of supercriticality is to focus on questions before answers. Learning to formulate (‘real’ not rhetorical) questions, with each answer becoming new questions, is essential. At a recent meeting where we were reviewing the way a doctoral programme is described, a colleague insisted on the word ‘society’ being defined (“How do they define society?”). When I noted that the word ‘culture’, which followed, would also need to be defined a minima, they replied that “at least culture is clear because the paragraph also discusses multiculturalism, so we understand what it means”. I begged to differ, adding that instead of obsessing about the definitions of these terms, we should ask why is it that they are included in this description. Asking questions is difficult since most questions that we ask can be empty, ideologically grounded or already providing answers. Since this book is about interculturality, I would be tempted to ask about the notion, not so much what is it? or what does it mean? but why do we need such a notion today? Supercriticality could thus be about relearning astonishment, as Canetti puts it (1989). – Reflexivity, meaning here listening to oneself, examining oneself again and again when ‘doing’ interculturality in research and education, is also central. Asking oneself repeatedly questions such as Why do I use this ‘pet’ researcher? Why do I choose this concept/notion? Why these instead of those? Why have I been made to believe that these are the only options? Moving beyond the ‘obvious’ and ‘taken for granted’ is urgent in intercultural scholarship today. As such too many ‘critical voices’ forget about this criticality of their own criticality. Supercriticality forces to step back and to look at ourselves in the mirror. Forcing oneself to contradict oneself “in order to avoid conforming to my own taste” could be a rewarding practice for supercriticality (Duchamp in d’Hanoncourt & McShine, 1973: 16). 2

On the ‘naïve mantra’ of criticality in education (research), see Chen and Dervin (2020).

1.1 Supercriticality as a Central Principle

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– To be critical of omnipresent and omniscient discourses of criticality in education and research. For example, I noted recently that a course on critical thinking in China included only literature from the West, among which a book on how to think logically—as if thinking logically was unitary: what and whose logic? This kind of ‘intellectual comfort’, imposed by powerful (Western) figures, needs to be challenged. – To become aware of, deconstruct and reconstruct the clandestine a priori with which we have been fed through education, contacts with (social) media, dominating ideologies in research and, more generally with other people. Speaking about ideologies and the problematic obviousness that they impose on us, Althusser (2008: 66) asserts: “It is indeed a peculiarity of ideology that it imposes (without appearing to do so, since these are ‘obviousnesses’) obviousness and obviousness, which we cannot fail to recognize and before which we have the inevitable and natural reaction of crying out (aloud or in the ‘still small voice of conscience’): ‘That’s obvious! That’s right! That’s true!’”. Moving away from the obvious of these clandestine a priori should be a priority. – To decompose and take responsibility for using ‘officialese’, this highly ideological, automaton, propaganda official language of interculturality that we tend to use in research and education, including terms and phrases that have become so cliché as to lose any meaning (examples: social justice, respect for diversity, democratic dialogue…). The French phrase langue de bois (word for word translation: tongue of wood) summarizes well this issue of ‘double talk’ and myth-making. – To put aside our own conceptual, notional, theoretical and methodological reflexes. When defining, leaving space for definitions to change, adapt, get modified through co-construction with others, in order to not prevent oneself from thinking further. Knowing that we don’t know… – To make clear distinctions between interculturality as complex realities and representations of interculturality, and to avoid confusing them. As much as notes in music are representations of sounds, what happens in interculturality should not be limited and crystallized through, e.g., representations/projections of (expected/imposed) feelings and behaviours, communication gimmicks, ideological orders. – To open up to different epistemes (specific and alternative knowledge systems) of interculturality, weighing their pros and cons. In Chinese, one of the words for intelligent, smart, 聪明 (c¯ongmíng), contains characters that hint at sight and hearing. Seeing and hearing (or listening to, maybe here) represent two essential aspects of supercriticality. One principle of supercriticality relating to this is nicely put by Canetti (2021: 31): “Whoever wishes to think has to give up promoting his own thoughts”. My beliefs about interculturality are not the only beliefs… Thus, advocating my beliefs (and those passed onto me about interculturality) deserves to be systematically questioned. Following Deleuze and Guattari (1987: 20), examining interculturality together with the other requires us to move towards anexactitude, a process of negotiations of, e.g., views, experiences and ideologies which may never lead to “designate something exactly”—a process that we need to accept for interculturality since we might never be able to reach an ‘authentic’

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1 Invigorating Interculturality Through Supercriticality and Dialogue …

consensus as to what it means, entails and how to ‘do’ it, research it, educate/train for it. I left one of the most important aspects of supercriticality for the end, as a separate item since it is often ignored or ‘faked’ in research and education: language and translation. Let me start with a provocative excerpt from The Lesson by Eugène Ionesco (1958: 1360), a play about the dangers of indoctrination and the central role that language plays in it. The play is about a professor who tyrannizes (and ends up killing) an eager female student by imposing ‘absurd’ meanings to words: PROFESSOR: (…) Tell me now, by simple deduction, how do you say “Italy” in French? PUPIL: I’ve got a toothache. PROFESSOR: But it’s so easy: for the word “Italy,” in French we have the word “France,” which is an exact translation of it. My country is France. And “France” in Oriental: “Orient!” My country is the Orient. And “Orient” in Portuguese: “Portugal!” The Oriental expression: My country is the Orient is translated then in the same fashion into Portuguese: My country is Portugal! And so on . . . Many of us work in English as a global academic language but also publish in other languages. Using English can help us share knowledge about interculturality. However, if we do not reflect actively on the way we use words and formulate things, the consequences can be serious: from making the other believe that we understand intercultural issues the same way to indoctrination. Having reviewed hundreds of papers throughout my career, I often note that these problems are not taken seriously in English as a global academic language. Yesterday, for instance, I reviewed a paper on interculturality written by European scholars, which was more ‘political’ than ‘scientific’ (whatever this might mean). The paper contained tens of slogans and assertions that many readers from outside the specific part of the European Union that they represented would struggle with. Many words were taken at face value and neither defined nor problematized—ignoring the fact that as soon as a reader from another part of the world—and even ‘Europe’ since not everybody will use or understand words the same way to discuss interculturality—their reading lenses will be economically, politically, ideologically tainted differently… This is why supercriticality urges us to spend quality time on language use and translation when dealing with interculturality as a complex object of research and education. To translate can too easily give us the illusion that we can communicate with and/or about the other (see Cassin, 2016). However, sociality is constantly filled with instabilities and contradictions and we need to not ‘trust’ translation as a miraculous entry into the other. As we shall see in the book, this is something that we all try to practice—with more or less success—in the dialogues. Figure 1.1 projects what supercriticality is about at this stage and for this book. An empty box with dots has been added on purpose to show that the proposed guide for supercriticality is not ‘set in stone’ and that the reader can both remodel and add to it as they wish. This is meant to serve as a guide, an ‘idealistic’ guide, which

1.1 Supercriticality as a Central Principle

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does not necessarily function ‘well’ and does not represent a ‘progressive model’ based on clear steps of development. As such one might be opening up to another episteme while being unable to be critical of one’s own criticality. This guide can be used for self-reflection and for setting oneself goals—which, again, one might not ‘implement’. In general, I would say that supercriticality is about exploring—without a fixed ‘exit’ or ‘end point’—and rethinking our relations to ourselves, others, the world, the world as it is constructed by us and others. I often compare these processes to forcing ourselves to, e.g., handwrite something with your weakest hand, reading a book upside down and recalling your day backwards before going to bed. These are destabilizing experiences which force you to ‘check’ your realities. Finally, approaching interculturality supercritically could be accompanied by Claude Debussy’s views on composing. When he was asked by his teacher how he composed (what ‘rules’?), he replied: “Mon plaisir!” (“my own pleasure!”), hinting at the relaxed form and fleeting mood that are typical of his music. The English word pleasure itself comes from Old French plesir/Plaisir for source of enjoyment, that which gratifies the senses or the mind. Beyond the current tendency

Relearn astonishment by asking questions continuously

...

Force oneself to contradict oneself

Spend quality time on language use and translation

Be critical of criticality

Open up to different epistemes and accept anexactitude as an outcome

Beware of, de-re-construct and take responsibility for clandestine a priori and ‘officialese’

Make clear distinctions between interculturality as complex realities and representations of interculturality

Fig. 1.1 A guide for supercriticality

Put aside conceptual, notional, theoretical and methodological reflexes

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to ‘objectivise’ the way we should do interculturality by creating order-like ‘technologies’ (e.g., “repress your essentialism!”, “remove all your stereotypes!”, “promote social justice!”, “be democratic!”), engaging with interculturality with ‘plaisir’ could help us to be more creative and curious about this complex and fascinating notion. Curiosity should be central to intercultural scholarship and we call on colleagues and students to get more inspiration outside the ‘stuffiness’ of official interculturalism in research and education—fiction, the arts, fashion and even TV series, can make us unthink and rethink interculturality.

1.2 About the Book As explained earlier, the book is based on a series of multiple dialogues between the authors and their students. The dialogues were embedded in a graduate course entitled ‘Intercultural Communication’ (IC) given by Huiyu at a university of finance and economics in China. The course took place over a period of 10 weeks, 3 h per week and aimed to introduce the students to many and varied perspectives on interculturality. The students were at an advanced level in English (B2-C1), which made the dialogues easy. Three of the students had been on English debating teams at Huiyu’s university and had some international experience. The course was structured as follows: – Session 1. Introduction to Intercultural Communication (history of intercultural communication, studying intercultural communication, diversified IC terminologies and approaches); – Session 2. Culture, people and interculturality (critiques of Hofstede, essentialism, non-essentialism and anti-essentialism, introduction of IC and interculturality); – Session 3. Identity, Othering and Ideology (introduction to Identity: Who am I?, Identity in intercultural communication, Othering—representation, stereotype and the Other, Brief introduction to ideology and hegemony) – Session 4. Verbal Communication/Language and IC; – Session 5. Non-verbal Communication; – Session 6. Intercultural Communication and the Media (How do media shape our views of others?, Media and cultural identities, New media and their influence/voices); – Session 7. Intersectionality in IC—gender, race and ethnicity (introduction to intersectionality, women in the workplace, race and IC (brief introduction), ethnicity and IC (Minzu in China); – Session 8. Intercultural Communication in International Organizational Contexts (how are technology and information changing our work and workplaces?, types of organizations and corporate culture, corporate responsibilities);

1.2 About the Book

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– Session 9. Globalization: past, present and future (the Belt and Road Initiative and its goals, understanding “harmony without uniformity” and “community with shared future for mankind”, globalization in the post-COVID-19 Pandemic era); – Session 10. Course review and reflections (recap the main points of the course, reflections in class: Students’ understanding of “National Confidence” and “building a community with a shared future for mankind”, How can Chinese voices be heard in the world? Can we find alternative way(s) to communicate with the world and how to do it?). Each week, Huiyu set some reading in English for the students, introducing some of the most important voices in the global field of intercultural communication and education. The students also worked in teams on case studies related to weekly topics. I met with Huiyu and the students online five times during the course (one hour and a half each time). Before each dialogue, the students would send me some writing that I would use as a basis for launching discussions. Our dialogues were not about ‘passing on’ some knowledge or ‘cultivating’ the students about interculturality (a verb one often hears in Chinese higher education) but they were meant to help us deconstruct and disrupt ideas around the notion, students and teachers co-stimulating, ‘shaking’ each other. I also commented on what they had sent to me during the dialogues, trying to use the guide from Fig. 1 as a reading lens. During Huiyu’s lectures, the conversations continued between the students and with her. At the time I was also writing several articles and books (e.g. Intercultural Fragments, Dervin, 2022a and Change and Exchange in Global Education—Learning with Chinese Stories of Interculturality, Dervin, 2022b). I share about these books in the dialogues. During our five dialogues and beyond, although they took place online, it was clear that we were all motivated to make a difference, to try to push each other, to challenge each other. At times, some of our comments might sound ‘naïve’ or ‘underdeveloped’. Since the book presents things as they happen, this is bound to happen. Besides, reflecting on interculturality never occurs in a straight line, in a ‘ready-made’ format. If interculturality is about negotiations and instabilities, then discoursing around it should also accept these phenomena. During the sessions, we also wished to move beyond the multifaceted hierarchies usually established between the ones who know about interculturality (usually teachers and a few selected students) and those who don’t in intercultural communication education. We were all there to learn together, to push each other to change. The students were a bit shy at first, as one would expect but, the more we met the more they were eager to interact. Huiyu being in the classroom with them in China gave me some important ‘behind the scene’ elements for evaluating how we were all doing together and we communicated around this on the Chinese social media Weixin on a daily basis. I personally enjoyed the dialogues very much and although I was too busy at the time, I always looked forward to our meetings… especially since they allowed me to challenge myself by being confronted by what the students had written, said and co-constructed together during the dialogues. I was well aware, obviously, that what we were doing was not a miracle of supercriticality and intercultural dialogue. Yet I

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felt that the multifaceted dialogues we had online or in writing were making a ‘small’ difference for us all—although, again, not a miraculous one! We hope that this book will also inspire other students, scholars and educators to do the same. I have been teaching and researching interculturality for over 20 years now and the format that we adopted for the dialogues and this book appears to be the most rewarding. They go beyond mere ‘lecturing’ whereby the professor knows it all and just passes on knowledge. The format we chose pushes us to renew our thinking, our knowledge, our ideologies, our views… Some readers will wonder if we were able to come to some ‘understanding’ or to create a ‘common take’ on interculturality at the end of the dialogues. My answer is negative and I believe that this should not be the goal of such dialogues. Why would we need to agree or create something static when interculturality is endless? Why would we need to ‘cage’ it after a series of dialogues that lasted only a few months? Again, the notion of interculturality is far too complex to ‘rush’ into deciding what it means and entails. It needs to be deconstructed, unthought and rethought with students ad infinitum. As such we need to know a lot about it—not just from our ‘corner’ of the world—to even consider ‘limiting’ it to specific ideological ‘orders’. I have made some rather ideologically problematic proposals in the past (Dervin, 2016), however, today I feel that this too easily turns into indoctrination rather than education in the noble sense of the word. Interculturality is always embedded in the economic and political—nolens volens!—and any statement, view, conceptualisation of the notion will have to do with these elements. Some readers will see a danger in not ‘restricting’ students in their thinking about the notion (‘relativism’). However, students should be made aware of this issue while exploring different, e.g., concepts, theories and ideologies in different languages but not asked to turn interculturality into a static notion too early. The principles of supercriticality proposed here can guide both teachers and students to work on this issue. The book also urges us to listen to what young people have to say about the world and other people… having no ‘young people’ around me, especially from different parts of the world, this represented an excellent opportunity to get a ‘snapshot’ of their multifaceted views. As a whole, we consider this book to be a pedagogical proposal, and more importantly, as a guide for self-practising supercriticality. The book contains 15 chapters and revolves around five main dialogues between the students and myself (Chapters 2, 5, 8, 11 and 14). Following each dialogue, the floor is given to the students, first to react to the dialogues (Chapters 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15) and to share their views on questions that I asked (Chapters 4, 7, 10, 13 and 16). In these chapters, we reproduce what the students shared with us verbatim. I am asking the reader to play the ‘game’ here and to be patient and attentive to what the students have to say. We have tried to give snapshots of what as many students as possible had shared and co-constructed with us. This is not very common in a book like this one since only the ‘voice’ of scholars and educators are often deemed to be ‘superior’ and ‘worthier’. In this book, we want to turn this around and to show that anyone can learn about interculturality from any person (e.g., teachers from and with students). Sometimes, the students’ views might appear redundant and/or hesitant in the chapters. This is normal. As they unthink and rethink interculturality with

References

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us, they might come back to the arguments and ideas again and again. Please be grateful that we are able to listen to them in this book. Treat their utterances with respect and patience. Use what they say as a mirror for your own thinking and take on interculturality. You can always come back to the book at different stages to acquaint yourselves further with the students’ voices—I can guarantee that each time you will discover something new. In order to stimulate indirect discussions and dialogues with the reader, each chapter also includes a section called [Continue to reflect] with further questions to consider. We are not necessarily offering answers to these questions in the book but we hope that they will push you to unthink and rethink different aspects of interculturality for yourself and, if possible, with others. The questions are not meant to be reviewed all at once. The book gives you the freedom to explore the dialogues and questions as you wish, at your own pace, ‘digging into’ the multiple voices heard in the different chapters. All in all, the book revisits the same issues in a recursive style, building on multiple layers of dialogues which can be summarized as follows: Teacher-teacher Students-teachers Students-students Students-teachersreaders Students-teachers-readers-selected interdisciplinary voices …

This chain of voices also includes some elements of intertextuality with other documents that I was writing at the time (Dervin, 2022a, 2022b). Although it is never possible to ‘eradicate’ hierarchies, we highly recommend reading each voice in the book as equal to others. Spend quality time listening carefully to what each of us says and listen to your own reactions to what we say. As asserted earlier, this is central to supercriticality. We hope that this book conveys our excitement about approaching interculturality in supercritical ways, engaging in the process with multiple voices. As a complex notion and phenomenon, we cannot continue to work on interculturality with the illusion that we can ‘control’ it by means of a limited selection of dominating ideologies.

References Althusser, L. (2008). On ideology. Verso. Canetti, E. (1989). The Secret Heart of the clock. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Canetti, E. (2021). The Agony of flies. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Cassin, B. (2016). Translation as paradigm for human sciences. Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 30(3), 242–266. Chen, N., & Dervin, F. (2020). Afterword: Beyond the naïve mantra of criticality in education (research)? In A. Simpson & F. Dervin (Eds.), The meaning of criticality in education research: Reflecting on critical pedagogy (pp. 215–221). Palgrave Macmillan. d’Hanoncourt, A., & McShine, K. (1973). Marcel Duchamp. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press. Dervin, F. (2016). Interculturality in education. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Dervin, F. (2022a). Interculturality in fragments: A reflexive approach. Springer. Dervin, F. (2022b). Why ‘Chinese’ stories of interculturality? In M. Yuan, F. Dervin, B. Sude, & N. Chen (Eds.), Change and exchange in global education—Learning with Chinese stories of interculturality (pp. 1–16). Palgrave Macmillan. Dostoevsky, F. (2011). Notes from underground. Vintage Classics. Huxley, A. L. (1966). Brave new world. Bantam. Ionesco, E. (1958). The Bald Soprano and other plays. Grove Press. Marshall, M. (2022). Reading Plato’s dialogues to enhance learning and inquiry: Exploring Socrates’ use of protreptic for student engagement. Routledge. R’boul, H. (2021). North/South imbalances in intercultural communication education. Language and Intercultural Communication, 21(2), 144–157.

Chapter 2

Dialogue I: Crossing Bridges

Abstract This chapter presents the first dialogue between the teachers and the students. Based on questions submitted by the students before the dialogue, this chapter demonstrates how supercriticality could function when answering questions about interculturality as an object of research and education. The principle of crossing bridges to enable ‘speaking across and between’ is followed in the chapter. Topics covered in the dialogue include: the history of intercultural communication education; interculturality today; the role of language, China and interculturality. Keywords History · Intercultural communication education · Language · Migration · Equality This chapter is based on the first dialogue between the students and Fred and revolves around the following questions which had been sent to Fred before the first encounter. They fall into the following categories: About the history of intercultural communication education: – I have read that intercultural communication research is now thought to begin with the publication of Silent Language (Hall, 1959), which relates to non-verbal communication. Could you please explain why intercultural communication study starts with non-verbal communication rather than verbal communication? About intercultural communication today: – Is there a dominant culture in intercultural communication? How did this dominance come about? Can intercultural communication be completely equal? – I have observed a phenomenon that foreigners tend to be sensitive in contact with local people. Sometimes we feel that, as foreigners, we are discriminated but actually the others don’t mean it. How do you think of it? – Since intercultural communication research is about people, what is the smallest unit in it? Between provinces, between cities or between individuals? For example, although the two counties are close together, the accents are still a little different. – Do you think people are getting more familiar with and hopefully “more skilful” at interculturality due to increased migration, international marriages, influx of refugees? © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_2

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– How to circumvent ethnocentrism in intercultural communication? About language and intercultural communication: – How to carry out intercultural communication when language barriers exist? About China and the ‘West’: – In your opinion, what factor mainly leads to the misunderstanding and the ignorance between China and Western countries? Is information asymmetry one reason? – What do you think are the essential reasons for conflicts between countries? Is it because of the real conflict of interest, or because of cultural and ideological conflict? For example, is the recent deterioration of China–US relations due to the inability to agree on economic interests? (For example, does the US see China’s rise as a challenge to America’s global supremacy), or is it a clash of different ideologies and cultures? Given that the US Congress has formulated a national strategy to contain China’s development and competition in all respects, will this policy of conflict and competition continue, and will the contradictions between the two countries be deepened and intensified, eventually causing irreversible damage to the two nations? About Fred’s work: – In your research on intercultural communication, do you find anything that is completely different from what people usually think? – Why do you agree with anti-essentialism? Why do you think that anti-essentialism was proposed when there is already non-essentialism being opposed to essentialism? Let us consider the word ‘dialogue’ in English first. ‘Dia’ at the beginning of ‘dialogue’ doesn’t mean ‘two’. Usually, people believe that there’s an indication of two people talking to each other. But this is a complete misunderstanding of the word because dialogue actually comes from Greek ‘dialogos’, which means conversation in ‘dialogue’. Nothing exceptional here, but when you look at the Greek words ‘dia’ and ‘legein’, you notice that ‘dia’ translates as ‘to go across, between’. It’s not about two versus one or three people. So, dialogue in English corresponds to speak across, speak between, with no indication of direction or correct path. When I’m dialoguing with someone, I’m moving towards them. I’m crossing a bridge in order for us to talk to each other, to try to understand each other and argue with each other. And this is a two-way thing: I try to ‘cross-over’ to you and you try to ‘cross-over’ to me. Eight of the aforementioned questions are answered in this chapter. I [Fred] share some of my thoughts. They’re not so much ‘answers’ to the students’ questions, but reactions and further questions to their questions. As we shall see, I think that for many of these questions, there are different possible answers and that’s the way it should be since we can’t claim that there is only one right answer to these questions. At the end of the chapter, I present briefly three references, two books and one article that one might want to read as complements to ‘my’ answers. Finally, I also set three

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questions for the reader to consider—these questions were also put forward to the students. The following chapters reproduce their responses. I have read that intercultural communication research is now thought to begin with the publication of Silent Language, which relates to non-verbal communication. Could you please explain why intercultural communication study starts with non-verbal communication rather than verbal communication? I have highlighted some keywords in this first question. When I read it, what first came to my mind was these sub-questions: When did intercultural communication research start and why? There are in fact different narratives around when, where and why it started. The preferred narrative is that the field emerged in the US after the Second World War. And here, in your question, there was an indirect reference to the book called Silent Language by Edward T. Hall (1959). Hall is often mentioned as being one of the first scholars who is at the foundation of the field of intercultural communication. He was an anthropologist who worked with the American government, and, after the Second World War, he was asked to train diplomats to prepare them for intercultural communication, and especially to make sure that the horrors of the Second World War would not happen again. This seems to be the accepted narrative in research and education around the world. However, when one looks at our history, our shared global history, one can notice that, throughout the centuries, intercultural communication has been dealt with, discussed and problematized in many different ways. It has been considered beyond what we call research today, based on eighteenth-century Eurocentric ways of understanding the world. We could look at philosophy, for example. Philosophy is of course extremely complex and when I say philosophy, I don’t mean this ‘aggrandised’ Western idea that Greece invented it. On the contrary, I see philosophy as something much broader and I do include Chinese thinking, wisdom—whatever you want to call it, thinkers like Confucius (551-479 BCE), Mencius (372-289 BCE) or Laozi (unknown BCE) as being philosophers. The point of philosophy from the beginning of times has been to reflect on questions such as: How do we make sure that we can be good to each other? How do we live as a group together? Thus, in a sense, although we often say that 1950s’ US and scholars like E.T. Hall represent the beginning of intercultural communication as a field, we need to bear in mind that throughout our global history, many people have thought about interculturality, without naming it interculturality. The very notion itself, as an ideology, appeared (maybe) in the nineteenth century or twentieth century in relation to the ‘international’—or relations between the different nation-states created in the eighteenth century. As such, before the eighteenth-century culture was not even a concept that mattered; it was not a concept that people used to talk about their perceived reality or about their world. In Europe, before the eighteenth century, it was mostly all about religion. Christianity was used as a way of understanding ‘us’ versus ‘the others’. You were religious or non-religious (pagan?), but there was nothing about culture, nothing about ‘nations’ and/or ‘states’. Since the eighteenth-century culture, international and thus intercultural (and other such concepts and notions), as new

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ideological positions, have spread to the rest of the world and shaped the way we have been made to think about encounters across (mostly national) borders. About ‘non-verbality’ as was asked in the question: The field of intercultural communication in the US began through research on non-verbal communication and a lot of what I call ‘grammars’ of non-verbality (Burgoon et al., 2009) were written and put forward in order to help us reflect on questions such as how can we read the other through their bodies, through their facial expressions? Like grammar books in a sense, they represent illusions. They are rules that are given to people to make sure that they can read and understand their reality. But of course, grammars of nonverbality are not rocket science. They are not precise. They are not always correct because non-verbality is something that is very unstable and subjective in a sense. The way you read the body, and gestures, can be interpreted according to different criteria. For example, non-verbality that we consider to be, e.g., ‘civilized’ may not be perceived as ‘civilised’ elsewhere (e.g., burping, farting, staring). The question asked by one student made me reflect on why it is that at the beginning of the field we relied on seeing the other. Non-verbality is about what we see, not about what we hear. Using words is about discourses; it is about how we express ourselves. But that was not the main interest at the beginning. The main interest was about the eyes, it was about the senses. So that’s quite interesting because, today, most research on intercultural communication is about listening and dialoguing around what people say and ask. Probably, at the time, although English and French were widely spoken around the world, they were not as popular or as widespread as they are today. When people travelled—if they were lucky enough to travel, that is—they would not necessarily be able to express themselves, using English and French to talk to others. So, relying on what one sees was one way of believing that one could ‘control’ the other. People believed that they could learn their ‘ways’, their ‘bodies’, which would lead to communicating properly. Another final point about non-verbality is that we tend to divide the verbal and the non-verbal as if they were separated. But, of course, they go hand in hand: Non-verbality accompanies the verbal, and the verbal accompanies the non-verbal; they represent two different sides of the same coin. I would like to say a few words about E.T. Hall’s Silent Language. His ideas were very interesting but they appear to be extremely American or Eurocentric in a sense, because he describes a certain way of seeing the world, and his way of ‘analyzing’ non-verbality, for example, the distance between people when they talk to each other, is an obvious Western 1950s ‘Americanized’ way of seeing what was considered as ‘civilized’ and ‘not civilized’—although he did not use these words to describe it. At that time, for example, talking to someone from a distance, was seen as ‘civilized’. And those who were close to each other, “smelling” each other by being so close physically, were considered as somewhat ‘uncultured’ from a Western perspective, especially as smells were being increasingly avoided in the Western hemisphere at the time. In the 2020s, these ideologies don’t make sense at all. We should also bear in mind that the first so-called ‘interculturalists’ who were mostly American and British, had been hired to train diplomats and businessmen. At the beginning, the idea was therefore to provide some kind of quick fixes, and something that would allow people to save time and money, and be efficient.

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Always remember that knowledge about intercultural communication produced in research is very often embedded in political and economic discourses and practices. We shall come back to this argument again and again in the book. Do you think that people are getting more familiar with and hopefully more ‘skilful’ at interculturality due to increased migration, international marriages, the influx of refugees? When I see a question, I start by interrogating the question itself. It means that I decompose the terms it contains, and I try to see what is it that you are trying to make me say in a sense. These are reflections that came to mind when I saw the question. My attention was drawn to these keywords: more familiar with and hopefully more skilful at interculturality. My first comment is about the word “interculturality”. Of course, outside academia, people don’t use it. People don’t even understand it. It’s a word that you see being used in academia by, e.g., scholars and educators. But outside this sphere, people don’t necessarily understand what it actually means, so that’s something to bear in mind: people may not be familiar with such notions. ‘Skilful’ is another important and interesting term here, but it’s very polysemic. It can mean different things to different people in different contexts. Not everybody in the world will see success at interculturality the same way, although we might choose the same terms to describe what we expect people to learn to be more intercultural— such as ‘tolerance’, ‘respect’, ‘knowledge of other cultures’, etc. But, when you start talking to people, digging into the meanings that they give to these terms, you realize that most of the time it’s an illusion to believe that we are talking about the same things. Never assume synonymy in the way we speak about interculturality. Another element I wish to comment upon is the use of the adverb ‘hopefully’ (“hopefully ‘more skilful’” in the question). As human beings, we are very complex. It means that, in a sense, we never know if people are better or not so good at interculturality, because we are performers. We perform sociality together. In Chinese, people are said to “give their face to other people” all the time. You can never really rely on what people say, what people do, as evidence that they are good at something. ‘Hopefully’, yes, we want people to be ‘good’ at interculturality. But good/better at what? What is interculturality for different people around the world beyond ‘Western-speak’ and Western ideologies that have been imposed around the notion to the rest of the world? Then secondly, very often, we say things that we don’t actually mean. We do things that, maybe, we wouldn’t do in other situations, with other people. It is obvious that, often, we are very contradictory. So, if we know what we are supposed to be doing, saying and performing ‘interculturally’, are we then ‘doing’ real interculturality? Is this ‘good’ interculturality? Let me now say a few words about migration, international marriage and the influx of refugees. Firstly, these are obviously not new since they’ve always taken place throughout our global history. Our history is a history of movement. We have all moved from one place to another throughout the centuries. International marriages are not new at all. Actually, what is new about the phrase ‘international marriages’

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today is the inclusion of the adjective ‘international’, because we’ve been using this word for about two centuries, but before marriages were happening between different regions, different kingdoms, etc. Before the eighteenth-century Europe, for instance, was a collection of kingdoms that were changing all the time based on marriages, alliances between, e.g., different kings and queens, dukes and duchesses. Sometimes they didn’t even speak the same dialect of the same language and they could not understand each other but they married interculturally. Another point about the question relates to the somewhat naïve belief that mobility and migration systematically lead to more interculturality. Actually, Europe receives a lot of people from all parts of the world but there are a lot of divisions between socalled local people and migrants. We experience a lot of discrimination, segregation, racism and all kinds of -isms towards the other. The fact that people move and get married to others, does not guarantee doing interculturality better. As such quantity doesn’t mean quality. If there is no real dialogue, in the sense of going across to each other, if there is no unthinking and rethinking our world views, then we cannot get ‘better’ at interculturality. My last point about the question is that we are facing interculturality all the time, on a daily basis without even realising. There is no need to move physically or meet others face-to-face. Interculturality is omnipresent even if the other is not physically here with us. So as soon as we grab our smartphone, we go to the world of the other in a sense. When we switch on our television, we enter the world of the other. When we watch an American TV series, maybe we don’t even realize that what we are watching is from and about the other. How to carry out intercultural communication when language barriers exist? We come to a very important aspect of interculturality. I’ll start by deconstructing the question: What does language barriers actually mean? Is it about ‘language levels’? Are we talking about linguistic sub-competences such as reading, writing, speaking, interacting, listening, or is it about all these at the same time? As such I can communicate in writing to people who might not even speak the language we are using. But if I see them face-to-face, then I may have to use another language or a translator, for instance an AI translator, to be able to talk to them. What if we don’t share a single language? There are still other means such as trying to convey our feelings, emotions by looking at each other, maybe touching each other, maybe smiling, maybe pulling faces. Of course, this kind of communication will appear to be very limited because we have been trained to think about communication and interaction just through the use of words. And we have been made to think that communication should be ‘perfect’ somehow—but this is often an illusion, is there such a thing as ‘perfect communication’? Once I was on a train where there were people from different countries. No one shared a common language but they all sat together for about three hours and they were having such a great time. Although they could not talk to each other, they were trying, showing pictures on their phones, using what appeared to be exaggerated non-verbality, smiling, playing cards together, etc. This might all sound very superficial in a way, but I felt that they were having a better

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time than I have in certain situations where I can interact with people in a common language but where I might feel bored, uninterested, wishing I were somewhere else. I would also like to share a somewhat provocative thought: Language barriers, sometimes, can serve as an excuse for not being willing to communicate or to change our worldviews. When you hear someone say “you can’t speak my language, so you cannot understand”, it’s actually a little bit rude because it might mean that we are not willing to try to explain to them what we are trying to say. At the same time, we might assume that they are not ‘clever’ enough or that they don’t have the ‘humanity’ to be able to understand what we are trying to say in another language. We spoke about non-verbality earlier and I do believe that we underuse non-verbality today to learn to communicate. When we study a language, the focus is mostly on words, grammar, syntax, saying things in a ‘correct’ way. But not enough is done on how to use our body to communicate fully, for example in situations where we don’t share a language. I have met so many people who speak excellent English, excellent Finnish, excellent French, but who are completely unable to communicate with others because they’re not able to build up the emotional intelligence in them to be able to go across to the other. I had this experience recently with someone who spoke excellent English, but with whom I did not feel comfortable talking to. They appeared to be arrogant, fake and too eager to make me like them. These are just my impressions and my judgement was probably wrong. Maybe I was the problem. It’s very complex. It’s never really the others’ fault entirely. In any case, this person spoke excellent English but I felt that they were less competent than many people I had met who didn’t speak so good English. My gut feelings were probably wrong and when I read what I just wrote, I can see a lot of judgements. In any case, it is always important to bear in mind that it’s not because one believes that one speaks a language perfectly that one will be a great interactor. We must also remember that our way of communicating at moment X very much depends on the presence of other people in specific contexts. Finally, I would like to remind us that there are people to whom we want to talk, and then there are people that we would prefer to avoid; there are people to whom we feel attracted, and people we feel neutral towards. All of these have a great influence on if and how we wish to spend time with them. I do not believe that we have to force ourselves to be with others if we don’t want to. Interculturality is also about the freedom to choose and to get out of a situation we don’t necessarily feel comfortable about—while making sure that we don’t hurt anyone in the process… which is not always easy to ensure. Is there a dominant culture in intercultural communication? How did this dominance come about? Can intercultural communication be completely equal? The question mentions dominance and I think that it is a very good point. Let me try to provide my answer to that. Interculturality, first of all, like any acts of sociality, is always about ‘power relations’ and ‘fights’. As soon as we interact with someone, how much money we have, our gender, our status, our age, etc., will have an impact on who takes up the power on stage. There’s always something, someone dominating explicitly or implicitly any act of interaction. Now of course glocally, I

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mean at a local and global level, for example in China or in Finland, but also on the global stage, there are of course interculturally speaking standards, values and power (I mean people who have the power to dominate). Now the questions about this are: how flexible can we be towards domination in intercultural communication? How creative can we be to resist and to deal with cultural dominance? Let me show you some examples. I think that you may not be aware of this, but in many European countries, there is some form of anti-American sentiment in relation to cultural issues. Because the US is considered as a ‘little brother’ in a sense, some people don’t want to get lessons from them. They don’t want the US to ‘invade’ Europe culturally in a sense. Examples might include rejection of McDonald’s, Burger King, Starbucks, Disneyland, whereby some might feel that these could actually ‘destroy’ their culture. In research, some scholars have talked about these as MacDonaldization (Ritzer, 2020) or Starbucksification (Wong, 2015). Or how through these companies, we might actually be pushed to adopt and behave in certain ways. Burger King opened in Finland three years ago and there was a lot of discussion around this. The company started renting a heritage building in central Helsinki, a very beautiful train station. Some people were not too impressed by this and saw it as some form of ‘cultural invasion’. In China I often hear discussions around ‘Cultural Confidence’, whereby you are asked to feel more confident about your traditions, your culture, etc. I feel that Chinese people are somewhat more confident ‘culturally’ than most people in Europe for this. I have showed pictures of Starbucks cafés in old Chinese buildings to Chinese friends and they never say things like: “Oh my god, they’re destroying our country”. Instead I have heard for instance: “It’s just coffee. Just food. It’s never going to destroy our very rich food culture”. It seems to me that different parts of the world might feel comfortable or uncomfortable about this kind of phenomenon, at macro-political and person-to-person levels. “Can intercultural communication be completely equal?” I think that this question is equivalent to “Can social beings ever be equal?”. You have your own answer to this question. I don’t need to go through this. How to circumvent ethnocentrism in intercultural communication? The way the question is formulated shows that the one who asked this question believes that we can go beyond ethnocentrism. In a sense, you are not asking “Can we circumvent it?” but you are asking “How can we circumvent ethnocentrism?”. I think that this is related to the following questions: How do we look at the world? How are we made to look at the world? How ready are we to look at the world differently? Can we look at self and other differently? Can education help us to go beyond ethnocentrism? There are tens of answers to these questions. And I’d like to quote anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss here, who made a claim about ‘barbarism’. The English word barbarian comes from Greek for someone who doesn’t speak Greek; the barbarian who spoke a different language. Their languages were perceived to be sounding like “ba ba ba ba ba ba…”. Barbarian in English has its origin in language. But I think that in Chinese, the word has a different origin, it relates to different habits and cultures. For Claude Lévi-Strauss (1987: 12), “the barbarian is

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first and foremost, the man who believes in barbarism”. What he is saying here is that we are all barbarians as soon as we believe that there is someone called the barbarian. So, what he means here is that we need to look at ourselves before we can approach the world and the other. I do not believe that we can be anything else than ethnocentric because the way we’ve been brought up through our education, societal discourses about who we are and others, have forced us to believe that we are the ‘centre’ of the world and that there can be no other centre. We can become aware of it and we can try to be very careful when we talk to others, but I don’t think that we can remove this idea from our head. Of course, good ways of becoming aware of this is by looking at different maps. You know, in my head, the world is always centred around Europe. A typical map would have Europe in the centre, China is on the right side and then the US on the other. From an Australian perspective, the world might look different, ‘upside down’ with Australia in the ‘north’, in the centre. The first time I saw a Chinese world map, I was very confused because my first reaction was “where’s Europe?”. None of these perspectives are actually right or wrong. They are just perspectives. They are views of the world. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that the world can look different depending on where you are positioned. However, I don’t think that we can really get rid of ethnocentrism because it can come back easily. Maybe we can reach moments beyond ethnocentrism. But it always comes back. Maybe there’s nothing we can do about it, because education, the media and even the arts, for example, contribute to ethnocentrism. Why do you agree with anti-essentialism? Why do you think that antiessentialism was proposed when there is already non-essentialism being opposed to essentialism? These are not the same things. Non-essentialism and anti-essentialism are different -isms. Non-essentialism is an ideal—the ideal that nothing, nobody has a real essence. But you cannot approach a person, a place and an object without having imagined, fantasized that essence. It means that, as soon as you approach something, you imagine who they are in your mind. And non-essentialism gives you the illusion that you can approach people without having stereotypes, without having preconceived ideas about who they are. You can always say “oh, you know, I have no stereotypes about Chinese people”, and that sounds very non-essentialist. But, in reality, you still have these ideas in your mind because you cannot get rid of them fully. They are there, because we are human beings. It is too complicated; realities are too complicated to approach them without preconceived ideas. This is why discourses often differ from realities. Anti-essentialism, on the other hand, is different. It’s a position. It is not an ideal. I know that I am essentialistic. I know that everyone who is reading this is essentialistic too. I’m aware of this. I know it, I can work on it, but I know that I cannot really remove essentialism from our minds. I can try to minimize it, but it means that I can approach others by censoring myself. If I feel that something is this or that, I’m not going to mention it because I don’t want to hurt others. But I might still have essentialistic feelings in my head. For me, anti-essentialism is awareness. Yet it does

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not correspond to the illusion that I can live in a world without considering others through essences. I was talking to a professor from Canada the other day and she said, “Oh, you know, I am against essentialism. Everything I do is non-essentialistic”. And then five minutes later, when we spoke about Chinese students, she claimed that Chinese students are not very critical. And I stopped her and said: “This is essentialism. How do you define ‘critical’? and what are ‘Chinese students’ in a sense?”. Non-essentialism is an ideology that is becoming widespread in the West at the moment. It’s good because it makes people think. A lot of Americans, Brits and Europeans now include in their Email signatures a sentence like “Today my gender identity is ‘she, her, hers’”. This means that when you are reading this sender’s email, please ‘imagine’ her as a woman. But because she says ‘today’ you need to bear in mind that maybe tomorrow when she writes to you, her identity might be ‘he, him, his’ or ‘they, them, their’. When confronted with such statements of identity, one is forced to unthink and rethink how others and ourselves position ourselves, to observe our potential contradictions and changes. In other words, to reconsider the notion of interculturality as a never-ending and co-constructed project and process.

2.1 Three Questions to Consider To finish this chapter, I would like to set three questions for us to continue our dialogue in the next chapters. The questions concern identity, othering (turning a person into an other we create ourselves, using, e.g., stereotypes and representations) and alternative knowledge about interculturality. – 1. What would happen to a person’s identity if they were left all alone on the moon, without direct contact with other humans? – 2. Is othering always a bad thing? – 3. In a book that Fred was about to publish, he suggested that global scholars and students explore ‘Chinese stories of interculturality’ (Dervin, 2022) to enrich the way they think about interculturality. What could this phrase mean? [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] After reading this chapter, read through the following questions and see how you might want to answer them: – How would you translate intercultural and interculturality in the languages that you know? What do you make of the prefix of inter- in translating them? – How has the history of the word intercultural or of the broad field of research called intercultural communication education been presented to you in class or through your reading? What are the most important figures in the field for you? Explain why.

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– About which part of the world would you like to know more in relation to knowledge and politics of interculturality? Why? – Are you aware of your own ethnocentrism (i.e., thinking that your own culture, race, ethnicity… is the best)? Can you remember statements that you made which revealed ‘snapshots’ of ethnocentrism? – Do you agree with Lévi-Strauss’s (1987: 12) claim that “the barbarian is first and foremost, the man who believes in barbarism”? – Think of examples of you using non-verbality to communicate interculturally. What strategies? Did they work? Which aspects of non-verbality would you like to explore? – In the chapter, Fred claims that “we are facing interculturality all the time, on a daily basis without even realising”. What do you make of this statement? – What are your views on another argument put forward by Fred that “the belief that mobility and migration systematically lead to more interculturality” is somewhat naïve? – Fred asserts that “Language barriers, sometimes, can serve as an excuse for not being willing to communicate or to change our worldviews”. Have you consciously used language barriers as an alibi for not communicating with someone? Do you remember the circumstances? How do you feel about this now? – Have you heard of the critical notions of MacDonaldization and Starbucksification? What are your views on them? Considering the world as it is today, would there be other critical notions that you could think of to describe it? – How often have you found yourself in a situation where you could not use any language to communicate with someone? How did it feel? What did you do to solve the situation? – After reading the chapter, can you explain the differences between non- and antiessentialism? Can you give some examples? – Finally, was there anything surprising in what Fred said in this chapter? Three references are suggested here to continue reflecting on what was covered in this chapter: A novel by Chinese writer Lao She (1899–1966) about Chinese people in Britain in the early twentieth century; a book by anthropologist J. N. Pieterse (2003) entitled Globalization and Culture Global Mélange and an article by French philosopher Barbara Cassin (2016) about translation to reflect on the power of language. – Lao She (1929/2013). Mr Ma and Son (二马). London: Penguin Modern Classics. – Pieterse, J. N. (2003). Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange. London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. – Cassin, B. (2016). Translation as Paradigm for Human Sciences. Barbara Cassin. Journal of Speculative Philosophy 30(3): 242–266.

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References Burgoon, J. K., Guerrero, L. K., & Floyd, K. (2009). Nonverbal communication. Routledge. Cassin, B. (2016). Translation as paradigm for human sciences. Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 30(3), 242–266. Dervin, F. (2022). Why ‘Chinese’ stories of interculturality? In M. Yuan, F. Dervin, B. Sude, & N. Chen (Eds.), Change and exchange in global education—Learning with chinese stories of interculturality (pp. 1–16). Palgrave Macmillan. Hall, E. T. (1959). The silent language. Fawcett Publications. Lao She. (1929/2013). Mr Ma and Son (二马). Penguin Modern Classics. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1987). Race and history. UNESCO. Pieterse, J. N. (2003). Globalization and culture: Global mélange. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Ritzer, G. (2020). The Macdonalization of society: Into the digital age. Sage. Wong, N. C. W. (2015). Starbuckization. In D. T. Cook & M. Ryan (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of consumption and consumer studies (pp. 1–2). Wiley Blackwell.

Chapter 3

Thinking Big and Thinking Deep

Abstract This chapter focuses on the reflections and comments made by the students about the first intercultural dialogue. They use interesting words and phrases to describe how they perceive supercriticality in the dialogue: e.g., ‘to dismantle questions’, ‘to expand the breadth and depth of thinking’. All in all, thinking big and deep about interculturality for the students refers to asking questions about questions, opening up the meanings and ‘flavours’ of words they contain, avoiding to confuse a concept with its ‘essence’, weighing different opinions and, more importantly, not having necessarily an answer to questions. As such the students appear to be able to confront the ideologies and perspectives that have influenced them in their thinking on the notion. Keywords Supercriticality · Ideologies · Dismantling · Questioning · Flavours of words In this chapter, the students react to the first encounter with Fred. The answers are reproduced verbatim with few corrections to ensure understanding. Following the reflections, we discuss what the students wrote but we refrain from ‘intervening’ while they are ‘talking’, to let you, the reader, get a taste of their own complexities. Take the time to read carefully what the students have written and try to identify what elements of supercriticality seem to emerge in their texts. We consider the chapters containing the direct voices of the students (without us researchers ‘transforming’ their content) to be an essential part of the dialogical nature of this book. By letting the reader engage directly with their voices, without our mediation, we add another layer of dialogue to the entire project—in other words: what happens between you, the reader and the students remains outside the text for your own benefit. I was so surprised when I saw two of my questions being dismantled by Fred in an unanticipated way. How do you define “skilful”? Why is there this adverb “hopefully”? I began to rethink my own intentions by seeing how Fred considered every single word. Two quotes from the session represent insightful (and indeed reasonable) explanations: “Quantity doesn’t necessarily change the quality of interculturality”; “Nonessentialism is idealism while anti-essentialism is a position”. It was also stimulating © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_3

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to think that non-ethnocentrism doesn’t really exist because everyone in the world positions themselves towards others geopolitically and thus cannot escape it. Critical thinking is already part of Fred’s “system”. I found it interesting when he mentioned another scholar who declared that he had no bias and immediately commented that Chinese students lack critical thinking. (Student 1) The first thing that really appealed to me was the way the questions were answered. Starting with the question itself, rather than just answering it, and thinking about the answer by analysing the key words in the question. Secondly, in terms of the content of the answers themselves, a few simple examples deepened my understanding of the concepts related to intercultural communication. For example, the case of McDonald’s reveals that the presence of foreign brands should not be treated as ‘cultural invasion’ simply by associating a brand with the culture behind it, but rather by focusing on the products that the brand itself brings. (Student 2) Is there a universal standard for evaluating whether intercultural communication is good or not? Actually, intercultural communication is a process that highly relies on the interaction of the parties who join in the communication. Therefore, the quality of intercultural communication is dependent on the feelings of the joining parties. Under different circumstances, the joining parties have different purposes and expectations for intercultural communication. However, businessmen and businesswomen have their ways of assessing whether a given service is successful or not. Why is there no standard for intercultural communication? How can we help others if we don’t know what is good intercultural communication? (Student 3) What impressed me most is Fred’s comparison of three world maps. He said when he is in Europe, he is used to maps of the world with Europe at its centre. However, when he came to China, he found that it would take a long time to find Europe on the map. America’s map of the world, of course, puts America at the centre. Different countries have different types of world maps, just as we have different perspectives on the world. We are always used to viewing other countries with the background of our own culture, but that is not what they really look like. It is what we think they should be. Only by putting ourselves in their place and seeing things from their point of view can we truly understand the culture of others. This is a rule that applies both to studying the culture and history of other countries and to communicating with them. (Student 4) The differences among maps impressed me a lot. It is funny that we can see different things about the same element from specific points of view. Another interesting thing is that foreigners appear to be surprisingly resistant to cultural invasion, which we Chinese do not necessarily see the same way. There are some things we take for granted that are true without thinking about why or what other people think of them. (Student 5) Fred said that philosophy was not exclusive to the West, and questioned the conclusion that Chinese students lacked critical thinking. He also provided us with a new perspective to study intercultural communication. When he answered my question about a “dominant culture”, he showed us different attitudes towards, e.g., Starbucks in Finland and China. While some Europeans might reject this kind of dominance, the Chinese happily accept it. This inconsistency is really worth pondering over.

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In fact, there are a lot of interesting phenomena that deserve to be identified and discussed. I will ask more “whys” in my daily life. (Student 6) Through Fred’s dialogue, I was made to reflect on how to analyse problems. He broke down the questions and analysed them step by step, thus expanding the breadth and depth of thinking. When we get a question, we should first ask ‘is this a good question?’ and then ask ‘why?’, instead of being brought into the logic of the problem after seeing the problem. Sometimes, questions don’t necessarily need answers, but they can just inspire us to think further. I think this could be the critical spirit that we need to develop. (Student 7) After listening to the lecture, my biggest thought is about the relation between academic research and real-life experience. Originally, I believed that academic research ought to be a reflection of real-life situations and a deeper understanding of real-life problems. In other words, reality is the “cause”, and research is the “effect”. However, as Fred pointed out, interculturality is not a well-known concept word outside academia, the study of interculturality, in fact, forces people to explain what has already happened around them. Such processes force people to re-examine their intercultural behaviours, thus potentially improving their intercultural practices. In this way, research becomes the “cause” and reality becomes the “effect”. (Student 8) I was especially impressed by the issue of whether interculturality can lead to equality. I agree with Fred’s view that interculturality entails struggles and power relations. For instance, fast food culture is actually a kind of cultural infiltration. It is crucial to think about solutions to deal with the challenges while gaining benefits from the trends. As members of the young generation, we should be creative towards cultural dominance and also be critical. It also reflects the significance of generating cultural confidence for our nation and our citizens. We must clarify that culture plays an important role as the foundation for the survival and development of a nation, as well as an overriding symbol that distinguishes a unique country from other nations and countries. (Student 9) Like what Fred said, people who speak excellent English are not necessarily able to communicate with each other because they might not know how to go across to other people. They might not even be willing to take the time to do it and/or ask questions. What’s more, it’s really an attractive idea that the world looks different depending on the way you position yourself. But it is difficult to get rid of ethnocentrism at all. None of these perspectives are right or wrong, instead, they are perspectives of the world in certain ways. (Student 10) About Fred’s answer to question 8 (reasons for misunderstanding between China and Western countries): First, I have to admit my inaccuracy when I used the phrase “Western countries” in my question, since Fred pointed out that the West is a complex and hyperdiverse ‘region’ of the world. Maybe “other countries” could be more appropriate here. Second, are they really misunderstandings or ignorance? My answer is: absolutely yes, based on my own experience abroad and a friend’s Master’s thesis entitled “the Representation of the Chinese Image in the Spanish Newspaper El País”. I think, on the one hand, authorities have really done an unsatisfactory job as far as talking about China is concerned; on the other hand, due to century-long

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stereotypes, it’s difficult for people to change their worldview although we would like to. As a result, we automatically filter information according to our subconscious despite “everything being available online”. (Student 11) In response to the third question, Fred mentioned that we can use, for example, a translation software to explore whether it is the language barrier or interculturality that prevents us from conducting a satisfactory intercultural dialogue. This reminds me of one experience. In one course, I met three Singaporeans. Although we were all eager to explore the differences between China and Singapore, our conversations were always very superficial and brief. At that time, I attributed this unsatisfactory chat to my poor English proficiency. However, assuming I had an all-mighty translation software to help me express my ideas, the conversation would probably still have been unsuccessful. I didn’t know how to choose safe topics simply because I wasn’t sure what values and customs the two cultures shared. Clearly, the failure of intercultural dialogue should not be systematically attributed to the language barrier. (Student 12) When you see a question, you should firstly ‘question the question’, think about anything worth thinking in the question, rather than simply answer the question itself, so as to explore more essential aspects and form a more critical point of view. Secondly, I am intrigued by the idea of the dominant culture. Fred emphasized that interculturality is always about power relations and struggles. However, many Chinese are not very flexible towards so-called ‘culture invasion’. For most of us, coffee is just coffee, not the culture of other countries. This is not because of China’s “culture confidence”. Instead, it shows that we lack some kind of sensitivity towards cultural invasion. (Student 13) I was impressed by the fourth question. I have always thought subconsciously that there’s a permanent dominant culture in intercultural communication. As Fred said, there is always something or someone dominating explicitly or implicitly. But since people are always changing, the dominant culture is also changing with the context. When we encounter different issues in intercultural communication, such as money, values or power, the dominant culture changes. In some places, people will worry about McDonaldization potentially destroying their culture. China, which produced the oldest extant culture in the world, doesn’t worry about that, it is still evident in modern China. (Student 14) I quite agree with Fred. Language barriers indeed exist and cannot be totally eliminated when we do not completely know that language. And this kind of barrier may impede deep and explicit expression and communication. However, just like what Fred said, language is just part of communication. If we take it in a broader view, intercultural communication also includes non-verbal forms, such as facial expressions and appropriate body language. Actually, if we are eager to interact with people with diversified cultural backgrounds, language barriers do not block our ability to communicate. We can do the same thing if we have a ‘willing heart’. (Student 15) I learned that non-verbal communication could be very important in intercultural communication, because what really matters in communication is whether you can

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understand the feelings and thoughts of other people (such as silent languages), rather than if you can understand the grammar or vocabularies of the speakers. Besides, I was also impressed by the discussion about question 4, in which Fred pointed out that interculturality is like any act of sociality and is always about power relations and ‘fights’ related to money, gender, status, age and so on. And in the whole world, there always exists a dominant force with specific standards, values and economic power. (Student 16) To me, the most interesting question was ‘why did intercultural communication start with non-verbal communication?’. For Fred, non-verbal communication is about what we see instead of what we hear. In the 1950s, the popularity of English and French was not as high as today, as a result, understanding body actions gave the impression that people knew what the other party thought, thus contributing to communicating properly with them. (Student 17) I agree with Fred’s point that we can’t get rid of ethnocentrism because we are always being educated about this until we get in touch with different cultures. Schools, media and even ideology are forcing us to put ourselves in a supreme class above other groups to keep the independency of our own culture. From my perspective, we can’t abandon ethnocentrism; we can change our self-cognition in different communication scenarios, for example when talking with others from a different cultural background, we should consider both of us as equal, even though just within a specific relationship. (Student 18) I was impressed by two points. Firstly, language can produce illusions. For example, although the word culture appeared late, but the history of interculturality is longer somehow. This reminds me that when we talk about one concept, it is easy for us to confuse the vocabulary of the concept with the essence of it. And it is also interesting to study interculturality from linguistic points of view. Secondly, Fred’s explanation of anti-essentialism also answers my own doubts about the practice of intercultural communication. Sociological learning has taught me that I should try not to make any preconceived judgements before drawing conclusions. When I communicated with foreigners, I tried to transplant this principle into intercultural practice but failed. Anti-essentialism taught me that the most important thing is to try to minimize the impact of essentialism instead of dwelling on my essentialist thoughts. (Student 19) Non-verbality has played a vital role in IC. According to some psychologists’ research, facial expressions and gestures (non-verbal language), rather than words, make up more than half of communication and convey the majority of the social content of messages. In my own experience, just like most people, I’m used to giving my consent with the OK gesture. Once I was talking to my French teacher and used this sign to express my total agreement, but he asked me to be careful with this gesture, because it represents “worthless” in France and an obscene behaviour in Brazil. Since then I have been totally aware of the importance of non-verbality in communication, especially in IC. (Student 20) Fred used a mixture of convergent thinking and divergent thinking, which implies that there is no absolute right and wrong in solving intercultural problems, the primary

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option is to make your understanding closer to other ways of thinking. Think big and think deep, which corresponds to critical principles in reality. (Student 21) What impressed me the most is that the barriers to intercultural communication often do not come from language, but from things outside language. When we discuss intercultural communication, the first thing that comes to mind is different languages or different cultures. We always think that these hinder the unification of the world! However, it is often overlooked that the most important factor of communication is ourselves. Our willingness, manner and attitude of communication will affect this process, and these are often more important! (Student 22) I agree that increasing intercultural communication activities does not systematically lead to more interculturality if we do not question or rethink the notion. (Student 23)

3.1 Asking More ‘Whys’ In the comments, the students seem to agree with both Fred’s approach to answering their questions and his opinions. On a few occasions, they question what Fred says or asks further questions. One student, for example, seems a bit confused by Fred’s argument that we cannot know what ‘good’ intercultural communication is and asks: “How can we help others if we don’t know what is a good intercultural communication?”. In future chapters, we shall pay more attention to the students’ supercriticality towards the content of the dialogues. At this stage, they seem to remain at the level of utterances. In their comments on the first dialogue, the students use interesting words and phrases to describe Fred’s discussions of their questions: (among others) ‘to dismantle questions’, ‘to expand the breadth and depth of thinking’, ‘to rethink (our) own intentions’, (to mix) ‘convergent and divergent thinking’. While listening to Fred, they note how supercriticality could function and accompany their thinking on interculturality: – “Sometimes, questions don’t necessarily need answers, but they can just inspire us to think further”; – “Starting with the question itself, rather than just answering it, and thinking about the answer by analysing the key words in the question”; – “I began to rethink my own intentions by seeing how Fred considered every single word”; – “This reminds me that when we talk about one concept, it is easy for us to confuse the vocabulary of the concept with the essence of it”; – “Fred used a mixture of convergent thinking and divergent thinking, which implies that there is no absolute right and wrong in solving intercultural problems, the primary option is to make your understanding closer to other ways of thinking”; – “I will ask more “whys” in my daily life”.

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One student’s comment about the supercritical approach inspired the title of this chapter: “Think big and think deep, which corresponds to critical principles in reality”. All in all, thinking big and deep here refers to asking questions about questions, opening up the meanings and ‘flavours’ of words they contain, avoiding to confuse a concept with its ‘essence’, weighing different opinions and, more importantly, not having necessarily an answer to questions. The students also remember precise examples that Fred mentioned to warn them of contradictions and to urge them to listen carefully to what people say (scholars included!). For example, this student explains: “I was so impressed when he mentioned another scholar who declared that he had no bias and immediately commented that Chinese students lack critical thinking”. While commenting on the dialogue and the way Fred unpacked their original questions, the students confront the ideologies and perspectives that have influenced them in their thinking. Let us review some examples from their comments: – Many students seem to be well aware of the influence of ideologies such as ethnocentrism and essentialism: “We are always used to viewing other countries with the background of our own culture, but that is not what they really look like. It is what we think they should be”; “Anti-essentialism taught me that the most important thing is to try to minimize the impact of essentialism instead of dwelling on my essentialist thoughts”; – One student also critiques some approaches to interculturality which can ‘blind’ us in front of its complexities: “I agree that increasing intercultural communication activities does not systematically lead to more interculturality if we do not question or rethink the notion”. – Some students even revise the phrasing of the questions they had submitted to Fred: “I have to admit my inaccuracy when I used the phrase “western countries” in my question, since professor Fred pointed that the West is a complex and hyperdiverse ‘region’ of the world. Maybe “other countries” could be more appropriate here”. – However, some of them are realistic about the limits of wishing to move beyond them: “From my perspective, we can’t abandon ethnocentrism; we can change our self-cognition in different communication scenarios, for example when talking with others with different cultural background, we should consider both of us as equal, even though just within a specific relationship”; “it is difficult to get rid of ethnocentrism at all. None of these perspectives are right or wrong, instead, they are perspectives of the world in certain ways”. Finally, in their comments, the majority of the students seem to be setting goals for their future engagement with interculturality: “As members of the young generation, we should be creative towards cultural dominance and also be critical”; “We always think that [languages] hinder the unification of the world! However, it is often

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overlooked that the most important factor of communication is ourselves. Our willingness, manner and attitude of communication will affect this process, and these are often more important!”. [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – Was there anything in the students’ first input into the dialogues that surprised you? Why? – Did you note any interesting formulations in the students’ comments? – Did you learn anything new about Chinese society while reading the comments, especially in relation to conceptualising interculturality? – After reading the students’ comments, what questions would you wish to ask them? – What do you make of this assertion, especially when reflecting on interculturality: “questions don’t necessarily need answers”? – How would you define a ‘thinking big and deep’ approach to interculturality after reading the first dialogue and the students’ comments? – For the duration of a day, note how often people and yourself ask questions starting with why. What do they reveal about your relations with others? – Finally, would you agree with the argument that “no perspective [on interculturality] is right or wrong”?

Chapter 4

The ‘Crash Course’ of Identity, Othering and Chinese Stories

Abstract This chapter problematises identity and othering, while presenting ‘Chinese stories of interculturality’, from the perspectives of the students. As a student puts it, identity and othering represent a ‘crash course’ for people involved in interculturality. In their multifaceted takes on the two concepts that are central for reflecting on interculturality, the students show their awareness of the hyphen between I and you in co-creating who we are and what we say to each other. They also problematise issues of social justice in original ways, evaluating the complexity of and weighing the pros and cons of othering, beyond mere condemnation. Finally, the students offer balanced views on China’s contributions to rethinking interculturality. Keywords Othering · Identity · ‘Chinese stories of interculturality’ · Fluidity · Realism Following the first dialogue presented in Chapter 1, we submitted three extra questions to the students in order to prepare them for the next dialogue. In their answers, one student calls ‘othering’ (i.e., turning an other into an other in the way we define them) a ‘crash course’, i.e., a rapid and intense course of study. We borrow this term to summarize what follows. The three questions revolve around the concepts of identity and othering and start opening up conversations about alternative perspectives on interculturality: – What would happen to a person’s identity if they were left all alone on the moon, without direct contact with other humans? – Is othering always a bad thing? – In a book that Fred was about to publish, he suggested that global scholars and students explore ‘Chinese stories of interculturality’ (Dervin, 2022) to enrich the way they think about interculturality. What could this phrase mean? The students’ discussion on these questions are reviewed in the following sections.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_4

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4.1 Discussion 1: Fluid Identity on the Moon I think this issue should be considered from two different perspectives. Does this person on the moon know about the existence of humans on earth? If they know exactly that there are people on earth, then I believe that their identity will not be too problematic; but if they don’t know, as is set in many sci-fi works, whether the concept of ‘identity’ would be formed or not is a mystery. First of all, the person needs to distinguish between themselves and ordinary objects. Secondly, in my opinion, ‘identity’ is closely associated with the concepts of “group” or “society”, that is, it needs to be reflected in a group of people. A person’s ‘identity’ is largely affected by other people or other social concepts. (Student 1) I am afraid to be alone, so if you let me imagine this situation, I would answer that it is a terrible one. I always think that the biggest differences between human beings and other animals are the followings: human beings can use tools, cooperate with each other and produce civilization. If you put a person on the moon alone since they were a baby, they would not have those significant characters. What is the difference between this ‘human’ with other animals then? If you put an adult alone, just like Robinson Crusoe, I also think that it would be extremely hard for them to stay alive and not go crazy. After all, humans need communication. (Student 2) I have read a story about a man who often squatted beside a rock with an umbrella, and didn’t talk to anyone. One day, his doctor squatted beside him with an umbrella too. Then he asked the doctor, “Are you also a mushroom?” [He identified himself as a mushroom instead of a human-being]. I think that his situation is similar to the person alone on the moon. To some extent, one’s identity is related to how others perceive oneself. Without any contact with people, he may identify himself as an alien, a rock, ash and even the moon. (Student 3) I believe he/she would have experienced much less doubt about their own identity. Even though we believe that a major part of our identity is socially determined, there is still a part of our identity left to be described by ourselves. The socially determined part of our identity is always dynamic. It changes over time, economic development, foundation of a new government and so on. Therefore, one must have experienced doubt about one’s identity when things change. However, for someone who lives on the moon all alone, he/she would not have to worry about a new identity created by borders, differences among races, genders, sexuality and so on. With less uncertainty about the stability of the living environment, he/she could have avoided a lot of doubts. (Student 4) He/She will be confused about his/her identity. Because it’s important for us to communicate our identity to others, and we learn who we are through communication. It is through communication—with our family, friends and others—that we come to understand ourselves and form our identity. (Student 5) Firstly, in the beginning, the way they see other humans may change a lot. Because they might have little or no experience about humans on earth. What species are they now? Is it the same as me? Besides, their personal identity may descend into chaos because they can’t construct themselves by communicating with others. Gender, race,

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nation, religion are of no importance to them. So, the next question is who am I? In my view, it may lead to another kind of identity such as species identity or star identity, they may be still looking for other references and substances to identify themselves with an even larger scope of groups. (Student 6) If a person does not communicate with others, then they will have doubts about their identity, which will make their mental state fragile. (Student 7) My answer is that the man on the moon will not have self-identity, and he can’t even know himself like a man on earth. Three points: Firstly, identity originates from the differences between different people. If there is no other person, there is no comparison, and there is no difference, so this ‘lunar’ person has no way to define himself through difference. Secondly, identity is often related to an organization or a group, which shares some of the same characteristics, such as religion, gender or hobbies. But there is no other person on the moon except the lonely man, so there is no group, and there is no way to form identity through a certain characteristic. Finally, because there is no other person, this lonely man will not have two-way communication with other people, so he is like an isolated individual in a dark house, and he will never have a mirror to reflect on himself. (Student 8)

4.2 Discussion 2: Taking Othering Onboard The existence of othering, from my perspective, is primarily due to the encounter of two or more “others”. This premise is, in fact, extremely important to know ourselves. For instance, without stereotypes and what others think of me in general, I wouldn’t have known or at least gotten to know who I am and what my place is in this world. Othering is not good or bad in this sense, but something necessary. Othering can also show people the “next step”. The manifestation of othering can be cruelty, conflict or violence because people panic when encountering someone different, who don’t belong to their group. However, it is an essential and natural step before understanding each other in a deeper way. Because people will soon realize the inevitability of coexistence with the others and ultimately be nudged to always take others into account and hopefully get into the others’ shoes. Lastly, no matter how homogenous a society may appear, it will always contain a multitude of possible diversities. Othering is an inevitable thing in any society. If people in this society master how to turn the instinct of othering into the power to read and figure out a better way to coexist, we can say othering would not be a bad starting point for any given society. (Student 1) In my opinion, Othering is often thought of as stereotypes and representations of other people, setting boundaries between self and non-self. The other is also every one of us. But I think othering doesn’t just have a negative impact, it can still have a positive effect in some cases. First of all, the process of defining others is also a process of defining oneself. Other people’s behaviours, actions and expressions will correspond to our perception

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of a concept. Everyone may have a different perspective of perceptions, and so in distinguishing others, we define some of our own qualities. Moreover, although othering tends to form stereotypes, it can often be very visual, although sometimes too general, about the characteristics of the people being described. This way we can reduce the time cost of communication and exchange. (Student 2) Although we must admit that othering has some drawbacks, there are some scenarios where othering can help people quickly make decisions. For example, othering can be helpful in the business sector. People are divided into different groups based on their age, sexuality, income and so on. And then decision-makers label different groups according to experiences and results from surveys. In this way, othering can simplify complex problems and help companies make huge profits. Suppose a fashion brand is planning a marketing campaign for its new product in Shanghai. The marketing manager believes that their target customers are young female adults who are pursuing independence and have a relatively high income. Besides, most of these young ladies like handsome male stars. The company then sets a high price and invites a popular idol to become the product ambassador. As a result, this product is a big success for the company because of the precise targeting and advertising for its consumers. In this case, the manager treats target consumers as a group of people who have the same characteristics. Besides, othering can help people to better understand their own culture by comparing it with other cultures. For Western people, they always compare their culture with Eastern culture, especially Chinese culture. In their eyes, this old country is mysterious and attractive and they usually use some representations and symbols to interpret the culture of this continent. When Western people feel confident about their own culture, they will have negative images about China. And when Western people are lacking confidence about themselves, they will turn their eyes towards the Eastern world in order to learn something from it and eventually outperform it. Through othering Chinese culture, Western people can have a better understanding of their own culture, build up confidence over their culture and improve their culture. In this way, othering could help culture advance and develop. (Student 3) I don’t think othering is always a bad thing. Othering means to distinguish or to prove one’s ‘correctness’, with stereotypes and negative meanings. But in some cases, othering can have a positive effect. First, othering makes us pay attention to other groups. To some extent, we look at things from the perspective of others, breaking out of our own fixed thinking and broadening our horizons. Second, othering may be a mirror. When comparing others with ourselves, we can see ourselves more comprehensively, know ourselves and understand ourselves. (Student 4) I don’t think that othering is always a bad thing. For one thing, othering may unite the people from the same group. As we have the idiom in China, 同仇敌 忾,1 which means to be bound by a common hatred. For another, I think we cannot relate othering to discrimination. Othering just means we think someone does not 1 In the book, the different voices using some Chinese did not systematically include the pinyin version of the Chinese characters, i.e., the standard romanization system for Chinese. Pinyin (拼 音) signifies ‘to spell sound’ and is meant to reproduce the pronunciation of Mandarin.

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belong to our group or is different from us. This process does not necessarily include distinguishing. Therefore, I do not think that othering is always a bad thing. (Student 5) Othering sometimes helps us to better reflect on ourselves. Therefore, understanding othering is inseparable from knowing the self. The other is essentially another self, which can help us to better examine ourselves, construct ourselves and return to ourselves. (Student 6) I don’t think that othering is a bad thing. To a large extent, othering is a crash course for me. The fact is that most people do not have a chance to live abroad therefore they can only learn about different cultures through online videos, articles, movies, etc. However, it requires a lot of effort and time to read and summarize in order to construct an image of one culture. Obviously, not all people have the ability or needs to do so. In such cases, othering provides us with a general image of one culture. Although this may not be a 100% correct generalization, it is still better than not knowing anything at all when we come across a foreigner. (Student 7) Othering is a complex phenomenon. For example, in psychology, othering is an ordinary process that everyone experiences: In order to exist, one needs to make sense of other people, thus one others them. Othering allows people to (re-)invent and make sense of the self through imagining the other. From this point of view, othering is not always bad. (Student 8) ‘Othering’ is described as a social process whereby a dominant group or person uses negative attributes to define and subordinate others. Although othering is always accompanied with the idea that some groups are dehumanized or stereotyped, it does play a role in constructing personal identity, national identity and so on. Just take national identity as an example, othering is a context-dependent process that defines the national self in interaction with dominant discourses in a given time and place. Interestingly, who the other is and how the other looks like changes over time to create and unify national identity. It helped, e.g., the ‘West’ to identify itself by establishing a certain image of China. The West also achieved self-confirmation and self-consolidation by othering the Orient. (Student 9) In my opinion, like the saying goes: ‘every coin has 2 sides’. Therefore, “othering” doesn’t always mean bad things. I’ve been reading the book named Le Deuxième Sexe [The Second Sex] by a French feminist Simone de Beauvoir (1972). In this book, she mentioned “othering” from a man’s perspective. In this context, surely the word represents the unfairness between different genders. But in other circumstances, if we don’t get the notion “othering”, we might not know who we are, or where we’re from. We need a mirror to understand ourselves, and the tool could be “othering”. I believe that, as long as we use the term with love, respect and kindness, it should be something helpful and charming instead of a sign of discrimination. (Student 10) Although othering has the colour of egocentrism, it is not always bad, because othering is relative. Only by comparing others with the self can a subject better understand himself/herself. (Student 11) I believe that most of the time, othering has a huge negative impact on individuals and society.

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First, at the individual level, othering leads to discrimination and prejudice against others, thus marginalizing those who do not belong to the dominant social group. People who belong to minority groups may face economic, housing, occupational, educational and medical disparities. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and other forms of intolerance are often rooted in exclusivity. Second, at the societal level, othering can lead to discrimination against institutions as well as politics. For example, leaders or political parties can use strategic othering to justify certain actions or to gain public support from those who respond to these fears and anxieties. But there are also certain times when othering can bring value. For example, students studying abroad, faced with rising nationalist sentiments and deteriorating ethnic relations abroad, can gain self-awareness across borders and see their own culture from a richer perspective. When Chinese people step out of the country to be othered, they are out of place everywhere, but it is also what gives them a keen insight on the East and the West. In an era of more dynamic exchanges between cultures, it also points to the possibility of a spiritual life that allows us to realize that one cannot identify with only one cultural identity, but that diverse encounters not only enrich our perceptions and deepen mutual understanding between cultures, but also lead to personal spiritual freedom. (Student 12) I think othering is not always a bad thing. Othering means setting boundaries between different and same. People’s inclination of evading uncertainty and preference for safety makes them always try to find persons who are somewhat similar to themselves. To some extent, othering shows how people generalize different characteristics of other people referring to their own. It’s an indirect way for people to explore the relationship between the self and the world. However, when othering shows discrimination, it becomes a bad thing. When othering is accompanied with the idea that some groups are dehumanized, demonized or objectified, they may be deemed to be inferior. This kind of discrimination leads to phenomena such as racism and sexism. (Student 13) In my opinion, othering is a concept relative to ‘self’, referring to all people and things other than self. While I do think that othering may be seen as beneficial to communication especially for IC, because once we have grouped people into us and them, we also have better understood the difference between them, which means it would be easier for us to seek common points while reserving differences from another perspective. It’s true that we are grouping people all the time, but it doesn’t mean that we do not want to exchange our ideas towards things, so as long as we are willing to communicate, othering may provide an advantageous effect to improve the efficiency of communication. (Student 14) I think othering is a good thing in some situations. In fact, any nation or culture needs ‘others’ to help to establish its own identity and improve their self-construction. Othering also allows people to (re-)invent and make sense of the self through imagining the other. Othering that does not presuppose belittling others may help us to better position ourselves, because, in our imagination, others who are superior to ourselves will push us forward. (Student 15)

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I don’t think that othering is always a bad thing. Actually, each person is the other to an other. Othering can differentiate us from other people. To a certain extent, we can better identify and know ourselves by selecting and establishing the other. In my opinion, the relationship between the self and the other doesn’t have to be adversarial. Othering is useful and important when we define ourselves in contrast to the other. (Student 16)

4.3 Discussion 3: Exploring ‘Chinese Stories of Interculturality’ (Dervin, 2022) These are some of the examples I would like to provide: The lifestyles of people in the North and South of China are very different in various aspects, not only the heating systems in winter (houses in the north have central heating, while southerners have to use their own heating devices), but even the customs of traditional festivals, such as dumplings in the winter solstice in the north and mutton soup in the south. Not to mention that each Chinese Minzu (‘minority’) group has different customs or languages. (Student 1) For example, Li Ziqi, a video blogger, makes videos of her life in rural China and she has gained a lot of foreign followers on YouTube. Her followers are very delighted to learn about Chinese food, natural sceneries and other cultural aspects through her videos. I think it’s a good example of Chinese interculturality. (Student 2) China is a country with a long history. Chinese stories of interculturality are a manifestation of how China makes its voice heard. Confucius Institutes, The Belt and Road Initiative, are all measures China has taken to contribute to the realization of both China’s Dreams and the establishment of a shared future for mankind, which was proposed by President Xi. These measures are examples of how China interacts with other countries. Openness and tolerance are the core features of Chinese diplomatic policies, which promote prosperity and vitality of the nation, generating a shift towards a more interrelated community. (Student 3) This discussion reminds me of a foreign writer named Peter Hassler, who is known as He Wei in China. After earning a Master’s degree in literature at Oxford University, he came to Fuling, a small city in Chongqing, China, to become an English teacher from 1996 to 1998. During that time, he wrote about what he saw and heard in a non-fiction novel, namely River Town (Hassler, 2001), which is quite popular in China. Hassler’s own story is actually a microcosm of Chinese stories of interculturality. On the one hand, between 1996 and 1998, Hassler’s living in Fuling city was itself a collision of Chinese and Western cultures. This collision has brought fresh knowledge to both local residents and the writer. On the other hand, as readers, we also experience culture shocks while reading the novel. The book is about China from the perspective of a foreigner, whose views are like a mirror, allowing the current Chinese to understand themselves from different perspectives

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and to understand China in 90s. Therefore, from my point of view, Chinese stories of interculturality are not only about the ways the Chinese exchange knowledge with people from other cultures, but also about the ways we acquire in-depth understanding of Chinese culture, history and people through reflections on Western point of view. (Student 4) The first thing that comes to my mind must be the achievement in fighting against COVID-19. China used to be thought of as a conservative country, and was criticized by many foreigners. However, it is our traditional central management that saves our country and the people, not to mention the international aid China offered. In the long run, other countries may gradually realize the benefits of socialism with Chinese characteristics. (Student 5)

4.4 Curiosity-Sincerity In this section, Huiyu reflects on this first round of dialogues between Fred and the students. Before our first dialogue with Fred, or even before we started our course, some of the students had already been exposed to intercultural ‘knowledge’ in courses provided by my university such as optional courses or English language and culture courses. This is probably why the questions they asked Fred before the first dialogue were very specific, concerning what I would label as ‘solid’ knowledge and concepts such as the ‘dominant culture’, ‘intercultural skills’, ‘non-verbal communication’, ‘the smallest unit in intercultural communication’, ‘language barriers’, ‘cultural misunderstanding’. Compared to students who already had some background knowledge, the other students who had never studied interculturality were not sure about what it encompasses and entails. Their questions were based on their personal life experiences and personal knowledge, placing the word “culture” at the centre. They seemed to believe that intercultural communication is mostly about ‘crossing’ different ‘cultures’, especially between the East and the West, China and Western countries. As a whole, these other students seemed to see communication aiming at “reducing cultural conflicts”. That said, I was impressed by the fact that the two groups of students also asked questions about burning issues such as racial discrimination, ethnocentrism, refugee problems, hegemonism, “deglobalization” caused by the pandemic, “Sino-American communication” and “the education of aboriginal people”. They even asked Fred about his latest work: “why do you propose anti-essentialism since there’s already essentialism vs. non-essentialism?”. All these questions showed their curiosity and eagerness in capturing, thinking, asking questions and applying their knowledge of interculturality to explain various issues around them or in the world. This ‘turn’ helped me to view my students from different perspectives. Fred’s way of answering the students’ questions was also stimulating. First, Fred’s responses in the dialogue are very special, and he answered the questions from historical, anthropological, etymological angles (among others). For example,

References

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Fred’s treatment of the question ‘Due to increased migration, international marriages, influx of refugees, can we get hopefully ‘more skilful’ at interculturality?’ made the students think ‘big and deep’ in the classroom (“what do we mean by ‘skilful’?”), because, according to their previous intercultural knowledge, if one holds attitudes such as ‘tolerance’, ‘respect’, ‘knowledge of other cultures’, one could likely reduce misunderstandings, and communicate successfully… [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – How would you answer the three questions asked to the students? – Was there anything that surprised you in what the students wrote in their discussions? – About the man all alone on the moon: would you agree that “he may identify himself as an alien, a rock, ash, and even the moon”? – What do you make of this student’s statement: “we learn who we are through communication”? What does this mean concretely to you? – Can we move beyond othering? Does the question even make sense? – Does othering have any positive effect on people? Is it, as one student puts it, a good potential ‘mirror’? – Try to remember the last time you were obviously othered. Who othered you? How and for what reasons? How did you respond to this act of othering? – Similarly, go back to the last time you openly othered someone ‘in their face’: reflect on who, why and how? – A student wrote that “othering is a crash course”. How do you understand this statement? – Finally, how much do you know about these ‘Chinese stories of interculturality’: Confucius Institutes, The Belt and Road Initiative and A Shared Future for Mankind? Find some (balanced) information about them and reflect on what added values they could bring to the way you see interculturality.

References de Beauvoir, S. (1972). The second sex. Penguin. Dervin, F. (2022). Why ‘Chinese’ stories of interculturality? In M. Yuan, F. Dervin, B. Sude, & N. Chen (Eds.), Change and exchange in global education—Learning with Chinese stories of interculturality (pp. 1–16). Palgrave Macmillan. Hassler, P. (2001). River town: Two years on the Yangtze River. John Murray Publishers.

Chapter 5

Dialogue II: Advising Versus Preparing

Abstract This second dialogue introduces further critical aspects to the definition(s) and use(s) of interculturality in research and education. Culture as an alibi, differilitude, accepting the imperfection of communication and advising versus preparing for interculturality are problematised first. Pictorial representations of interculturality (photographs, artwork) are useful to ‘advise’ for interculturality. The chapter introduces pictures that will serve as a basis for reinforcing supercriticality in the dialogues to come. How to unthink messages from pictorial representations is also discussed. Keywords Pictorial representations · Differilitude · Advising · Culture as an alibi · Communication

5.1 Newness in Interculturality We start this chapter by looking into one question asked by a student in Chapter 1: “In your research on intercultural communication, have you found anything that is completely different from what people usually think?”. We start by listening to Fred’s answer. I [Fred] made a list of at least four points to respond to this question. 1. Culture as an excuse, culture as an alibi. The word ‘culture’ is absolutely everywhere when we talk about interculturality. That’s probably because it is contained in the very word. But the question that you should always have in mind when you hear the word culture, is what do people mean when they say culture? Then you might realize that a lot of people use it very automatically, but don’t actually even think about what it could mean. What I’ve added in the field is a warning: We need to be careful and we shouldn’t take the word for granted. When someone says something about culture, we need to be reflective about the reasons why they put culture on the table. For example, does the inclusion of the word culture serve as an easy (too easy) explanation for how people behave or what they say? The second point relates to my insistence on taking into account the hyphen/the continuum of similarity and difference rather than just focusing on difference alone. When I meet someone from another place, we appear to be different but, in fact, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_5

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we all share difference and similarity; at times differences overtake similarities, at others similarities dominate. I have proposed the concept of differilitude, combining the words difference and similitude, to problematise this argument (Dervin, 2022a). If we only look at the other and ourselves through difference, actually, we cannot really talk to each other, because we need to start getting closer to each other by exploring our similarities in difference, and difference in similarities. If we only focus on difference, that’s when we can’t actually communicate with each other, because it’s also being able to identify with the other through similitude that will help us to see through the other, and thus to be together. We are different, but we are similar at the same time. And when we are similar, we are different. Interculturality is always about these tensions, about chaos and balance. Interestingly, I realised that Fei Xiaotong (费孝通, 1910–2005), who was a very influential Chinese anthropologist as far as Minzu ‘ethnic’ research is concerned, proposed a very similar idea to describe diversity and unity in Minzu affairs: 美美与共 (mˇeimˇei yˇugòng, ‘beauty, beauty, coexistence’ in English). It means that we are different, but similar at the same time. We have our own beauty but we coexist and we work together. This phrase is also part of Ancient Chinese thinking. My third point is already accepted in the field of linguistics. What I have been repeating for many years is that we cannot communicate perfectly with each other. We cannot know if we are really communicating because communication is such a complex issue. In many situations, we actually pretend that we understand each other. In many situations, we do not understand each other, but we believe that we understand each other. At times, we even pretend that we can really communicate perfectly. These mismatches apply to situations of interculturality but also to any other context of interaction. And, as we discussed in our first dialogue, we need to be aware of the illusion that, if we speak English together, we can get closer to each other. Don’t get me wrong, English is a great language. English allows us to talk to each other, but English might represent a potential problem for communication, because we hear words, we think that the words actually mean the same, that their connotations are similar, but then we might float past each other. We believe we are the same but actually we are not. Let me discuss an example to clarify my thoughts. The other day someone sent me a picture of a print from the 1950s; the print is from a Chinese artist and it says in Chinese 学文化, which was translated ‘officially’ as “learning culture”. The print depicts three people reading a book together. If you present this piece of art to people from other parts of the world, they might not understand the English title the same way. 学文化 in Chinese is polysemic too: it could mean getting an education, getting some knowledge, learning about technology, learning Chinese literacy, etc. The idea of “culture” is very polysemic and the reference to education in Chinese, is not very common, for example in Europe today. In this context, culture would refer to different habits, different ways of thinking, different ways of being. Let us take a short detour via the concepts of “civilization” and 文明 (wenming) in Chinese. In China, the word is omnipresent, especially on official boards and notices. For example, on a poster seen on the streets of Beijing, one could read: 讲文明话, 办文明事, 做文明人, 创文明城市 which could translate as “speak civilized words, do civilized things like civilized people and create a civilized city”.

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For a lot of people in other countries, the word ‘civilized’ might not be used here. Instead, they might use phrases such as ‘no…’ (as in ‘no smoking’) or ‘respect’ (as in ‘respect the environment’). In the European context, for instance, the word “civilization” is actually not used anymore, except maybe in the idea of the clash of civilizations from the 1990s (with the alternative clash of cultures being used too) and in museums like the Louvre or the British Museum where different sections are labelled as Chinese civilization, Egyptian civilization, etc.1 Here, civilization clearly relates to the past. Today people will avoid using this word because of the recent history of “decolonization”. Many European countries invaded and mistreated many countries on different continents in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the idea that they would ‘civilize’ their people [This actually meant turning them into ‘Europeans’]. In China, the use of 文明 has nothing to do with this meaning. One of my contributions to the field of interculturality has been to remind scholars, students and teachers that the way we talk about interculturality, the terms that we use in different parts of the world will not necessarily mean the same for different people (see, e.g., Dervin, 2022b). One last example: 民族文化 (Minzu Wenhua), which is often badly translated as ‘ethnic/national culture’ in English. I say badly because what the words ‘ethnic’ and ‘national’ mean for different people around the world can vary immensely. In the so-called West, for example, the idea of ethnicity can refer to very different political, economic and social realities. Minzu (民族) in the Chinese context corresponds to a completely separate ideology. So, if a foreigner finds themselves in a Chinese bookstore and sees a section in English called Ethnic culture, they will be extremely confused when they start checking the books that are available for purchase because the books will all be about China and Chinese people, but not about, e.g., Black Americans or Sami people in Finland. And here is my final point about the question. A colleague asked me this question recently: “Fred, do you prepare people to communicate with other cultures? Is that what you do when you talk about interculturality?”. My response was short: “no, I don’t”. Let me reflect on the words used in the question. None of the words actually reflect what I have been doing over the past 20 years. Interculturality, to me, is not about communicating with other cultures because we do not and cannot communicate with them. A culture is not a person, a culture does not exist as such, so we cannot communicate with it. As far as the idea of preparing to communicate is concerned, I wouldn’t use the verb to prepare. I used it in my past work, but now when I look at the word, I think that it is not a good idea. The etymology of the verb can help to understand why I don’t feel comfortable with to prepare. The verb comes from Latin ‘praeparare’, which means ‘to make ready beforehand’, prae for ‘before’, parare for to ‘make ready’. I do not believe that we can make people ready before they meet other people—people who are from other parts of the world included. What I would prefer to do would be to ‘advise people’ to analyse, think and rethink about, and 1

Interestingly, in April 2022, Elon Musk justified his interest in purchasing Twitter by using the word civilization: “My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization. I don’t care about the economics at all” (cnn.com, 2022).

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make decisions by themselves, about how they communicate with others. So, I am not interested in preparing people to communicate with other people by providing them with illusions (“you can ‘control’ the other by doing this or that”). We always need to bear in mind that communication is a two-way thing, so we cannot prepare people for this because if I prepare you to meet other people, to communicate with other people in specific ways, but the other one is not prepared or is prepared in other ways, I cannot prepare you for how they are going to behave (or not), what they are going to say (or not), how they are going to feel about you (or not) and for the type of interactions that you are going to have together. The word advice thus sounds a little bit better here, especially when you look at the origin of the word: avisen, ‘to view, consider’, ‘to give counsel to, to reflect, to consider’. “Advice” is also from the French avis for ‘opinion’. So, advising here doesn’t mean “telling people what they should do or suggesting people what they should do”, but it’s about “discussing with people”, presenting one or several options. While we are discussing together about how communication is taking place for them, and for other people at the same time, as a teacher myself, as a researcher, I’m also learning and reflecting about my own communication with others. As a teacher, I am not above my students because I don’t really know how to communicate. Every time I communicate, I also need to adapt, I need to learn, I need to observe, I need to unthink. I can ask questions to my students, I can provide some ‘advice’ to reflect on these questions for them, I can also reflect for them and with them about communication, but I cannot tell them what they should do in the singular. It’s through our joint interaction that we can start thinking about communication. To summarize: we cannot ‘prepare’ people to ‘communicate’ with ‘other cultures’, but we can ‘advise’ and ‘cooperate’ with them ad infinitum, reflecting on how we could analyse, unthink and rethink what we do when we communicate with others.

5.2 Interpreting Pictures In this section, we listen to how the students react to three different pictures. Half of each picture was revealed to the students first, so they could only see one or two of the characters from the pictures. The following questions were asked to them: When you see these pictures, who do you think these people are? What are they doing? With whom? What does their behaviour tell us about them and the intercultural situation they are in? And what does this tell us about the kind of interculturality that they are involved in? In the first picture, one can see two white gentlemen dressed in suits bowing. One is much younger than the other one (probably in his early 30s, the other in his 60s). Student 1: Two people probably from Europe are bowing. I think this is about an encounter between two cultures, for example, people from a European culture and people from Japan. One party needs to adapt to one of these cultures, to ensure that this meeting goes well. So, they try to adapt to the other’s culture. Maybe, they

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choose old-fashioned manners, or they have been misled by so-called intercultural experts. Student 2: I think this picture shows some kind of ‘condolence ceremonial’ at a funeral, because, as you can see, they are bowing to an object or to a person. I also think that they are trying to learn some kind of way of behaving. In my mind, they are just practising bowing. Fred: Can I ask you: how are they feeling when they are doing this? Can you read their emotions? Student 3: I think that they are quite serious. Because we can see this from their faces, from their expressions and they have some kind of solemnity. Fred: Very good! When I see them, somehow, I feel that, especially the young guy, that he doesn’t feel very comfortable doing this. The next picture shows a former Japanese Prime Minister. Student 4: He is obviously shaking hands with another man, maybe a diplomat of another country. And he looks very happy, although he is not looking at the other, but forward. Maybe there are many photographers in front of him, and it’s a political custom. Student 5: Maybe the Prime Minister has just finished some important conference and got some important deals which can provide support for his policies, for example. And from his facial expressions, I believe that the person he is meeting is a very important person. Fred: When you look at pictures, you always need to think about the time it was taken. So, the first one was taken probably before something happened while the second one could be after something has happened, as you rightly say. The third picture shows a young Caucasian man, smiling, wearing informal clothes, standing in the middle of a park. Student 6: The first picture is the most serious situation; the second, maybe much more casual and in the 3rd one, the man only wears a light jacket and jeans. The occasion is obviously casual. Fred: It’s a very difficult question because you only see half of the picture and I’ve really removed a lot of information there, but what do you think he could be doing? Student 6: I think there must be other people, maybe a couple? His smile is so wide and I think that it is a happy situation. Fred: So what people wear, of course, will also match the situation and how people behave. That’s a very good point. Student 7: This man seems really natural, in his most natural state. Compared to the first two photos, this seems very ‘normal’. And I think that he might be taking a picture after his graduation. The original pictures all had in common the fact that they described encounters between Japanese people and people from other countries, in Japan. They showed: – Two white businessmen bowing in front of two Japanese colleagues; – The Japanese Prime Minister shaking hands with Barrack Obama for the press after a meeting; – A Japanese-foreign couple in a park.

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I chose these pictures because usually, for people in Europe, communicating with the Japanese seems to be extremely complicated. And they might fear meeting Japanese people, because people have often been told that Japanese people are very different from them, very polite, very shy, etc. But as you can see on the pictures, different contexts, different situations, lead to people behaving differently. About the first picture: Some of you said that they were presenting their condolences. That was a good guess since this would be probably one of the only ‘official’ situations where, e.g., Europeans might bow (in front of a coffin?). The picture shows a business situation. Japanese and Europeans—but they could be Americans, Australians or they could come from New Zealand. Someone here is adapting to a way of greeting others, bowing to the Japanese. This formal situation relates to moneymaking. They are probably going to try to sign a big contract, so they needed, in a sense, to ‘seduce’ the Japanese. They adapt to what they have been told is the Japanese way of greeting each other, because they want to impress them and to make money. In the second picture, a Japanese person is meeting an American but the way of greeting is very different. The context is very specific; this is international politics. They do not bow. You don’t see Obama bowing to the Japanese Prime Minister— although he probably could. But Obama is not here for business [I mean to make money]. He doesn’t need to ‘seduce’ the Japanese Prime Minister as one of the biggest world leaders. As some of you also rightly noted, the presence of photographers and journalists makes this scene look like a performance. That’s why they are not facing each other. In this picture, the pressure is different on the participants, when compared to the first one. The final picture represents a so-called intercultural couple. The lady is from Japan and the man from Europe. The way they behave seems to suggest that nobody really seems to be presenting themselves adapting to each other’s ‘culture’. They are both smiling, they seem to be comfortable and happy. One can also nearly feel their love. [Obviously, the picture could also be a performance with actors passing as an intercultural couple.] What does this tell us? Power, status, wealth, contexts all have an effect on how we behave interculturally, on the way we want to include ‘culture’ as a symbol of ourselves, as a symbol of the other.

5.3 Reflecting Together on Fragments In this section, the focus is on some short statements on interculturality that I have written in 2021. I call these statements ‘fragments’ (see Dervin, 2022a). I suggest that you reflect for yourselves after reading each of the following ‘fragments’: What comes to mind when you hear these statements? What do they mean to you? And what are your views on them? We shall listen to how some of the students react to them.

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1. “The point of interculturality is not to comprehend but to test”. Student 8: I’m rather confused by the word “test” because as a student, “test” means something terrible to me. And I think that the point of interculturality is comprehension because we need to have mutual understanding. Fred: Very good point. Thank you for mentioning ‘test’ and the fact that for you, it means something bad. I didn’t think about that. Because for me, ‘test’ here is not a negative word… I want to ask more questions about your answer: Can we really understand the other? Do you think that we understand each other? Are we sure that we understand each other? Student 8: I’m not pretty sure that we can understand each other. For now, but I think that in the future we may reach this goal. Fred: From my perspective, we can never be sure that we understand each other, for several reasons. In a lot of cases, we pretend that we understand because we don’t want to hurt the other [or we don’t want to lose our face]. So, for example, someone says something that I don’t understand, maybe in a lot of cases, I will pretend to understand because I don’t want to make the situation too embarrassing. Besides, in many situations, I might think that I understand what the other is saying but, actually, I misunderstand, misinterpret or I do not really understand what they are trying to say. What I was trying to say in the fragment is that because we can never be sure that we understand each other, we need to test each other. “Test” here means ‘ask questions’, ‘push each other’, ‘go further’, ‘question the other as much as you question yourself’ to make sure that we can come to some kind of understanding. I think one of the problems in interculturality is that people don’t ask ‘real’ questions—maybe because they don’t dare. Or maybe they even don’t think about the fact that they should ask more questions to make sure that they can come to some kind of understanding. 2. “There is no beginning, no end to interculturality”. Student 9: There are no limits or clear boundaries to interculturality. We cannot define what culture is or what studying interculturality really is about. Fred: That’s very good. Actually, I didn’t think of this when I wrote this. But this is a good interpretation because we’re not really quite sure what interculturality is. And for example, what is the border between interculturality and just being a ‘social being’? What I mean with this fragment is inspired by this idea that interculturality is a never-ending process. It means that we are never ready for interculturality. We cannot claim that we know how to do it or how to ensure that it works. To finish, two questions were asked to the students in preparation for the next dialogue. In Chapter 7, we shall explore their answers: – The Chinese discourse instrument 文化自大—(Wénhuàzìdà) is translated as cultural arrogance: Can you think of a good example of cultural arrogance that you have faced in interaction with someone from another country or another part of your own country? How do you define this concept yourself (what does culture mean here?) and what do you suggest to do when facing cultural arrogance?

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– We shall discuss the idea of silent transformations (潜移默化 Qiányímòhuà) in a future dialogue: Reflect on one important silent transformation that you have experienced in your life. How did it happen? When and how did you realize that you had changed? How could it inform the way we think about interculturality? [CONTINUE TO REFLECT]. – Is the difference between advising and preparing clear to you? How would you explain the two terms in relation to intercultural communication education? – When you meet someone from another country for the first time, how often do you pay attention to both differences and similarities between you? – Can you remember the last time you pretended that you understood someone while you could not make sense of what they were saying? Why did you pretend? How did you feel? Do you think that your interlocutor knew? What could you have done to make the interaction more ‘authentic’? – How often have you come across the word civilization in the languages that you know? What meaning(s) was it given? – Visit your favourite online newspaper or news outlet. Pick randomly some pictures showing encounters between people from different countries (e.g., country leaders, tourists). What extra pieces of information do these pictures provide us with in relation to the accompanying article? For example, do the pictures confirm ‘subconsciously’ a bias towards a person included in the picture? – What meaning(s) do you give to the following fragment: “The point of interculturality is not to comprehend but to test”? – Finally, was there anything in what Fred and/or the students said in this chapter with which you disagree? Explain why. Three books are suggested to continue ‘digging into’ some of the topics covered in this chapter and in future chapters: (1) A novel by English-born American novelist and short-story writer Jhumpa Lahiri (2017), who often writes about the figure of the immigrant. The suggested novel recounts her moving to Italy, learning the language and starting to write her novels in Italian. (2) A debate about the complex discourses of tolerance, based on a conversation between Wendy Brown (Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley) and Rainer Forst (Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy at Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) (2014). (3) A book on cross-cultural issues in art, expanding beyond Western-centrism, by Professor of Art and Design History Steven Leuthold (2010) at Northern Michigan University. 1. Lahiri, J. (2017). In Other Words. London: Bloomsbury. 2. Brown, W., & Forst, R. (2014). The Power of Tolerance: A Debate. New York: Columbia University Press. 3. Leuthold, S. (2010). Cross-cultural Issues in Art. New York: Routledge.

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References Brown, W., & Forst, R. (2014). The power of tolerance: A debate. Columbia University Press. CNN. (2022). Elon Musk says his offer to buy Twitter is about ‘the future of civilization,’ not making money. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/14/tech/musk-twitter-offer-explanation/index.html Dervin, F. (2022a). Interculturality in fragments: A reflexive approach. Springer. Dervin, F. (2022b). Why ‘Chinese’ stories of interculturality? In M. Yuan, F. Dervin, B. Sude, & N. Chen (Eds.), Change and exchange in global education—Learning with Chinese stories of interculturality (pp. 1–16). Palgrave Macmillan. Lahiri, J. (2017). In other words. Bloomsbury. Leuthold, S. (2010). Cross-cultural issues in art. Routledge.

Chapter 6

Resonating with Others

Abstract This chapter is based on the students’ reactions to the second dialogue with one of the teachers. They review their own understandings of the notion of interculturality and the ways it is tackled in education. Their views on the notion already reflect supercritical engagement with some of the ideas shared by the lecturer, for example, in relation to terms such as culture, differilitude and cultural arrogance. In their comments, some students clearly disagree with some of the teachers’ ideologies and push for opposite takes on the notion (e.g., on the potential danger of generalizations). All in all, what seems to emerge from the students’ reflections is the importance of the intriguing idea of ‘resonating with others’ in the endless process of ‘doing’ interculturality. Keywords Cultural arrogance · Translation · Generalizations · Language · Culture In this chapter, we listen to how the students reacted to the second dialogue. The chapter title hints at one central aspect of interculturality discussed in Chapters 3, 4 and 5: resonating with others. The verb to resonate first had to do with music in English, to produce sound via vibration. By the end of the 1970s, it received its figurative sense in reference to relating harmoniously and striking a chord. A very interesting idea: “there is no beginning no end to interculturality”. From my point of view, it also has something to do with another statement Fred made: “The point of interculturality is not to comprehend but to test”. Comprehension is more like a compromise in interculturality, and it can be a dead end. Testing, on the other hand, is something that never stops moving. Infinity embeds in the ever-changing nature of two “others” and the never-stopping attempt to read others. Another element that stimulated me was Fred’s discussion of translation. As such the translation of “ethnic culture” and “civilized society” serves as a starting point for my question—what is the best way to translate certain Chinese terms into other languages? As I see it, there are mainly two methods. The first is searching for a counterpart from the target language, and the other is directly using pinyin from Chinese characters. The first one is widely utilized because of its mental convenience. Although the second method requires extra explanations and mental efforts to comprehend, it makes more sense to me to understand the meaning from the source language. There are two translations of 面 in English: pasta and mien. I prefer the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_6

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second one. Why should the starting point be Italian pasta? And back to “ethnic culture” and “civilized society”: would it be better to translate them as minzu and wenming? (Student 1) As Fred said we cannot communicate perfectly. Even if the meanings are not distorted by translation, the whole sense of context may be destroyed. As we all know, in Chinese, one word may have different meanings and an exact meaning can also have several ways to express it. Sometimes we use ancient poetry [gˇush¯ıcí] or idioms [chéngyˇu] to describe a fabulous scenery, to express exquisite feelings, to discuss life, and anything that makes our emotions overflow without reason. We often call this kind of expression [yìjìng], which is a combination of objective meaning and perceived setting. However, when it is translated into English, we might be able to convey the meaning but lose the original connotation of these words. I was also inspired by another student’s idea about “There is no beginning no end to interculturality”. He said that he thought of a loop, which means that interculturality is just a process running around in circles. And I think maybe it is more accurate to describe it as Penrose Stairs. When people interact with each other, each of us thinks he or she is stepping forward, but at the same time, our cognitions are respectively undergoing a process of constant overturning and reconstruction, which leads to going back to the origin point. (Student 2) In this lecture, Fred talked about several characteristics of intercultural communication, one of which made a good impression on me: “There is no beginning no end to interculturality”. Throughout human history, intercultural exchange has been a slow process of fusion between cultures, whether it is Rome and Germanic groups, or Han Dynasty and Xiongnu. The cultures of different peoples have been slowly merging and developing. In the age of globalization, this trend has clearly accelerated considerably. In my view, intercultural exchange is more of an upward spiral, progressing towards maturity through the intermingling of different cultures. Through the bond of intercultural communication, perhaps one day, all humanity will be able to join hands and live together in harmony. (Student 3) In this dialogue, I have further deepened my understanding of otherization and paralanguage. As Huiyu mentioned in class, otherization is two-sided, it has both advantages and disadvantages; sometimes when we are not sure of a group, otherization is one of the best ways to grasp information, but it should be moderate. At the same time, although there is no doubt about the importance of language in interculturality, we should also consider the meaning of the same word in different countries when translating. The polysemic word nationality is a good example. Another important point is to look at things from multiple perspectives. Although I have known the importance of non-verbal language before, I was still intrigued by Fred’s analysis of the three photos. It turns out that you can tell so much just from camera angles, behaviours, facial expressions and the surrounding environment. This tells us to think more and question more. (Student 4) What struck me most during this exchange was a statement made by Fred—“the point of interculturality is not to comprehend but to test”. The term ‘test’ may be understood very differently by people from different cultural backgrounds. And it

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is this cultural difference that leads us to answer this question with a completely different focus. In the Chinese educational context, ‘test’ is always associated with examinations which maybe hardly correspond to the real meaning of Fred’s fragment. The same is true of the translation of some Chinese specific words, which by their very nature cannot find any English equivalent, but are nonetheless translated as a similar concept, leading to misunderstandings in expression. (Student 5) During the past two weeks, we have focused on othering during Huiyu’s lectures, but also on some theories about language and intercultural communication, and nonverbal intercultural communication. When we talk about language and culture, the myths of the Tower of Babel firstly came to my mind. The story is about God depriving people of a common language in order to punish them for building the Tower of Babel. It seems to be a pity to lose such a tool for communication. However, when we mention that an international language should be created for communication more conveniently nowadays, people are not willing to give up the language they have, even at the sacrifice of huge costs for intercultural communication. We should always bear in mind that speaking the same language can also lead to misunderstandings. (Student 6) I strongly agree that it is an illusion that speaking English makes us closer. Speaking the same language does not mean that people share a similar background or have something in common. They just use the language as a tool of communication. This is particularly typical in China. The successful promotion of Mandarin in China eliminates language barriers among different regions. But dialects still exist in different villages, towns and cities. People feel more familiar and closer to those who speak the same dialects. And when people talk about the same words in Mandarin, they do not think of the same thing in their mind because of different experiences. We cannot be absolutely sure that we totally understand each other in intercultural communication even if we speak the same language. So, we need to ask more questions so as to better communicate with each other. (Student 7) In the last conversation with Fred, he answered my question “In your research on cross-cultural communication, do you find anything that is completely different from what people usually think?”. One of the things that struck me in Fred’s answer was that English doesn’t necessarily help us communicate, it may sometimes hinder us from doing it. We often attribute our inability to communicate with people from other cultures to language barriers, but are cultures really more connected when everyone speaks one language? Is language the biggest barrier to our communication? (Student 8) Fred said: “Translation is the staple of interculturality—not culture”. I have some ideas about this point of view. I think this sentence means that translation is an indispensable part of interculturality. Just like staple food, without it, interculturality will lose its solid foundation. Culture is more like a delicious dish, which needs to be matched with staple food to enhance the meal. I prefer to describe translation as a bridge and culture as a treasure. Because translation can break intercultural barriers, and then establish a preliminary understanding between different cultures to make them connect with each other. Translation is so important that we often think that it is the basis of interculturality, but culture is the

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core and the real value of interculturality. Translation and culture complement each other. Only with a bridge could we find the treasure on the other side, and only with the treasure could we have the motivation to build a bridge. (Student 9) Fred has given us an interesting discussion on the various applications of the word “civilization (文明)” in different scenarios in China. As a native Chinese and an English major, it strikes me that the reason why such differences exist and that they can be discovered and analysed is that we, as individuals, are capable of thinking under no limitation of any language pattern or cultural mindset. I believe that is what “the point of interculturality is not to comprehend but to test” means. The study of interculturality advises people to analyse, rethink about how we communicate, and influences how we interact with others. (Student 10) Fred presented us with 3 pictures showing foreigners greeting Japanese people in different situations. Obviously, they behave differently according to various objectives, situations and cultures. Although the assumption about interacting with people in the same country with the same culture in the same way is taken for granted, it also depends on power (status or money), representation of each other and negotiation and changes in equality. Interculturality keeps changing and it is not just about simple bilingual or two-way communication between persons from different countries. It is about changing ideas, experiencing culture shock and adapting to the best part of it. In fact, just like Fred asserted, there is no exact beginning or end to interculturality. It happens all the time when we try to interact with people from different cultural backgrounds. Dissonance surely occurs but we need to cultivate the ability to accept and tolerate differences. (Student 11) I agree with Fred that interculturality is not about preparing people to communicate. We can’t comprehend the culture of one country through “preparation”, which may take the form of simply listing its characteristics, reciting them and applying this “knowledge” when we meet someone from ‘that culture’. This kind of “preparation” is more like stereotyping and it assumes that communication is predictable, so once we are prepared, we can communicate well. Actually, communication is a two-way thing, and it’s an act between people. We don’t know whether others really understand us, so we have to question them to figure out their real thoughts. On this basis, we can analyse, unthink and rethink our ways of communication, then find our most comfortable and efficient ways to do it. (Student 12) After this session with Fred, I have a deeper understanding of othering, especially when it comes to cultural othering. There is one comment on othering, which indicates that it sometimes helps reflect on ourselves. From what I have understood, othering actually refers to social phenomena in which some individuals or groups are considered not to conform to the traditions or norms of a given social group. And this effect has both advantages and disadvantages. First, othering affects how people view and treat individuals who are perceived as different from the group or groups that are different from the group they belong to. Having a sense of belonging to one group provides people with a sense of security, friendship, cooperation and contact with others. But it may also cause cultural prejudice and potential conflicts with others outside of this group. As a result, we need to be critical towards this issue. (Student 13)

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When we come across strangers, we tend to consider differences only. Actually, we are different, but we are similar at the same time. We always share difference and similarity. We need to get closer to each other by looking into similarity in difference and difference in similarity. Second, it’s really interesting to hear that people in the West seldom use the word ‘civilization’ due to, e.g., decolonization. Civilization in the nineteenth to twentieth centuries meant turning people into ‘Europeans’ because European people considered themselves to be the most civilized. (Student 14) In my opinion, the purpose of intercultural communication is not to understand a culture. When we ‘do’ intercultural communication with people who come from different countries and have different cultural backgrounds, maybe we can’t understand others’ real and inner thoughts totally although we think we have already comprehended. But this communication process is meaningful. We try to understand and resonate with others. During this process, our thoughts will collide and produce new things. (Student 15) During this session, the last part of the dialogue let me rethink the essence of intercultural communication. Fred pointed out that it is impossible to communicate with one culture; instead, we can only communicate with people from ‘this’ culture. This comment aroused my attention. In this course, I always directly ascribe the conflicts I observed in people’s interactions from different cultural backgrounds to cultural differences. However, such conclusion could be problematic because individual differences are omitted. Thus, if we want to use ‘culture’ to explain the conflicts in the interactions of people from different cultures, it is necessary to make sure such phenomena are common in intercultural communication. Meanwhile, in the study of intercultural communication, I think that large data samples should be adopted in order to avoid individual differences and to acquire precise generalizations. (Student 16) Through this second dialogue with Fred, I deeply realized that there is no absolute right or wrong in intercultural communication. First of all, I have a more comprehensive understanding of the concept of ‘othering’, I think every interpretation of the word is reasonable, it is not an absolute definition that counts. Fred repeatedly emphasized that the core of communication is human, using the word ‘advise’ instead of ‘prepare’ shows an important attitude in intercultural communication. From my perspective, interculturality is more like trial and error, we can only prepare ourselves to constantly amend our way of communicating through countless attempts. (Student 17) From this discussion with Fred, I started to rethink what intercultural communication is actually doing in practice. I asked myself if intercultural communication was about being well prepared before actually communicating. But communication is a two-way thing, we can’t actually communicate perfectly. And when we’re communicating, we can’t completely ignore differences as if they never existed. Once I start to notice too much that I’m different from other people, maybe the process of othering occurs. In the meantime, I actually get nervous and resist actively interacting with them as a result. Similarities could help us to be closer. Getting prepared

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to meet others through focusing on difference only may sometimes get in the way of communication. (Student 18) The 3 different ways of interacting with Japanese people really interested me. I think they provide great examples for us to understand the influence of power, relationships as well as the images that both sides want to present in interaction. I also agree with Fred’s view that “interculturality is a test”. In my opinion, it’s a test of whether you’d be willing to put in an effort to comprehend the other culture, especially when two sides show inequalities in things other than culture, such as socio-economic characteristics. The one who holds a relatively high status often unconsciously has a thing called cultural arrogance, which can easily lead to a lack of patience in seeing more into the other’s culture. One example can be the Hollywood-made movies such as Mulan and Memoirs of a Geisha, both of which tell American stories with loads of inauthentic Chinese and Japanese elements. Both received mass criticism in China and Japan. The untrue facts in the movies reflect what we could label as Hollywood’s disrespect and stereotypes towards foreign cultures. My suggestion when facing cultural arrogance is to tell our stories well ourselves, transferring our culture in both accurate and straightforward ways. (Student 19) What impressed me most was that there is no perfect communication that we cannot prepare before a specific situation, and that, actually, maybe there is no need to prepare for meeting others. In my perspective, when we communicate with people from different backgrounds, all we need to do is to communicate bravely without any worry, and in this process, it is better not to try to acquire some predetermined ideas about the ones we communicate with. Just as Fred said: “the point of interculturality is not to comprehend but to test”. Too many ‘presets’ will only make us more inclined to comprehend, not to test, and then lead to more misunderstandings. To test or to question appear to be more effective and attractive ways. (Student 20) What was most interesting was Fred sharing about how he considered intercultural communication through his research. He explained the issue from four parts: First, ‘inter-culture’ is extensively used in the world, however, we should think deeply about ‘what does inter-culture mean?’ instead of just using it automatically, or taking it for granted. Then Fred talked about the connection between similarity and difference rather than mere difference. It is necessary to combine difference and similitude together in order to communicate with others. We need to start getting closer by looking into similarity in difference and difference in similarity. This reminds me of the Chinese idiom for ‘agreeing to disagree’. In intercultural exchanges, the premise of communication must be built on the recognition of each other’s similarities rather than enlarged individual differences. Also, communication is such a complex issue that in many situations we believe that we understand each other but actually it is not the case. After that, Fred asserted that it is an illusion to believe that speaking English makes people closer, for it is a potential problem for communication as people have different understandings of vocabularies, even if the words appear to be equivalents. (Student 21) During the whole discussion, I caught the main idea of interculturality: it’s more of a process than a goal, and the discipline itself focuses more on observing than

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training, which means, ‘testing’. Additionally, I have my own understanding of Fred’s claim that ‘No beginning and no end to interculturality’: First, I think that culture itself refreshes during the process of absorbing and abandoning many elements from outside or inside environments, and the whole process has no end. Second, from the perspective of non-essentialism, people tend to form their own cultural system which may be blended with other systems according to their complicated experiences. This situation will only get more complex as the world develops. I believe that this process is in fact endless. (Student 22) I think the three photos that Fred asked us to analyse are interesting. When he covered half of the pictures, I couldn’t think of any commonality between the three scenes. In the first scene, two Westerners bow solemnly, while in the second, Shinzo Abe is slightly nervous, smiling at the camera. In the third scene, a Western gentleman is fully displaying his smile. When Fred revealed the answers, I found the pictures to be subtle. In intercultural communication, everyone’s choice to retain their own culture or imitate others’ culture has a specific purpose. When we want to please and seduce others to achieve a certain purpose, we will imitate others’ culture. On the contrary, in other cases, we will adhere to our own culture and wait for others to adapt to our culture. However, people who ‘belong’ to two cultures might treat each of them sincerely in a harmonious and adaptive way. (Student 23) I would like to share my ideas about Fred’s statement that “the first step to interculturality is to reject interculturality”. As far as I am concerned, rejecting interculturality means that we need to focus on similarities between human beings rather than differences in intercultural practice. Only by adhering to this premise will we be able to achieve our different goals in intercultural communication. In fact, the deep meaning contained in this proposal is very similar to the spirit contained in the traditional Chinese philosophy in the Book of Changes 《易经》Yi [ Jing], that is, seeking common ground while preserving differences. Therefore, I think the dialectical thought contained in this statement has made it more interesting and enlightening. (Student 24) During our daily communication, there are things that we would take for granted and are inclined to no longer think about deeply. The existence of these may hinder the communication process taking pace and thus weaken the effect of intercultural communication. I agree with Fred’s opinions about taking culture as an excuse for everything and also about the imperfection of communication. Sometimes, when it comes to some intercultural topics, we would always ascribe our differences to culture and we just take it as a natural ‘thing’ without consciously thinking about what culture actually is. Besides, we must accept that people cannot communicate ‘perfectly’. Sometimes when a party involved in communication decodes messages in a wrong way but without giving effective feedback or just pretending to have already understood, this kind of communication filled with ineffectiveness and imperfection is normal in our daily lives. (Student 25) I am glad that Fred used some specific cases to help us understand his views. For example, his example of the words “culture” and “civilized” having different

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meanings in different parts of the world warns us against potential misunderstandings in intercultural communication. (Student 26) [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – Have you also ‘adopted’ other cultural habits and/or behaviours to please others and to make sure that they get a positive view of you? Explain what, how and why. – Do you agree with one of the students when they write that “Interculturality is more like trial and error, we can only prepare ourselves to constantly amend our way of communicating through countless attempts”? – The Book of Changes 《易经》Yi [ Jing] is mentioned by one student in their comments. Try to find some information about this book and reflect on its connections to some of the ideas about interculturality discussed hitherto. – What comes to mind when you see the expression of cultural arrogance? Is this a term that you have used before? In which context and why? – If you have the opportunity to meet a new person from another country while you are reading this book, try to meet them by focusing on both the differences and similarities between you? What is the added value of such an approach? Do you face some challenges in trying to integrate similarities in the way you discuss who you two are? – How do you interpret one of the students’ expressions in their comments: “enlarged individual differences”? – Can communication ever be ‘predictable’? – Similarly, what does the phrase to acquire precise generalizations in another student’s statement mean to you: “in the study of intercultural communication, I think that large data samples should be adopted in order to avoid individual differences and to acquire precise generalizations”? – Have you met many people from other countries who speak ‘your’ language very well and yet you two faced many misunderstandings? How about people who do not speak it very well? Do you not always find it difficult to communicate with them? – Is this ‘slogan-like’ assertion by one of the students too idealistic for you: “Through the bond of intercultural communication, perhaps one day, all humanity will be able to join hands and live together in harmony”? Do you believe in similar ideals?

Chapter 7

On Being Affected Implicitly

Abstract The issue of alternative ideologies of interculturality is discussed in this chapter. Since the beginning of this book, the authors have insisted on the importance of ‘digging out’ alternatives in the way interculturality is constructed in research and education. The students thus reflect on three ‘Chinese discourse instruments’ here: cultural arrogance, cultural confidence and silent transformations. Reading the students’ comments on the instruments, one is challenged to see the underlying intercultural issues from different perspectives, realizing how one’s (perceived) position in the world and differing ideologies can have a strong influence on the meanings and performances of interculturality. The instrument of silent transformations is an important one to reflect on how one is affected implicitly by the complexities of interculturality glo(c)ally. Keywords Silent transformations · Cultural confidence · Ideologies · Alternatives · Glocal In this chapter, two questions are addressed by the students: – The Chinese discourse instrument 文化自大—(Wénhuàzìdà) is translated as cultural arrogance: can you think of a good example of cultural arrogance that you have faced in interaction with someone from another country or another part of your own country? How do you define this concept yourself (what does culture mean here?) and what do you suggest to do when facing cultural arrogance? – In the next chapter, the idea of silent transformations (潜移默化 Qiányímòhuà) will be discussed: Reflect on one important silent transformation that you have experienced in your life. How did it happen? When and how did you realize that you had changed? How could it inform the way we think about interculturality?

7.1 Discussion 1: Problematizing Cultural Arrogance As far as cultural arrogance is concerned, I can think of two relevant examples. The first is ‘individual heroism’ displayed in American Hollywood films, in which American superheroes save the world over and over again, ignoring the feelings of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_7

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other countries and nations in the process, with everyone else being the object of rescue. The second case is China during the Qing Dynasty (1636–1912, the last feudal dynasty in Chinese history), where the rulers saw themselves as the ‘sons of heaven’ (天子) and their country as the ‘Heavenly Kingdom’ (天朝上国), and chose to isolate themselves from the rest of the world, refusing to interact with other countries, which eventually led to the collapse of the Dynasty. Personally speaking, I think that culture means here the total attitudes and behaviours that are characteristic of a particular nation or of a group of people, which can be commonsense among them. And the lack of understanding and the gap between peoples may be a trigger for cultural arrogance. Therefore, if we want to eliminate cultural arrogance, we need to make an important idea clear in our education that different countries and peoples are equal and to learn to respect the cultures of different countries. Of course, we also have the right and the duty to defend the dignity of our own culture in the face of cultural arrogance. (Student 1) Cultural arrogance is a very interesting practical problem. Cultural arrogance exists not only between different countries, but also between different ethnic groups or geographical regions (even in the same country). If we look at history, many wars broke out because some nation states thought their national culture was more superior, so they wanted other countries to adopt the same culture, and finally this intensified into wars. From my own experience, I found that students from developing countries will be more cautious and modest in the face of intercultural communication, while students from developed countries will be more confident and even conceited. This may be related to the economic level, political system, culture and education. Interestingly, in addition to the above three factors, if a country has a long history, they will also appear more confident. For example, China has always stressed that it is a country with an ancient civilization of 5000 years. Some Chinese people will have an obvious sense of historical and cultural superiority in front of some small countries with a short history, while Americans and people from Western European countries might have a sense of scientific, artistic, cultural and economic superiority. (Student 2) Cultural Arrogance implies that one believes or acts as though their culture was better than another culture. For instance, Americans are better than Europeans or Japanese are superior to Chinese. Some Americans tend to believe that the “American Way of Life” is superior to other ways of pursuing their stated goals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Contrary to arrogance, I truly believe that there is a healthy and beneficial way to admire and support other cultures and their values. (Student 3) A good example of cultural arrogance was evident in an encounter with an old man in Shanghai. He told me that he thinks the lifestyle, diet and even dressing of Shanghai people are more exquisite than those in other places such as Beijing. He claimed that people in Shanghai are elites who are more educated and politer, while people in other places are rude. At the same time, he also said that Shanghai’s natural environment and man-made buildings are the most beautiful. Except for Shanghai, other places are rural areas. This man’s idea is a manifestation of cultural arrogance.

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All in all, I think that cultural arrogance is the belief that your own cultural background, including ways of analyzing problems, values, beliefs, language and communication, is correct. And your culture is central, while other cultures are defective and inferior. When we face cultural arrogance, we should stay calm and not be misled by the extreme views. And we can try to persuade the cultural arrogant ones to put aside their prejudice and show more respect for other cultures. At the same time, we need to reflect on whether we, ourselves, have cultural arrogance. If so, we should adjust our thoughts and try to understand other cultures, then we can seek common ground while reserving differences. (Student 4) Cultural arrogance is a state whereby people are satisfied with their own culture and remain at a self-sufficient style of governance and development. I suppose that cultural development requires sustainable learning and adjustment with the development of the society, economy and politics. Being culturally arrogant goes against sustainability and long-term development of a given society. As a result, we need to discern the boundary between cultural confidence and cultural arrogance. (Student 5) When I meet local old people in Shanghai, they always tend to show some discrimination against outsiders through their body languages or emotions on their faces. I define cultural arrogance here as self-superiority or overconfidence about one’s own status. One is arrogant about one’s fancy or elegant lifestyles just because one is rich. I suggest that we should be modest and show some respect for other cultures whenever we come across them. (Student 6) Examples of cultural arrogance: On the road to China’s continuous internationalization, some voices greatly reject Western culture. Therefore, our attitude in introducing Western culture is also very contradictory. We are afraid that overall westernization will bring a deeper ‘flow of poison’. Such repeated hesitations make us hesitant about our own culture, think that the old is worthless and not confident enough about Western culture, worried that the toxic side effects of these Western cultures are too difficult to control. In fact, without confidence, we always swing between inferiority and conceit. (Student 7) In my opinion, this term refers to people who have overconfidence of where he/she is from, and who take it as a privilege. Like in China, some people in cities or regions which are more developed (e.g., Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai) see themselves as better people [most of the people are kind in these places of course]. When we face this situation, I think we should smile and leave. Because there’s no need to explain, it’s a waste of time to communicate with people who are culturally arrogant. We’d better use our energy and time to show and explain the charm of our own culture. (Student 8) This question reminds me of my classmate Peter. When I was in junior high school, Peter, an American student came to study in our class. We were curious about his life abroad, so we talked with him a lot. He promoted American culture, and thumbed his nose at learning ancient Chinese poetry. During lunch, he always ate French fries and chicken, saying it was the best food, better than Chinese noodle and rice. In my opinion, the biggest difference between confidence and arrogance is that the former means ‘you are good, me too’ while the latter means ‘I am the best, but

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you are nothing’. So-called cultural arrogance refers to the belief that the culture of one’s own nation is the best, while those of other nations are heresies, which are not worth learning about. In fact, it is exactly the main reason for the decline of China in the late Qing Dynasty. The world is an ecosystem, and every culture is a part of it. Cultures jointly maintain the diversity of the world and make it colourful. Any idea and behaviour that negates other cultures and excludes other civilizations is wrong. When we face cultural arrogance, we should tell the utterers about cultural diversity—just as the old Chinese saying goes, ‘seek harmony but not uniformity, and be all-embracing’. (Student 9) I think that I’ve come across cultural arrogance in life. Since I’ve never be abroad and have few opportunities to talk to foreigners, so most cases of arrogance I have come across are limited to my own country or subcultures. For example, some of my friends are fond of rap music; some like rock music a lot, others prefer K-pop. It’s hard to accept our own preferences and sometimes some of us display arrogance: rock fans think rap music fans are superficial, and rap music fans believe that rock fans are crazy. There seem to be no appropriate solutions to this kind of conflict, since they are different things, and people tend to rank and to make things that are different appear hostile. ‘Cultural arrogance’ could refer to people’s subjective belief that their own culture is superior to others’. Culture here means the abstract and personal understanding of the environment people live in and the ideologies they conform to. People’s natural use of othering makes differences enemies and causes cultural arrogance, which means that they always believe that what they own is the best. When we face this kind of discrimination, the best solution is to focus on similarities but not just on differences. Finding different points blindly will lead to an embarrassing situation where both communicators have no common topic. And this might also help soften the negative effects of othering. (Student 10) As a ‘new Shanghainese’ who moved to Shanghai with my parents when I was in junior high school, I was despised and excluded by some local students. “Culture” in cultural arrogance, in my opinion, refers to the various attributes of people’s growth and living environments, as well as the representatives of living habits and local customs. Cultural arrogance is the irrational and unrealistic fanatical love of the above things, while rejecting and belittling other cultures. In my opinion, when we encounter cultural arrogance, we should remain rational, show the good side of our own culture, try to let the other realize their shallowness and sincerely examine whether there is something worth learning from each other’s culture. (Student 11) The word cultural arrogance reminds me of my experience in Shanghai city. I came to Shanghai from Guangdong Province, China. When chatting with local Shanghai people who usually were born and grew up in Shanghai, I find that, in their subconscious, they often see other provinces as underdeveloped and think that no place is better than Shanghai. In my opinion, cultural arrogance means looking down on other cultures. And the concept of culture here includes history, economic status, lifestyle of the citizens and so on. When facing cultural arrogance, firstly we can keep calm to avoid direct conflict such as fighting, then we may try to share the real

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situation of our own country or region and express our uncomfortable feeling about the arrogance, which might help others to be aware of their attitudes and to find out something new about other cultures. (Student 12) Once I talked about studying abroad with an elderly grandfather I encountered while waiting for my friends in a park, he just asked me not to study abroad because we Chinese are the smartest and China is the best country in the world. I always try to be a person with cultural confidence instead of cultural arrogance. Cultural arrogance means that our culture is among the best in the world and the rest is inferior. Cultural confidence, on the other hand, means that we should be confident that our cultural system is the most suitable for us. These two concepts are totally different. If we encounter cultural arrogance, we don’t have to argue about which culture is the best and just stay in a poise state if there is no threat in interests. (Student 13)

7.2 Discussion 2: Silent Transformations in Interculturality First, I want to point out that this “silence” in the transformation is essentially imperceptible. It’s like things are changing in small quantities every day or every second that you don’t even notice, while someday you suddenly realize the transformation (now it’s happening in terms of quality) in you normally by the comments from others or other signals. This happened to me when I was facilitating a class from Colombia. Students asked me where I was from. I said Shanghai out of nowhere and without thinking twice. And then one girl asked, “are you Shanghainese?”. I was about to say yes. But I’m not. I come from a coastal city originally and my previous self-perceived identity would always be a defy-every-single-doubt. “Nah I am from Wenzhou, and I am currently based in Shanghai.” Having been living in Shanghai for more than three years has finally shown me its manifested impact on me. And the change didn’t happen at the moment when I was asked, rather, it happened all the way to this conversation. In this example, all the things I experienced in Shanghai have become part of me and the generalization of Shanghai people would be a mixture of the things from people just like me. The identity of one person is something fluid or let’s say it’s a continuum when you look over your life as a whole. You can’t even ever begin to spot tiny changes between spectrums just because the changes are happening anytime and anywhere. At last, something interesting to say is that there is actually another very similar phrase in Chinese which is 耳濡目染. The meaning is that when you see or hear of something over and over again you will be probably influenced imperceptibly. The difference is that 潜移默化 is in essence a transformation happening through different forms, while 耳濡目染 describes these influences (even though subtle but you can tell) you take through constant listening and watching in daily lives. (Student 1)

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Because of China’s vast territory, different dialects are spoken in different parts of the country. I was born and raised in a city in northern China. At home, my parents would speak with me in our dialect, and I would also use it when I am with friends. When I was ten years old, my family moved to Shanghai, a city in southern China. Although my parents still spoke to me in my native dialect at home, for the sake of not being an outsider in the city, at first, I just avoided speaking my dialect in public, and over time, I began to speak Mandarin at home. Now, my parents still use our dialect to communicate with each other, but I have lost the ability to speak it. I realized this when I went back to my hometown several years ago. The villagers greeted me warmly in the dialect, but I didn’t know how to respond. With the increasingly close international and regional exchanges, more and more people choose to live in other places. (Student 2) When I was in elementary school and junior high school, I never used makeup. I think makeup just makes people more attractive, but it doesn’t make them more beautiful. To me, natural beauty is ‘true beauty’. As I went to college, more and more of my classmates began to make up, and I gradually realized the importance of makeup. I’m starting to think that eyebrow lifting really brightens one’s spirits, and lipstick makes one look better. My sense of aesthetics is imperceptibly changed by trends and people around me. (Student 3) I was talking to a friend recently and found a very interesting example of silent transformation. She asked me via WeChat why I had suddenly started using a particular catchphrase. I was very surprised at the time, thinking I had always been in the habit of using this ‘mantra’, but I found out through the chat logs that I had indeed only started using it in recent months. This piqued my curiosity and after a period of investigation I realized that it was another close friend of mine who regularly used this ‘mantra’ in conversation and I had been influenced by this silent transformation during my conversations with her. People exchange ideas in communication, but in fact they also draw on each other in their expressions. The impact of silent transformations is often imperceptible, and I think it is often more profound. We should value the impact of this form of communication, but at the same time be clear that it is based on a high frequency of daily communication. However, in intercultural communication, such influences may have the potential to dissolve the identity of our own culture. (Student 4) I have experienced one silent transformation in my way of thinking. As I am a major in economics, I have been on many related courses previously, which have trained my brain to think about questions from an economic angle. There is one course I took this year called Institutional Economy which mainly introduced the Coase theorem and contract theory. And there is one definition, trade cost, that has provided a new angle for me to think about making decisions or doing things. For example, if I want to buy a car, except for the price I should pay, I still need to consider the cost of comparing other brands, going to the vehicle store, etc. and also the cost of maintaining the car, buying insurance for it and so on. Then the price becomes much more expensive and I will reconsider the decision of whether to buy it or not. If I think about it, I can find that this thinking method can be applied to

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almost everything. That is one silent transformation I have experienced in my life. (Student 5) Silent transformations may form a fixed mindset or a paradigm in people’s mind. One important example for me is the formation of deep patriotism and strong recognition of ideology in China. I read some negative reports about China from foreign media such as CNN and BBC. And I also read some articles that criticize the political and economic institutions in China. When I read these materials, I feel that these comments seem reasonable. But when I write something or talk with others about these comments in informal occasions, I find that I unconsciously oppose these critiques and strongly defend the institutions and acts of the Chinese government. I believe that has to do with the education I have received and the experience I went through in the past. Education can change people’s mind and views silently. If you are immersed in a system, you will be imperceptibly influenced by it. (Student 6) What I want to say about silent transformations relates to a stereotype. When I used a Chinese taxi application before, if I was picked up by a female driver, I would assume that the trip would take longer because [I thought stereotypically that] female drivers always drive slower. I was shocked to discover that I had this silly idea because I considered myself an egalitarian and didn’t realize that I, as a woman, still had a stereotype about women. Then I started looking at every driver I met, and the gender gap was not significant. In intercultural communication, we should also abandon this implicit understanding because it will affect our judgement. (Student 7) Silent transformations mean that our thoughts or qualities have changed imperceptibly under the influence of the environment or of others. In China, a typical example is that parents want their children to go to a better school, because, in this way, children can receive a better education and study with excellent students, so as to integrate themselves into this excellent group and become one of them. I went to a top high school. My classmates had good learning habits. They were very diligent and efficient every day. Under the influence of my classmates, I gradually got rid of the habit of procrastination and unconsciously became more diligent. (Student 8) In recent years, one of the most important silent transformations is that I have paid more attention to life quality, I mean a more positive attitude to enjoy life. I lived in the house of a pair of Spanish grandpas when I was an exchange student. At the age of more than 70, they still went to the gym every day. And now, going to the gym and drinking coffee in the morning have become my daily routines, just like the Spanish grandpas did when I stayed with them. (Student 9) In Chinese culture, there is a saying that has to do silent transformations: “one who stays near vermilion gets stained red, and one who stays near ink gets stained black”. Our habits, thoughts, behaviours and moral characters will be influenced by the environment we live in as well as the people around us. I think that there are many definitions and explanations of patriotism. We have received many aspects of patriotic education since we were young. After seeing the deeds of many great people from ancient times to the present and their contributions to the country and the people, I have developed a deep feeling for my country. When

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I joined the Communist Party of China and wanted to serve the Party and the People, I realized that I had been influenced by patriots. (Student 10) I used to be a debater in a school-level English debate team. Normally, to protect a stance, we need to provide three arguments to convince the judges and to rebut rivals. As a Chinese, when I want to present an idea, I do not come straight to the point but move to the point step by step. Therefore, in the debate, I used to deliver the arguments in the following order: the useless one, the general one, and the crucial one. In Chinese, this is called yazhou [压轴] (to put the most important thing last). However, in international tournaments, I noticed that many native speakers chose to place the most important argument in the first place. During the 7 days of close interactions with native speakers in one international tournament, I ‘subliminally’ adjusted my speech style to cater to the straightforward expressive habit. After this 7-day tournament, when I recapped my speech drafts, I suddenly realized that my speech strategy had changed. Therefore, I think that if everyone around you shares the same habit or the same thinking pattern, the newcomer will unconsciously imitate others because it is much easier to communicate with people sharing the same habits. (Student 11) When it comes to silent transformations, there are so many examples coming to my mind. We often use this word in contexts such as education and growth. A child who grew up in an academically dominated family is likely to be more into literature, have a rich knowledge base and be good at writing. When I graduated from high school and entered university, it bothered me that I still had a sense of anxiety. In high school, every day stress from examinations could come from anywhere, so anxiety was necessary and normal. I put all of my energy into studying, so even when the final examination was over, I was still very anxious. But after getting into college, I encountered a girl who became my friend. Her attitude towards challenges was very positive. She loved everything alive: a flower, a cat under the sun, the Full Moon, etc. I started to learn from her and noticing things around me. I started to go for walks in the playground at night. One day another friend of mine suddenly said: “How come you’re not anxious anymore?”. I realized that I was influenced by my good friend. It is a kind of silent transformation. For interculturality, this kind of change happens quietly, and we don’t realize what has really changed. The change often comes from friends around us. The way we get along with them, their living habits, attitudes towards life, the way we communicate with other people, and even some trivial things in life will affect us. We are easily influenced by other people in intercultural communication, and similarly, we may also influence other people. (Student 12) I think that my learning experience in high school best expresses the significance of silent transformation. At the beginning, I was in a science lab class, and since there were more boys, the class was always active and we would all play together after class. But then after I transferred to the liberal arts intensive class, most of the students were girls, and everyone was in their seats doing homework or prepping after class, so I also became much quieter. The first time I realized that I had changed was when I happened to pass by the science lab class and was surprised by their

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energy, forgetting that I had been in the same state a few months before. I think culture is the same: it affects you implicitly. (Student 13) One important silent transformation that I have experienced is about my eating habits. I come from Shanxi [山西], a province located in the north of China. In Shanxi, people eat food made of wheat flour most of the time. However, when I came to university in Shanghai, I found that people eat rice most of the time, and that there is hardly any food similar to the one in Shanxi. At first, I was not used to it, but a year later, I was so used to eating rice that when I got home, I was even a little unaccustomed to Shanxi food. I realized that I had been transformed silently when I was not used to the food in my hometown anymore. Although this is only a small story about food, there is much more to say about transformations. As such time is often the key to silent transformations. Although time cannot always make absolute integration between different groups happen, it has the power to do so. Secondly, silent transformation is often difficult to realize, it changes a person little by little through a long period. The same goes with intercultural communication: it is often around us all the time, it changes us, but we don’t realize it. (Student 14) One silent transformation occurred to me when I was in junior high school. Under the influence of my best friend, I became interested in science. We read the Science Fans Magazine every week. She often shared interesting scientific knowledge with me and took me to watch science fiction films. Gradually, I was also very interested in science and learned related knowledge actively. When I found that my entertainment habits changed to watching science related fictions and movies, I realized that I had changed. I think that silent transformations can be a manifestation of interculturality. The Chinese proverb “近朱者赤, 近墨者黑” [jìn zh¯u zhˇe chì, jìn mò zhˇe h¯ei], which could be translated as “You become who you spend your time with”, describes well silent transformations. When we enter a new cultural environment or communicate with people from different cultures, we will all be affected by each other. (Student 15)

7.3 Reflections from Huiyu on Dialogue 2—Peeking Behind the Stage of the Dialogue I agree with the students that the second dialogue was intriguing. One of the most striking moments of this dialogue was Fred using pictures from different historical times and social contexts. The discussions around the translations of the Chinese words 文化 Wenhua and 文明 Wenming have led us to rethink interculturality. We had an interesting discussion about the 学文化 Xue Wenhua artwork that shows three Chinese people reading a book together. It was from the 1950s, where 学文化 Xue Wenhua meant something like ‘learning literacy’ or ‘casting off illiteracy’ after the New China was founded in 1949. This was very different from the English word

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‘culture’ today. The street poster with the multiple use of 文明 and its English translation (‘civilisation’, ‘civilized’) suggesting that people behave properly in society, caused laughter in the class. As a student said: “We usually ignore such posters in our daily lives, we take their messages for granted”. The students laughed when they saw the translation ‘speak civilized words, do civilized things, become civilized people and create a civilized city’ (讲文明话, 办文明事, 做文明人, 创文明城市). These slogans can only be understood by Chinese people in the context of today’s Chinese society and in the Chinese language. However, when they are translated into “civilized/civilization”, this could be confusing for outsiders. I felt at that time that the students understood what Fred was saying about “the illusion that speaking English makes us closer” and the idea of untranslatability. The second moment of interest in the dialogue was when Fred discussed the argument that we cannot prepare people for intercultural communication. The students started to whisper with confusion in the classroom: Isn’t the objective of intercultural learning to communicate more effectively and successfully? Aren’t our sessions designed to PREPARE us to communicate interculturally? I suppose that some of their confusions came from their previous perceptions of intercultural communication, and some from their understanding of ‘learning’. Learning knowledge appears to be a way to solve problems or to find possible solutions. However, we seldom challenge the knowledge learned from, e.g., textbooks. After this dialogue, students told me that they had a better understanding of the difference between thinking in learning and ‘learning knowledge’. Students told me that they felt they were “talking equally with Fred” and that they experienced a sense of equality/egalitarianism during the dialogue. While Fred was explaining his argument that “we cannot prepare for intercultural communication” he took himself as an example [although an established scholar in the intercultural field]: “What I’m saying here is as a teacher, as an educator, and not above my students, because I don’t know how to communicate. Because every time I communicate, I need to adapt, I need to learn, I need to observe, I need to unthink…. ask questions, answer the questions to my students, and reflect for them and with them”. Students were nodding in the class. Another stimulating moment in the dialogue also relates to the understanding of words. This time it was about the different interpretations of the English word ‘test’. Fred proposed that “the point of interculturality is not to comprehend but to test”. There was another sudden question in the class: “why ‘test’?”. The word has a single meaning to many Chinese students, which is “to have quizzes/exams”, all kinds of “exams” that students have taken since childhood. So, the students wondered “how can interculturality be tested?”. However, after some minutes, some students realized that ‘test’ could mean ‘to practise’ based on what Fred had explained earlier in this dialogue. Fred went on to explain: “test here means to ‘ask questions’, ‘push’, ‘go further’. Question the other as much as you question yourself to make sure that we

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can come to some kind of understanding.” All the students then smiled in front of the screen again. That was a very enjoyable moment. [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – About silent transformations, one student makes a reference to a Chinese proverb in their comments: “近朱者赤, 近墨者黑” [jìn zh¯u zhˇe chì, jìn mò zhˇe h¯ei], which could be translated as “You become who you spend your time with”. How do you understand this idiom and its connection to the idea of silent transformations (and interculturality)? – Can you think of examples of how you have had an influence leading to some kind of change when meeting interculturally? Similarly, try to recall change that has happened to you based on an intercultural encounter. – Until now in the book, how much of what the students say reveals knowledge about China that you were unaware of or perceived otherwise? – When was the last time someone noted change in you? What was it and how do you explain both the change and the fact that someone noticed it? Was it ‘conscious change’? – What does this quote from one of the students bring to mind: “the world is an ecosystem, and every culture is a part of it”? – Have you ever come across the idea of cultural confidence? What could this mean? In China, it is a well-known concept. Try to find some information about its meaning in this context. – Going back to the idea of cultural arrogance, could you think of a few examples that you have noted in, e.g., the press or on social media? Could you also try to recall you being culturally arrogant in front of someone else? What happened and how do you feel about it today? – Do you agree or disagree with this statement: “Because there’s no need to explain, it’s a waste of time to communicate with people who are culturally arrogant. We’d better use our energy and time to show and explain the charm of our own culture”?

Chapter 8

Dialogue III: Balance and Chaos

Abstract In this third dialogue, the continuum of balance and chaos serves as interrelated symbols to continue problematizing the complexities of interculturality. The chapter starts with a certain number of metaphors to introduce a core topic: performance on stage and backstage. It is argued that interculturality leads us to perform together, wearing changeable masks, that, at times, are imposed on us, while we impose other masks on others. Having access to the backstage of intercultural performance could make togetherness somewhat fairer, closer and more transparent. Surveying oneself instead of just staring at the other are suggested as supercritical principles for interculturality. Keywords Balance · Chaos · Surveying oneself · Stare · Performance

8.1 Performance, Stage and Backstage in Interculturality ‘Just write the truth,’ said the defence counsel provided for me by the State, ‘nothing but the plain, unvarnished truth. They’ll fill your pen for you whenever you want.’ Frisch (1994: 7)

Let me start by introducing a Chinese mythological figure: Kuafu (夸父). This man was running against the sun, trying to catch it. Obviously, he never reached it but ran and ran until he died. To me what Kuafu is doing is symbolic of our endeavours to ‘do’ interculturality. It is a never-ending process. Will I ever be ready for interculturality? Would I ever reach my goals? But what are my goals? Are they always the same? One of the students used an interesting metaphor for interculturality in an earlier chapter: Penrose stairs going around in a rectangle, going up and down but there is no beginning, no end. This represents well the illusion of interculturality as something that we can ‘possess’ and/or ‘control’. It symbolizes what I would like to call the balance and chaos of interculturality. I might think I know what interculturality is about, I might think I know where I’m going and how to do it, but, actually, maybe I don’t, or maybe I can’t, because I’m going up, but then I’m going down, going up, going down, going up, etc. It’s a never-ending phenomenon. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_8

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I also thought about more metaphors to reflect on the complexities of interculturality. I thought of Sisyphus who was punished by gods in Ancient Greece and had to push a boulder up a hill. And every time the boulder was on the top of the hill, it would bounce back down and Sisyphus had to push it back up for eternity. Although the myth of Sisyphus has been somewhat ‘idolized’ in recent decades, we need to bear in mind that he was not necessarily a good person: he did some bad things to other humans and the gods punished him for that. There’s an interesting art print by Michael Bergt entitled Sisyphus Sleeping (1993), where Sisyphus is represented as resting on the boulder, taking a break from his routine. This is also a good symbol for interculturality: It’s difficult, we encounter so many problems, we might take breaks but we have no choice: we have to continue because we are social beings and being with others is what we do. Another metaphor, very similar to Sisyphus, could be introduced here. This figure is not very well known outside China. Wugang (吴刚) wanted to learn to be immortal but he was too idle to be dedicated enough to follow his teacher’s guidance. He gave up and his teacher punished him by sending him to the moon, and like Sisyphus, he had to perform a gruelling task for the rest of his life. The moon was covered with trees which had to be taken down. But every time Wugang would cut a tree, it grew back instantly. The difference with the Myth of Sisyphus is that Sisyphus was not a good person, while (maybe) Wugang was just lazy, he couldn’t be bothered to learn. I believe increasingly that interculturality is the same: I can’t be lazy, I am doomed (I don’t use this word in a negative way here) to ‘do’ it again and again. I can give up but I still have to fight, if I switch on my phone, if I watch television, if I listen to music, I am constantly facing interculturality. Watching American-globalised news, watching a French film, getting to know Chinese art, everything in a sense is intercultural, so we have no choice, we can’t live without the intercultural. And then if I continue reflecting on this interminable aspect of interculturality, I am reminded of a quote by Zygmunt Bauman and Rein Raud (2016: 40). What they maintain here about communication, about what we do as human beings is a central issue in interculturality: “When two people, A and B, talk to each other, [for example, when I look at you, two of you talking to each other] six persons participate: in addition to A and B, also A’s image of B, B’s image of A, A’s image of B’s image of A and B’s image of A’s image of B” (Bauman & Raud, 2016). This summarizes well why interculturality can never end, and why we can never say that we know how to ‘do’ it. When we interact with people, we always interact through different kinds of images—an uncountable and uncontrollable number of images—that we have constructed of each other. It also means we cannot approach the world without (right and/or wrong) images; we are condemned to look at each other through these images. It is important to remember here that, like all things, images also change— and they do change! Although I might be drawing a picture of interculturality that might look negative here, all this makes it very exciting because we never know what is going to happen between us, how we see each other, how we are going to interact with each other.

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I have asserted in an earlier chapter that interculturality is a performance. Let me ask a few questions: How could we understand this claim? What do we make of the word performance in English? Student 1: I think that most people will think that there are some instructions telling us how to proceed with intercultural communication. This is performance to me: We want to feel that we can be successful at interculturality. Fred: You talk about instructions, I use the word script to express the same idea. People might believe that there is a script, a program, and ready-made ways of making sure that we can talk to each other. The second point that you make about success is something I’ve been insisting on for a long time. We are made to believe in, e.g., education that we have to be successful when we communicate ‘across cultures’. That’s why we have all these models of intercultural competence. That’s why we are made to believe that we can make it successful. But, actually, most of the time we don’t know if we are being successful because we are performers. While I’m talking to you, maybe some of you are smiling, some of you are showing me that they understand, but actually they might be thinking: “I have no idea what Fred is talking about”. This is about “giving face” as you might say in Chinese—while in English the phrase might be ‘protecting face’. Shakespeare’s idea that “the world is a stage, and we are all actors on stage” is a bit of a stereotype today. However, it summarizes well interculturality too. As soon as you we find ourselves in a social situation, we need to perform with and for others. There’s a very interesting phrase in Chinese, which I forgot. This phrase refers to behaving the same way in non-social situations (e.g., when we are by ourselves) as when we are interacting with others. When you are surrounded by others, you need to perform, for example you need to make sure that people see your face in a positive light and you might try your best to ‘protect’ their face too. On the contrary, when you’re alone in, e.g., your own bed, you can allow yourself not to perform. This Chinese phrase suggests that we could try to behave the same way whether we are alone or with other people. This sounds like a good, ideal and ethical ‘advice’ for doing interculturality… A few more words about performing. In English the word ‘person’ comes from Latin ‘persona’ for the ‘mask’. The very English word person actually refers to the idea that we perform when we are being a person with others. And we could argue that what we see of other people might never be the reality. If you think about (Western and Chinese) social media, for example, the way we identify is very often a performance. When I consult the WeChat (Weixin) line of my students and my colleagues in China, at times they will select certain people to whom they will show a certain identity, sometimes they will show another identity to a small group of friends, and then if they use Western social media (e.g., Facebook, Instragram), they might perform their identities in very different ways. Social media are a very clear indication of the ‘mask’. Let’s go back to the idea of face: The work of Erving Goffman (1922–1982) has been very influential in the West. Goffman (1959) showed that the idea of face is universal and he was actually inspired by how it is perceived and ‘done’ in Asia. Everybody has to protect their own face; everybody wants to pass as positive and

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everybody wants to protect other people’s face as well. We might ‘do’ face in different ways around the world. In Chinese, there are many phrases indicating facework: for example, Keqi (客气, which can translate inadequately as ‘courtesy’, ‘civility’, ‘stand on ceremony’) and Weiqu (委屈, ‘feel wronged’ in English). In English, to pretend, the idea of ‘white lies’ and politeness also represent ways of ‘doing’ face, protecting ourselves and/or the other. My last point about performance relates to power relations. The way we communicate is always dominated by the kind of power that we have or don’t have, versus the power of the other. We might behave differently depending on the people we interact with. If we are ‘powerful’, we might feel freer to express ourselves, contradict the other, etc. If we are in a lower position because of, e.g., our socioeconomic status, our ‘origins’, our language skills, we may not have the opportunity to, e.g., stand up to the other. Chaos and balance. All in all, I believe that one important aspect of interculturality is to become aware of this undying performance that we have to ‘do’. Trying to look outside the stage that we both fill during our performances could be the next step. Exploring the masks that we wear too: What do we really think? What is our ‘real agenda’? What is it that we want from the other? And what is it that they really want from us? We might be able to create a space where we are a little bit more comfortable together, feeling that we can be a little bit more like ourselves. We need to remember, however, that even with our parents, our close friends, our boyfriend or girlfriend, we can never be fully and equally comfortable. Chaos and balance. The phenomenon called ‘the stranger on the train’ is an interesting one to unthink and rethink interculturality. We might have all experienced it. Picture this situation: three strangers are sitting on a train and one of them starts talking to the others. It might begin with ‘small talk’ and develop into more private conversations, during which the three might reveal their deepest secrets and real feelings about, e.g., their spouses, family members and friends. People drop the mask that they might have to wear with people who are familiar with them. They move straight backstage without having to co-perform on the stage from the beginning. This represents again what I would describe as an ideal for interculturality: You can move backstage early on in a relationship, drop certain masks and you don’t need to worry about your face and the other’s. One great advantage of the ‘stranger on the train’ phenomenon is that there might be no future between the strangers involved. So, they don’t need to think too much about what they are saying, or doing. To conclude about performance, I include two fragments that I wrote at the same time as we were conducting our dialogues (see Dervin, 2022). The students will reflect on these fragments in the next chapters: – “Fred, what should we do to fit it in another culture?” – Accept and promote change and transformation, consider every encounter as an opportunity to change.” – “Interculturality is about oneself surveying oneself rather than staring at the other.”

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8.2 On the Need to Experience Linguistic Depaysement in Interculturality As asserted in earlier dialogues, there is a need for us to include systematically reflections around language, around the way we speak about interculturality. There is a saying in Italian about translation: Traduttore, traditore, which translates as the translator is a traitor. A traitor is someone who betrays other people. Many of you reflected on this aspect of interculturality in your writings. When we translate, we make choices about words and about ‘equivalents’. And there are always different options. One option will have an influence on the person reading my translation. And, as we know, although a dictionary will give us very ‘clear’ definitions, words are not always fully equivalent, especially when it comes to the ‘flavour’ of words. Barbara Cassin’s (2016) notion of untranslatability is of interest here. It means that when we use different languages, we need to translate again and again, the words that we use with others, to make sure that we can reach minimum understanding. One student mentioned an excellent point in their writing, which was about how sometimes we might want to keep the original word from a foreign language, instead of translating it. For Chinese that would mean using pinyin (拼音) to include the word into an English sentence. The student made a reference to a concept that I have researched extensively: Minzu (民族). The English translations that we find include ‘ethnic’, ‘national’, ‘race’ and, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, these don’t make sense in the Chinese context. These are in fact false friends. One interesting point about doing this is to lead readers and listeners to depaysement when they hear, e.g., the word Minzu. Depaysement is a feeling that you get when you are not at home. When we use an English word like ‘ethnic’ or ‘national’, we are faced with an illusion of translation. Using the original word in pinyin or other forms of writing represents a way of shaking us. Chaos and balance. If one comes across a word like Minzu, one needs to stop, think, do some research and try to make sense of the word. Most people would put a footnote that says “this can be translated as ‘ethnic’”, but I think that it’s somewhat counterproductive to do this. Using Minzu is sending different kinds of messages about China, especially about its specific context, its economic-political position. Three years ago, I was invited to a conference in Hong Kong about “Ethnic minority education”. Although I have lived in Hong Kong in the past, I was unsure of what the phrase ‘ethnic minority’ referred to in this context. The conference speakers were mostly from the West (US/UK/Finland). We all delivered our speeches, which, ideologically, were clearly positioned within different geo-economic-political spheres. We all used the same words in English but you could feel that these did not contain the same ‘flavours’. There was no real depaysement at the event. And we all pretended that we agreed and shared the same ideologies. Although the conference took place in China, there was no reference at all to the concept of Minzu because the phrase ethnic minority in the Hong Kong context refers to people from outside China—especially from the Global South (e.g., India, Pakistan, the Philippines).

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8.3 Two Quotes In what follows two quotes are introduced. My interest is to listen to how the students perceive the connection between these quotes and interculturality. The first quote is a quote from a famous French painter called Georges Braque (1882–1963): To define a thing is to replace it with its definition. (Braque, 1971: 35) Student 2: What comes to my mind is a concept related to interculturality: Essentialism. When there’s no definition, people just perceive things and people as they stand, based on their own subjectivity—which means that their perception is fluid. But when people are aware of a specific definition then the object in question becomes a very abstract concept. Fred: Thank you. As soon as you define something, you ‘kill’ it and you replace it with one definition. Yet a thing can have so many different definitions that one definition is just one way of understanding and seeing the world. If we take for example the word propaganda in English. Generally speaking, the way the word is used by Chinese speakers and many speakers of other languages can differ immensely. For me propaganda is not necessarily a good word, it might be about manipulation, misinformation, fake news, but in Chinese the word just refers to, e.g., publicity or information. These definitions become the thing for us. But actually, a definition is just one way of seeing the thing and I would claim that nobody is right or wrong in the way they use this word in the English language. That’s why we always need to question the words and the expressions that we use. Quote 2: To read means to borrow. (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, 1742–1799) (Lichtenberg, 1959: 62) Student 3: When we read a book, we are influenced by the writers, for example, by their knowledge, their thinking, their ideologies. After reading, their thoughts become part of our thinking and speaking systems in a sense. Fred: Yes, so every time you read, you are ‘stealing’ ideas from other people. Reading is interacting; reading is getting knowledge from others and then, when we talk to other people, these words and the reading we have done become part of our discourses (see, e.g., Barthes, 1975). It’s very difficult for human beings to divide what comes from themselves and what comes from others. Probably from our dialogues until now, 2% comes from our own brains. And the rest is from all the reading, all the interactions that we have experienced. It’s in fact very difficult to make a clear division between my voice, your voice, the voice of the people that we’ve heard or read in the past. That’s why when we write essays or books, we need to mention the original voice because we need to show our readers who is the ‘owner’ of an idea. But when we talk on a daily basis we don’t do that. And multivoicedness is also an important component of interculturality. So, for example, if I use the stereotype “all Chinese people eat dog meat”. Why am I saying this? Where does this come from? How did I get this idea? Behind what we say about ourselves and the other there is always the presence of somebody else. There’s always the presence of reading, of listening to other people.

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To finish, and in order to continue dialoguing, I suggest that you try to find more metaphors or myths to reflect on how you see interculturality today. The metaphors of chaos and balance or Sisyphus used many times in this chapter might inspire you to identify new metaphors and myths. [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – Reflect on your experiences of the ‘stranger on the train’ phenomenon. How did you feel about experiencing such a phenomenon? How different would it have been if you had met the person before? – What comes to mind when you read this fragment: “Interculturality is about oneself surveying oneself rather than staring at the other”? – Could we cut ourselves off from interculturality? In other words, would it ever be possible to live a non-intercultural life? – Which of the following metaphors do you find best suited to describe interculturality: Sisyphus, Kuafu or Penrose Stairs? Explain why. – Think of your last interaction with someone and reflect on your own performance. Speculate on how much your interlocutor was performing too. What clues do you use to do so? – Can you recall reading or hearing a word in English and/or other languages that created a sense of depaysement in you? Explain how you felt and why. – How often do you realize that you are borrowing words, phrases, ideas and arguments from others? Try to remember concrete moments when you became fully aware of borrowing. – Check these two Chinese words: Keqi (客气, ‘courtesy’, ‘civility’, ‘stand on ceremony’) and Weiqu (委屈, ‘feel wronged’). The proposed translations do not reflect fully what they refer to. Could you try to renegotiate their meanings? If you know someone who speaks Chinese, ask for advice from them. – We need definitions to survive as social beings. However, as noted in the chapter, words may have different definitions and flavours in different languages. Have you ever been surprised by the ‘flavours’ of words as used by people in English and/or other languages? – Think of linguistic strategies that you use to protect your face and that of other peoples in different languages. – At this stage in the book, how would you answer this question: “What should we do to fit it in another culture?”. Or would you rather not try answering it? Suggested readings include ‘micro-sociologist’ Goffman’s study on the presentation of Self, where he reflects on the notion of face and poet, novelist and screenwriter Chris Abani’s short book where he meditates on his own face as someone born in Nigeria to an Igbo father and English mother. – Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books. – Abani, C. (2015). The face: Cartography of the void. Restless Books.

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References Abani, C. (2015). The face: Cartography of the void. Restless Books. Barthes, R. (1975). The pleasure of the text. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Bauman, Z., & Raud, R. (2016). Practices of selfhood. Polity. Braque, G. (1971). Illustrated notebooks: 1917–1955. Dover Publications. Cassin, B. (2016). Translation as paradigm for human sciences. Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 30(3), 242–266. Dervin, F. (2022). Interculturality in fragments: A reflexive approach. Springer. Frisch, M. (1994). I’m not stiller. Harcourt Brace & Company. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books. Lichtenberg, G. C. (1959). The Lichtenberg reader. Beacon Press.

Chapter 9

Acts of Compromise

Abstract Chapter 9 presents the students’ reactions to dialogue 3. Without any surprise the metaphors introduced in the dialogue caught the attention of most students and forced them to deepen their unthinking and rethinking of interculturality. The idea of performance as discussed by the students shows their awareness of its influence on what we do and say in social situations—be they intercultural or not. Some students even question the border between what is labelled as intercultural and what is not. In the chapter, the students also discuss the power of language and translation in transforming the way people (mis-)perceive each other and in compromising. Finally, the idea of interculturality as change, which encompasses all of the aforementioned elements, seems to resonate with the students. Keywords Interculturality as change · The power of language and translation · Unthinking · Borders Chapter 9 focuses on the students’ reactions to dialogue 3. When Fred claimed that interculturality is a performance, what came to my mind is a Chinese old saying: 见人说人话, 见鬼说鬼话, which describes a person with double faces, who can mimic the way humans or ghosts talk. Actually, in our daily life, there is a mask on everyone’s face. We know there is always another person looking at us, so we should perform well and let them see what we want to show them. However, is this kind of performance really beneficial in interculturality? I don’t think so. First of all, performance may generally make people lose their true self. Secondly, once the performance is revealed, you will lose your trust from the other. Finally, for interculturality itself, if we need to perform, it is not ‘real’ interculturality that follows your heart. It may lead to short cooperation so the relationship will not last for a long time. (Student 1) During this dialogue, Fred mentioned that accepting and promoting change and transformation are the keys to fit in a culture. What interested me most was Fred’s argument that “interculturality is about oneself surveying oneself, rather than oneself staring at the other”. The sentence is different from the way we usually think about it. Every time we think of interculturality, we just pay attention to communication. However, most of time we don’t make mistakes in communication but in our own © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_9

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understanding. We just stare at others from our own perspective, forgetting to survey ourselves. (Student 2) It’s challenging to think over all the metaphors we have used during the class. The one I like the most or the one I can’t agree more with is “the translator is a traitor”. Choosing every word in one language for the other languages is an act of compromise. I don’t believe that there are always counterparts in two languages. So, you always have to know you are losing authenticity along the way. It seems to me that translating is silent helplessness. Besides, the word “美美与共” that refers to the concept of differilitude reminds me of another Chinese phrase “求同存异”, which means “seek common ground while reserving differences”. While assimilation brings fear, differilitude brings trust and the possibility of interculturality. Lastly, I have a question inspired by a conversation with a friend—is it necessary to revive an endangered language? By saying reviving, it’s more like putting the language into daily use than simply constructing it as a part of history. Personally, I always think that the variety of languages is something so beautiful that there is no doubt we need to maintain every one of them in our system. While my friend insisted that less languages means higher efficiency and a lower risk of misunderstanding as English has accelerated a lot intercultural communication even though English in different countries can be diverse, I’m more than curious to learn what Fred thinks of this question. (Student 3) In our dialogue, we looked at some misunderstandings in intercultural communication that result from the inability to translate accurately. In the case of China, many words are contextualized in their unique cultural environment or era, and although they may correspond literally to other words used abroad, this can hardly reveal their meaning in practice. For example, in the translation of the word ‘xuewenhua’ mentioned in the lesson, if it is literally translated as learning culture, it obviously does not reflect the context of the time when China was facing a high illiteracy rate. I would therefore prefer to translate it as “accepting education”, as it is a policy slogan in a specific context and era. (Student 4) This dialogue struck me in two ways. 1. The idea of interculturality covers a wide range of aspects. When I read the stories of Kuafu and Wugang, I felt they were so unreal that they didn’t really relate to real life. When Fred mentioned that “interculturality is just like Kuafu: we are striving for this direction even though we cannot reach the final goal”, I suddenly realized that metaphors can be useful to rethink the world. 2. Before learning about interculturality, I always took it for granted that translation was a tool process without personal emotions, which only required “信达雅” (i.e., faithfulness and expressiveness). However, a foreign word or phrase may have multiple meanings, and the translator may omit other potential meanings when choosing one meaning. The difference between “Ethnic” and “Minzu” is very interesting and very important because they are two very different notions. This requires us to be more careful about words in other languages. (Student 5) In the previous weeks, we have explored intersectionality in intercultural communication with Huiyu. From my perspective, intersectionality is a kind of product of modern times. For one thing, people have more mobility with the process of industrialization because of immigration policies. Besides, objective attitude towards

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intermarriage between people of different nationalities gives more opportunities and probability for intersectionality. People are more complex with more features (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, etc.). There is a good and special example in reality related to intersectionality. The vice president of America, Kamala Harris. She is a female, with Black and Asian ancestry at the same time. Female, black people and of Asian ancestry, any one of them can be seen as potentially sensitive points in America. Therefore, no one dares to criticize or comment on her. And I think this is a good case that someone has been protected because of intersectionality. (Student 6) What struck me most about this dialogue was the idea that “we can never be sure that we understand each other in intercultural communication”. Despite my previous belief in the power of translation, there are many things that are difficult to translate across cultures that made me realize the limitations of translation. Perhaps it is true that we will never be able to get people from different languages and cultures to understand each other fully. This reminds me of the famous words of a renowned Chinese translator, Yan Fu, who summarized the three levels of translation in three simple Chinese characters, “信, 达, 雅”. 信 means that the translation should be accurate; 达 means that the translation should be smooth and clear without being bound to the form of the original text; and 雅 means that the words chosen for the translation should be beautiful and the text itself should be concise and elegant. When we are able to achieve 信, 达, 雅 (“xin-da-ya”) in intercultural communication, our communication will certainly be smoother. (Student 7) “Interculturality is about oneself surveying oneself, rather than oneself staring at the other”. I have some thoughts about this sentence. When we communicate with others, we have many different images of ourselves. We may not know which of these images is the real us. If we look closely at this process, we can constantly discover new things about ourselves in our interactions with others. In intercultural communication, some of our images and thinking are constantly broken and reshaped, and broken and reshaped again, which is a process worth going through. If we care too much about other people’s reactions and how they perceive us, we can lose our direction. Therefore, we should focus on our own changes and explore ourselves. (Student 8) Fred used the stories of Kuafu and Wugang to illustrate the characteristics and nature of interculturality. We conduct intercultural communication over and over again without knowing the effect of this communication. Maybe we will never get to the situation that we understand totally and precisely what the other one means when we conduct intercultural communication. All we can do is ask questions all the time and hope that we achieve some kind of mutual understanding. And I believe that human beings all share some similarities in spite of great differences. Just as the Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong (2015) put it: “Beauty, beauty, coexistence”, there is something wonderful that all human beings can appreciate regardless of race, gender and nationality. (Student 9) The Chinese phrase Fred tried to refer to in class is possibly the old saying “慎 独”, which means “one should behave in accordance with the moral standards or

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whatever standards one sets for oneself even when one is all alone without supervision from others”. Fred has repeatedly stressed the importance of using original words from a foreign language. This perfectly explained the reason why we should learn foreign languages. I think that, among the points Fred mentioned, “untranslatability” and “inequivalence” in language are the two most inevitable reasons that make translation problematic. Interculturality acquaints us with such inevitability so that we can rethink how we perceive something. (Student 10) Fred mentioned a Chinese word that means following the rules even when there are no other people around us. I think that the word is 慎独 (Shendu), ‘shen’ means cautious, not relaxed; ‘du’ to be alone. This is the requirement that intellectuals of Ancient China, the 君子 (junzi), gave to themselves, a kind of cultivation of themselves from the inside out. This is an ideal state of affairs, but in reality, most people have different faces in different situations, which sometimes makes it pleasant to get along, and sometimes more difficult to understand each other. Yet I think this human ability to disguise or to deceive is unique to us humans and a very important feature that sets us apart from other creatures. Perhaps it makes communication more difficult, but on the other hand, it also makes our world more diverse and colourful. (Student 11) I totally agree with what Fred’s assertion that “Interculturality is often manifested as a performance”. We actually tend to present ‘who we really are’ to the people that we are more familiar with, for instance family and close friends. However, the situation might change when we are surrounded by people that are culturally different from us or when we enter a brand-new environment. In order to fit into that circumstance, we often put on a mask to conceal our true self. We want to be accepted by others and be successful in social conversations when we pretend that we understand each other even though we actually don’t. That made me recall an Italian girl I met in London. When we first met, we naturally talked about our countries. To be honest, although both of us could speak English, it was apparent that we didn’t understand each other completely because of the language barrier. Most interestingly, at that time, we tried to show an interest in each other by smiling and nodding a lot in order to let each other know that we understood. And surprisingly, the conversation still went quite well. Therefore, we can never be fully sure that we understand each other because of the disguise and performance during intercultural interaction. (Student 12) Two things intrigued me most. One is the point of using original words from a foreign language like the word Minzu. I think it’s an important message for the readers that this word contains some contextual information. It requires them to stop and search for the cultural, economic or political information related to the “original word”, which might deepen their comprehension. The other one is the quote “To define a thing is to replace it with its definition”. We need to let different definitions emerge if we want to communicate. Especially during intercultural communication, two people will be more likely to hold different definitions towards the same thing due to different backgrounds or language barriers. Then they should have a discussion where they can both quote something to explain their own definitions and make sure they understand each other. (Student 13)

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When Fred talked about the reason why we still need to discuss interculturality, the idea of the “co-performance on stage” has left a deep impression on me. When we communicate, sometimes we have to put on a “mask” in order to communicate. It reminds me about the quote from Bauman & Raud (2015) where two people, A and B, are talking and there are actually six people participating. But if we count ourselves who are wearing masks, is it necessary to add two more. Of course, I agree that co-performance on stage is not malicious, we have to be in some kind of purpose to make the conversation go on more efficiently, and to let each other reach the purpose of communication. I was thinking about whether there are still six people when we communicate with friends or family who are very close to each other, whether we feel at ease when communicating because there are two less people involved. We don’t need to mind B’s image of A’s image of B. (Student 14) The view that “interculturality is a performance” impressed me a lot. We wear a mask to behave and coincide with society’s expectations and, at the same time, we pretend to be self-satisfied according to this social “consensus”. (Student 15) I firmly agree with Bauman and Raud’s (2015: 40) opinion: “When two people, A and B, talk to each other, six persons participate”. This sentence accurately summarizes my awkward position in intercultural communication, especially after I learned Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory (1984). For example, when I chatted with a Japanese last year in an international debate tournament, I couldn’t help characterizing him as a very humble and quiet person who lives in an extremely high-context society. However, I found that my perception was all wrong. He was very outgoing and straightforward. It is my perception that limited my understanding of the Japanese and made me very cautious and strange. I think that complexity in intercultural communication can be more harmful because such perceptions can prevent us from getting to know each other. (Student 16) During this dialogue, Fred mentioned that we can never be sure that we understand each other in intercultural communication. I agree with this opinion. First, differences in language dictate that we cannot fully understand what the other person is saying. This is why, even when translated versions of works are available, people prefer to read the original when they are able to do so. Second, even if we understand the literal meaning of the other person’s words, it may be difficult to understand the deeper meaning behind them. Due to the differences in language and culture, some dialects and slangs do not share the same meanings and may lose their original flavours after (automatic) translation. (Student 17) It is possible that we might never know the true and real side of a person. From the perspective of interculturality, translation could be a ‘traitor’ among different cultural backgrounds. As a global citizen and a Chinese person, when we convey any information regarding our own ideologies and cultures to others, we should be cautious, as direct translation could be vague and misrepresenting, for instance, the word “ethnicity” cannot fully represent the meaning of “Minzu” in the Chinese context. (Student 18) There might be no full understanding in interculturality. Even though you may be very confident that you can understand others, when you say “I understand”, the language and thoughts expressed by others have already been thought of by your own

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mind, but you are also not sure whether you have added your own understanding in the process of thinking, and there is no way to verify this. But what is certain is that humans are not machines based on data and algorithms. Humans are animals with subjective thoughts and feelings. This makes it difficult for us to understand others without adding some of our own thoughts and feelings. (Student 19) I used to understand intercultural communication simply as a process of people from different countries communicating together, focusing on the conflicts that different cultural backgrounds could bring. But now, I understand intercultural communication in a broader sense. In fact, meeting everyone in our daily lives counts to some extent as interculturality because we have different family backgrounds and growth experiences. In addition, I would like to share my thoughts about the argument that “To define a thing is to replace it with its definition”. The first time I saw this sentence, another sentence flashed through my mind: “A thousand readers have a thousand Hamlets”. Perhaps for intercultural communication, when we try to define or explain something, we are also in a ‘re-creation’ process, which is unconsciously influenced by our cultural background, growth experience, etc. (Student 20) Once I was talking with my friends, and I just made some strange comments, which were not my ‘true’ points of view. I realized that I was pretending to be someone else. (Student 21) I totally agree that “reading means borrowing”. In my opinion, what we read and listen to shape what we think. Our view of things is based on what we already know. This knowledge is often acquired through reading and communicating with others. When I was young, my parents told me to read more books to broaden my horizons. In the process of writing my thesis, my teacher asked me to look at other papers in my research field for inspiration. It seems that a lot of reading is the basis for more meaningful and innovative ideas. Therefore, I think reading is also a way of ‘doing’ interculturality. (Student 22) [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – One student makes the following statement about reading: “I think reading is also a way of ‘doing’ interculturality”. Would you agree? – A student argues that our daily lives are always intercultural, do you agree? How do you see, e.g., the border between interculturality and other social relations (e.g., family, professional bonds)? – One of the main characteristics of human beings as a student notes is to have ‘subjective thoughts and feelings’. They add that this often prevents us from understanding others. What strategies do you recommend for dealing with the power of thoughts and feelings in interculturality? – Is there anyone around you whom you know so well that you don’t need to ‘co-perform’ when you are together? – Think of your last ‘intercultural’ encounter, what mask(s) were you wearing while talking to the other?

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– For one student, using foreign words in English urges others “to stop and search for the cultural, economic or political information related to the “original word”, which might deepen their comprehension”. Do you share the same view? – “It seems to me that translating is silent helplessness”: What does the student mean here? – Are you aware of the fact that translation is omnipresent in your life? Look around you and try to identify how it affects your everyday life. – Reflect on the concept of untranslatability and think of examples among the languages that you know. – What do you make of the Chinese term 慎独 (shendu)? Is this a phenomenon that you have tried to implement in your life? – Have you ever considered interculturality as a process of change first and foremost? What have been the most significant changes in your experiences of interculturality? – Reflecting on interculturality as performance, a student mentions a Chinese idiom: 见人说人话, 见鬼说鬼话 (translated word for word as see people talk people, see ghosts talk ghosts, meaning: double faced). Do you see a connection between interculturality and this idiom? – One final question, what is your position on the issue of the revival of endangered languages?

References Bauman, Z., & Raud, R. (2015). Practices of selfhood. Polity. Fei, X. (2015). Globalization and cultural self-awareness. Springer. Hofstede, G. (1984). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Sage Publications.

Chapter 10

There is no Formula for Intercultural Communication

Abstract This chapter explores the power of metaphors to problematize, unthink and rethink interculturality as an object of research and education. Following Dialogue 3, the students came up with a long list of metaphors, many from the Chinese context, to deepen their take on interculturality. As such they used idioms, mythical figures, characters from fiction and objects to help them describe interculturality. What most of these metaphors reveal is that the students start to understand that interculturality cannot be fully grasped or defined as it is an unstable phenomenon and construct. This has, of course, consequences on how the students view ‘popular’ concepts such as intercultural competence, an ideological ‘technology’ used to pre-determine and control how interculturality should be ‘done’. In some students’ reactions, research on interculturality is attacked for ‘caging’ aspects of interculturality. Keywords Caging · Metaphors · Intercultural competence · Research on interculturality · Myths This chapter represents another layer of dialogue based on Chapter 8. Here students propose answers to the following important question: – Can you think of a metaphor or a myth to reflect on how you see interculturality today, ‘in dialogue’ with our dialogues and based on what you have learnt in the course until now? Explain the metaphor clearly in relation to interculturality. First, in order to understand the importance of metaphors in supercriticality, we suggest that the reader takes some time to reflect on the metaphor of the stairs as used by writer Julien Green: Have you never noticed how absorbed people look as they climb from floor to floor? So many resolutions reached, so many anxious questions to which the answers lie in wait behind the door that is about to open! Here on the stairs is the time and the place for making up your mind, that final moment for reflection before you take the plunge. As a result there appears to linger, in some of those great circular stairwells, a residue of the dreams that they have sheltered, a memory, as it were, of the meditations in which love, lust, and world-weariness fought for the hearts of all the nameless people who ever passed that way. Green (1991: 73)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_10

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Try to think about your own experiences of walking up stairs. What have been the most memorable moments? What feelings did you face when you came to a door? How did it compare to how Green describes what climbing from floor to floor entails? Now let’s listen to the students: I think interculturality is like a seesaw because being on a seesaw depends on the presence of two parties. If one wants to lift the seesaw, one needs to stomp on the landing, which metaphorically implies that interculturality requires both parties to work together; if only one party is stomping, communication cannot take place. In terms of player characteristics, if the weight difference is too great, then one side of the seesaw will overpower the other side, making play impossible. This implies that interculturality requires equal strength on both sides in order to reach the goal of negotiation. From the process of being on a seesaw, the players’ positions are constantly alternating up and down, but they can never remain horizontal. This implies that interculturality is a dynamic process, which has no so-called end point or equilibrium point, only permanent fluctuations. (Student 1). I chose a story called Journey to the West and it’s one of the most famous novels in China. The book tells the story of the Monkey King, Tang Seng, Pig Bajie, Sha monk and the white dragon horse, who go West for scriptures. They experience ninety-eight difficulties before they arrive in the West to see Buddha, and to collect the story of the scriptures. On the way, they pass through many different countries. For example, there was a country called ‘the country of women’, where there were only women who reproduce by drinking water. Even though this defies their common sense, the protagonists don’t judge it. This symbolizes interculturality well, I believe. (Student 2). Ouroboros is the metaphor I think of when it comes to interculturality. It stands for infinity and examining oneself. Infinity refers to the fact that you can never understand what the other really means and vice versa, because when others try to understand what you mean, you try to understand how they understand what you mean through your own lenses, and so on. Examining oneself evolves from the ouroboros devouring itself, which in interculturality is the result of encounters. (Student 3). After careful deliberation, I think the story of The bird Jingwei trying to fill the sea is very appropriate. Intercultural encounters are like the flow of water from different rivers into the ocean, different but interacting as one. Intercultural exchanges are like a stone thrown into the ocean, small but still rippling. And we, as intercultural communicators, are like the persistent Jingwei, who in the face of the complexities of cultural exchanges, still wishes to engage with them. This myth is often used as a metaphor for perseverance and courage in the face of challenges. The brave little bird kept carrying twigs and pebbles from the mountain to the Eastern Sea to try to fill it without taking a rest—which obviously Jingwei was never able to fill. As we do, we are in constant communication, facing difficulties, but still trying to break through and to promote further understanding of each other. (Student 4). One of the most typical metaphors I can think of is the Tower of Babel. The ‘Tower of Babel’ has now become synonymous with confusion and linguistic incompatibility. As the myth goes, at first “all the earth had one language and one tongue”, but then

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language barriers separated them. In intercultural communication, language is both a bridge and a barrier, and while we recognize the great convenience that translation can bring to intercultural communication, we also need to point out that translation between languages may never be fully accurate. (Student 5). 管中窥豹 (guˇanzh¯ongku¯ıbào) means to look at a leopard through a small hole in a bamboo tube. It is ironic that some people have a narrow and one-sided perspective and knowledge that makes them unable to see facts clearly. This idiom is used to describe seeing only a small part of a thing but not the whole thing. This is very similar to intercultural stereotypes. In the upsurge of globalization, each country promotes its own culture in order to stimulate its own economic and cultural development, strengthen international exchanges and expand international influence. Stereotyping is an inevitable result in the process of intercultural communication. A stereotype is a fixed and general view of a certain kind of person or thing and it can play a significant role in people’s processing of information, with both positive and negative sides. To some extent, stereotyping a country can simplify people’s understanding process and help them quickly grasp the situation of the country in our era of information explosion, thus saving a lot of time and energy. However, due to the limitations of intercultural communication, people cannot really understand other cultures, even the culture of their own country may not be thoroughly understood. As a result, sometimes the stereotypes that people pass on orally become the only impression they might have about a country or a culture. There is no doubt that people’s knowledge is greatly limited, which will not help people understand other countries better, but will lead to misunderstanding and even prejudice. (Student 6). I would like to use the metaphor of an elevator to describe the nature of interculturality. When we take an elevator, we just stand in it, it seems that we didn’t move at all. But in reality, our location changes compared with our starting point. It is like interculturality. In my opinion, in interculturality, we might feel that we don’t understand each other as if we were stationary in the elevator, but through communication, we might make progress in understanding each other. We move to a higher floor using the metaphor of the elevator. (Student 7). It may be a little offensive to say so, but I want to use the Chinese myth the blind men and the elephant. From my perspective, the study of interculturality is like the study of a black box theory. It is very difficult to understand how it works, so the only way to study it is to input certain stimuli and see how it reacts (output). Then we relate the output with the input, and guess the mechanism inside the black box. For example, we often ask questions or chat with someone with a certain purpose, then we wait and observe how they react. This way, we try to conclude a pattern or verify our assumption. We are then like blind men who first meet an elephant. The one who touches the leg thinks elephants are like pillars; the one who touches its trump thinks it looks like a giant snake; and the one who touches its tail thinks it looks like a rope. But since no one has ever seen the whole picture, no one can claim himself right or anyone wrong. We have to exchange our information to see the greater picture. But maybe we can never be sure about what we found, because after all, “we cannot really understand each other”. (Student 8).

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I would like to use a myth called Fuxi draw ‘taiji’. The story is that in ancient times, Fu Xi wanted to see the mysteries of the world and to clarify the laws of how everything works. He sat on top of a mountain and pondered for a long time but still had no result, because the sun, moon, stars, mountains, rivers, lakes and seas, their laws of operation were different and very complicated. But one day, a mirrored vision appeared before his eyes, and the “Taiji” diagram, with its glowing body and entwined “yin” and “yang”, was revealed to him. He suddenly penetrated the code of the world—the world is simple, just “yin” and “yang”. The moral of this story can be described by a Chinese idiom 大道至简, which means The Great Way is as simple as it can be. Intercultural communication is ostensibly about many things, such as race, gender, language, politics and customs. Also, theories of intercultural communication are always complex, linguistically different. In short, all sorts of differences and conflicts. But is it really necessary to spend so much time thinking about it? We are all just human beings, and there must be more consistency between us, in my opinion, than between us and the gorilla. I think that intercultural communication is confined by various definitions and concepts in a cage with complex lines, but in fact, the world outside the cage is simple and far less complex than we presuppose. (Student 9). I would like to point out that interculturality is like a bridge connecting two mountains. What hides under the two mountains are two different ways of thinking, which are also the essence of interculturality. Different modes of thinking might be obvious in different language structures and features of using different languages. The things under the mountains cannot be easily dug out, which means that our ways of thinking are rooted in a specific cultural background and cannot be easily changed when we communicate interculturally with others even though we might understand their language well. At any moment, intercultural communication is not simply about exchanging ideas based on different cultures, it is fundamentally related to digging out others’ thoughts and understanding and learning from each other. (Student 10). I thought of Pan Gu, who is a primordial being and creation figure in Chinese mythology. He separated heaven and earth and created geographic features such as mountains and rivers. The reason why this story strikes me as having similarities with interculturality is that Pan Gu experienced a chaotic world: there was nothing and the universe was in a featureless, formless primordial state which coalesced into a cosmic egg for about 18,000 years. Before he really reached the opening of heaven and earth, he had no idea what the world was like, he could only struggle and escape night and day. After the 18,000 years had elapsed, Pan Gu breathed. The same is true of interculturality. As Fred mentioned, we don’t know when interculturality begins and ends. We also go through some unseen processes, such as othering, identity, before finally co-performing on stage. But before coming up with these concepts, we are usually in the same chaos as Pan Gu. Perhaps with these concepts and further pursuits in the future, we will be able to ‘breathe’ better. (Student 11). Interculturality is like unique shells on the beach. And ‘doing’ intercultural communication is like collecting these precious shells. The more we have collected, the more we realize how ignorant we are. (Student 12).

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The learning process of intercultural communication can be referred to as the growing process of wheat (a plant). In the beginning, there are not many grains in the ears of wheat; therefore, its straw is straight. When the wheat is ripe, its straw will bend because there are so many grains in it. It is the same for intercultural communication. At the beginning stage, especially when I learned some features of different cultures, I thought I could easily chat with everyone from every culture. Therefore, I was very proud and confident, like the wheat standing straight on the ground. However, with more knowledge, I gradually figured out that there is no formula for intercultural communication. One will encounter the combination of cultural differences and personal characteristics in intercultural communication and it seems difficult to get over this obstacle. Therefore, I become humble just like when the wheat bows in the autumn because there are more grains (knowledge) in the ears of wheat (human brains). (Student 13). The metaphor to reflect on how I see interculturality is a couple. When interculturality begins, it is more like a couple dating for the first time. During the process, each side will convey their characters during daily interactions, hoping the other one can accept himself/herself as a proper partner. Conflicts may occur from time to time. The consequence of dating could be either marriage or breakup, which can be regarded as success or failure of interculturality. (Student 14). Interculturality is like a pool. People who are in it need to wear similar swimming suits, and need to feel a little bit different and unusual compared to when they are on land. When we are in a pool, we are in the same atmosphere which is surely a new circumstance for all of us, we need to create a new balance when we’re in it, to conquer our fear and also to learn how to “swim” (see to communicate, to reflect on things). (Student 15). In my opinion, today’s interculturality could be compared to a Möbius strip (also called the twisted cylinder). It is a one-sided surface with no boundaries and looks like an infinite loop. (Student 16). I have a metaphor for some situations of ‘failed’ interculturality: 黑处作揖 (literally translated as bow in the dark), which refers to two people meeting and showing respect to each other in the dark. This metaphor refers to situations where one communicator made some efforts to practise interculturally, which didn’t fit the other’s demand and language environment so interculturality didn’t work at all. Some examples include bad translations of some public signs or some foreign films trying to include traditional Chinese elements but failed to convey their real meanings. (Student 17). I use the idiom of ‘hiding one’s ears and stealing a bell’ (掩耳盗铃) to describe an immature and ineffective way of doing intercultural communication. The original meaning of this idiom is to cover one’s ears to steal other people’s bells. Today, it means that one deceives oneself and tries to cover something obviously wrong. In unsuccessful intercultural communication, we cover our ears (pretending to be listening and thinking) to steal each other’s bells (each other’s culture), we deceive ourselves by making believe that we have understood the other’s meaning and that the other has understood us. But, in fact, neither side understands the other’s true meaning, and both sides know that they and the other do not understand. We then

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just put on a friendly mask and refrain from asking questions. It’s just a show. In fact, most people’s intercultural communication can only stay in a mode of hiding their ears and stealing their bells, unless both sides sincerely, curiously, and openly want to understand each other’s culture, to make interculturality communication truly effective. (Student 18). Interculturality in my eyes is more like a spiral rise, which is also embedded in the philosophy of Hegel and Engels. Learning and practicing interculturality is like climbing a spiral staircase. On the one hand, the staircase will rise—there seems to be no end. On the other hand, the understanding of interculturality may be represented by progressive circles. When we think we’re making ineffective efforts and turning around in place, we may have learned from the past and done seemingly the same practice but on a higher level of competence. (Student 19). The Chinese idiom ‘a single hair out of nine oxen’ symbolizes well interculturality. What we think we know or understand about interculturality is just the tip of the iceberg, there’s an infinite amount that we are unaware of. (Student 20). [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – Here is a list of all the metaphors (in alphabetical order) proposed by the students in this chapter. Review each metaphor and explain why the students chose them, the connection they made to interculturality and what these metaphors tell you about interculturality: o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Blind men and the elephant (the) Bridge connecting two mountains (a) Couple (a) Elevator Fuxi draws ‘taiji’ Growing process of wheat (the) Hiding one’s ears and stealing a bell (掩耳盗铃) Jingwei trying to fill the sea “精卫填海” (jing wei tian hai) Journey to the West Möbius strip (a) Ouroboros Pan Gu Pool (a) Seesaw (a) Single hair out of nine ox (a) Spiral rise (a) Tower of Babel (the) Unique shells on the beach 大海捞针 (da hai lao zhen) [Literal Meaning: big/sea/pick up/needle to look for a needle in the ocean], to look for something that is impossible to find o 管中窥豹 (guˇan zh¯ong ku¯ı bào), to look at a leopard through a small hole in a bamboo tube o 黑处作揖—two people meet and show respect to each other in the dark.

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– Make your own list of metaphors for interculturality. – “What we think we know or understand about interculturality is just the tip of the iceberg, there’s an infinite amount that we are unaware of.” Does this sound like a positive, negative and/or neutral view on interculturality to you? Explain. – In a similar vein, a student’s claim that “there is no formula for intercultural communication” might sound discouraging in a world where we are asked to be ‘interculturally competent’. What are your views on the issue? – At this stage of the book, we feel that this represents an excellent definition of interculturality: “Intercultural communication is not simply about exchanging ideas based on different cultures, it is fundamentally related to digging out others’ thoughts and understanding and learning from each other”. Would you agree? – A student was very critical of how research, at times, makes interculturality far too complicated and encages it into complexity. They added: “the world outside the cage is simple and far less complex than we presuppose”. Based on your own ‘encounters’ with research on interculturality, do you feel that the notion could be dealt with in simpler ways?

Reference Green, J. (1991). Paris. Marion Boyars Publishers.

Chapter 11

Dialogue IV: From Whose Perspective?

Abstract Dialogue 4 is at the core of Chapter 11. It starts with reactions from one teacher on the students’ commentaries from previous chapters as a way of reinforcing reflections on supercriticality. In the rest of the chapter, the idea of surveying oneself is worked upon, using pictorial representations of ‘Chinese daily life’ chosen by the teacher. The activity is meant to support unthinking and rethinking of how one sees self, other and how other sees self. The concept of encountrictions (encounter + frictions) is introduced as a supplementary tool for supercriticality in interculturality. Finally, short fragments about the notion, written by the teacher, are evaluated. Keywords Fragments · Encountrictions · Pictorial Representations · Surveying oneself · Tools for supercriticality This chapter starts with two quotes. The first one is from Hannah Arendt (1958: 155). This is a reminder of the idea of differilitude, the interrelations between difference and similarity: “If people were not different, they would have nothing to say to each other. And if they were not the same, they would not understand each other”. This also summarizes very well interculturality. The second quote is from the German physicist and satirist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), whom I mentioned in an earlier chapter. He said: “One’s first step in wisdom is to question everything” (Lichtenberg, 1959: 25), and, in a sense, this is what we are doing about interculturality in this book. And then he adds a very important argument: “one’s last is to come to terms with everything”. What he means is that it is important to question, question and question, but it’s also important to try to find some (temporary) solutions which need to be questioned too. We should thus unthink, rethink, deconstruct and rebuild at the same time. I shall now introduce a new term that I have coined: encountrictions (see Dervin & Jacobsson, 2022). This word is based on the combination of two words, encounters and frictions. As I am transformed through and with the others, when I meet them, I encounter frictions, because what I see in the other helps me to question what I see in myself and in my own world, my ‘people’, my perceived realities. So, in meeting the other, I question everything, especially things to do with myself. At the same time, I try to come to terms with everything. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_11

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11.1 Comments on Students’ Contributions While reading through the students’ comments I found many inspiring ideas. In the last dialogue I mentioned this quote from G. Braque (1971: 35): “To define a thing is to replace it with its definition”. One of you made a somewhat similar reference to a saying which has to do with Shakespeare: “A thousand readers have a thousand Hamlets”. When one reads Hamlet, when one reads any work of fiction, drama or poetry, the way one interprets them, and the way one sees them might be very different from others, and if one reads them at different times of one’s life, one might also read them differently. It is a reminder that ‘my’ meaning is not the only and right meaning and that ‘my’ meaning also changes short or long term. One of you asked a very interesting but difficult question, which I want to discuss a little bit. Our colleague mentioned the fact that they had been discussing this question with friends and they wanted to have my opinion. The question was: “Is it necessary to revive an endangered language?”. Let me try to share some views on this. As stated from the beginning of the book, I always ask more questions than provide answers. My first point is that we need to remember that many languages are endangered in the world and some disappear every year. This has been the case ever since human beings have lived. We’ve created new languages, we have modified languages, but we have also gotten rid of languages. Languages have disappeared as people have disappeared because language lives only through use, which means that we need speakers of languages for them to survive. Then when I see the word ‘necessary’ in the question, I ask myself “necessary for whom?”. Is it for the speakers of the language, decisionmakers, researchers, educators? So ‘necessary’ from whose perspective? Now if we want to revive an endangered language, is it for daily life? Is it for family life? Is it just for educational purposes? Is it for science, etc.? Languages have always died and changed, exchanged throughout history. If you look at eighteenth-century Europe, the political atmosphere of the time, the big shift from mediaeval times to modernity, meant that languages changed entirely. As such, before the eighteenth century, there were hundreds of different languages and dialects in Europe for example. But then, one day, we decided that we should only have national identities and languages. We created common languages to be able to talk to each other, to be able to live with each other and to be able to construct a present and future together. One powerful language won over other languages and became the national language of the country. In Europe today, very few countries have more than one language as their national language.

11.2 Surveying Oneself We have discussed this fragment a few times already: “Interculturality it is about oneself, surveying oneself, rather than oneself staring at the other”. In what follows

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I will describe six pictures from China1 —pictures from ‘daily life’. I am very much interested in the students’ reactions to the pictures: “What do they see in these pictures as ‘Chinese’ people?”; “How might someone from another country view them?” and “What might they ask about these pictures?”. At the same time, one should also reflect on why, as a ‘European’, I chose to include these pictures? Picture 1 shows a doormat in front of someone’s flat. The mat says in Chinese 大 户人家 (which translates word for word as ‘big family’) and in English ‘A wealthy and influential family’. Student 1: I think that, in Chinese, it’s kind of a satire. Fred: As you said, there’s obviously some irony here. But what about the choice of languages? English and Chinese, with the English sentence not really corresponding to the Chinese or being explicit in the same way. Why is English included on the mat? I’m just guessing: English looks ‘developed’, ‘cool’, ‘wealthy’, ‘educated’? You can afford another language, especially a global language like English, or is it for aesthetics reasons, i.e. it looks good to have these foreign letters? It seems to me that the Chinese version does not include explicitly the idea of wealthy and influential, while the English version is very clear about this. Student 1: I have another comment. What I found really interesting is that we always have these four-character word instead of six or seven separate words… we always want to freeze the things in only four characters. And the word 大 (big), it’s not only about the size of the house but it has many other meanings, including wealthy, influential, and others. Student 2: I don’t know about the precise context of this picture but, sometimes, we use similar mats with messages at the entrance to our students’ dorm at university. It is meant to show that our dorm is very warm, special and friendly. The second picture shows packages of toilet paper in a supermarket (see Fig. 11.1). The words ‘I love 中国 China’ are printed on the packages. 中国 is the Chinese word for China. Student 3: I think that this is very normal in China because we have the idea of the Chinese Dream and this year [2021] was the anniversary of the establishment of the Communist Party of China. Foreigners would probably ask “why would you put this political thing on tissues that have nothing to do with politics?”. Fred: It’s interesting, you say ‘political’ because I didn’t even think about ‘political’ here. I just thought this is just ‘I love my country’, which is something that most people around the world might feel. When I showed this picture to people around me in Finland or in other countries, they were actually very shocked that this is on what you call tissue but that I would refer to as loo or toilet paper. I think that, for example in Finland, it would probably be illegal—or at least considered ‘tasteless’ or ‘shocking’—to put ‘I love Finland’ on toilet paper. When I discuss these issues with my Chinese friends, they see no problem here. They add that it is great to be able to see “I love China” on daily necessities that they actually use. For them, there’s no ‘added’ connotation here in a sense. I suppose that there might be ‘things’, ‘objects’

1

Only two of the pictures are reproduced below for copyright reasons.

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Fig. 11.1 I Love China

or ‘places’ in other countries, where we put slogans such as “I love my country” which you might find unacceptable. When you look around fashion, for example, designers might put certain flags on T shirts like the American flag, the UK flag. But you would rarely see other flags. There are so many flags that we never see in fashion. Why is that? Is it because we’ve constructed an idea that certain flags are actually ‘cooler’, ‘trendier’ than others? The meanings of flags in many European countries today have changed very much. When I was a child growing up in different European places, people didn’t use flags so much, because they felt somewhat uncomfortable; if you used a flag, it might have meant that you are too patriotic, that you love your country too much and that you cannot open your mind towards other peoples. I feel that today people might not feel the same. You see flags in all places, presidents and all kinds of people using flags behind them, or on stationaries. So, it’s interesting to see and observe where and how people can declare their national identity. Many people outside China might find the presence of the slogan I love China on toilet paper package to be improper. We need to ask ourselves why it might be unacceptable because the adjective corresponds here to judging and condemning. On the third picture one can see a ‘traditional’ Chinese building with a Starbucks sign. Student 4: I can see a Starbucks café in a Chinese traditional building. I think maybe foreigners might say “oh, [Starbucks] coffee is not from China, how come this café is in this kind of traditional building?”. Fred: Why would I take this picture and why would that be interesting in a sense “interculturally”? This could be referred to as some example of hybridization of cultures: You have an old-looking Chinese building and a big sign of a globalAmerican company. Some people might be critical of the building and say that this is a symbol of American capitalism, while others may not even notice the ‘combination’ or care about it. Who is right? Who is wrong? Nobody. These are different ways of

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thinking, different ways of protecting potentially our ‘identity’, how we see ourselves in the big global world. Picture four depicts a Chinese lady wearing a traditional Hanfu 汉服 costume standing next to a Christmas tree. Hanfu was the historical dress of the Han people and in recent years some young people in China have started to wear Hanfu on certain occasions as a symbol of their Chineseness. Fred: In a sense, this picture continues the previous conversations. This is about interculturality. But maybe the way some Chinese people see it and the way some outsiders might react to this definition could be very different. Student 5: I was actually really shocked when I saw this picture. I think that they shouldn’t be put together. I’ve never imagined that these two distinct things could fit together. Picture 5: A mannequin in a window display is wearing a T-shirt with Jesus printed on it, a black jacket with a dragon pattern placed over it. Fred: What about this one? Would you say that this is shocking as well? I think that some people don’t see what’s here, especially the character in the middle, Jesus Christ. Maybe the person who arranged it actually did not even know that this is a religious figure. The same as, sometimes in the west, we don’t know certain characters from more traditional Chinese mythology or belief systems. Did you realize what it was straight away? Would you wear this combination? Student 6: What I can tell from this design is that it seems like the Chinese dragon is opening the way, clearing the way for Jesus, which seems a bit strange to me. Fred: That’s interesting. I didn’t think about that but that’s a nice way of putting it. Picture 6 shows an elderly lady carrying a toy-bazooka on the streets of Beijing (see Fig. 11.2), looking after a little boy (her grandson?). Student 7: We can see that there is a woman holding a toy gun on the street. She is holding the toy for her son or grandson. I don’t think that this is strange. Fred: A friend of mine sent me this picture. I have showed the picture to many friends from different countries and most of them reacted somewhat negatively to the picture, arguing that they would not feel too safe if someone was carrying this bazooka near them—even if they knew that it was a toy. In China, owning a gun is completely illegal and shootings are extremely rare—unlike some parts of the Western world. However, I have noticed that kids will often play with fake guns or play shooting games in game parlours where (fake) guns are often included. Once on a beach in Tel Aviv (Israel), because in Israel, you can own your own gun, I saw a man with this kind of gun and it was a real one. I ran away. What we’ve been doing in this section is to describe what we see, and how we perceive them to be (surprising, shocking, unacceptable, etc.). And then we start thinking back about why is it that we think this way? Why is it that we find something repulsive, intriguing, surprising, when it is different from what we think it is? And if I go back to the idea of encountrictions, this is what encounters with others do to us, they can trigger some frictions in us and urge us to start ‘thinking’, ‘moving’, ‘shaking’, ‘rethinking’ our own feelings, which are not, most of the time, our own feelings but feelings that have been imposed on us through being used to certain ways

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Fig. 11.2 Grandmother and grandson

of seeing the world. This is one very important aspect of interculturality: When we see a picture, we always need to dig into the context and to try to identify as many pieces of information as we can get, while trying to think about our feelings, other people’s, and why we/they do this or that, why we/they find this or that acceptable, why we/they don’t find it appropriate, etc. Holding up our first impressions and judgements, although challenging, we need to open up to other ways of thinking and seeing.

11.3 More Fragments and Quotes This section starts with three fragments written by Fred in 2021 (see Dervin, 2022a): 1. “We must think and rethink interculturality all the time, not just in times of crisis”. I wrote this fragment because I’ve noticed that, at the moment, many people are so excited about interculturality because we live in terrible times of crisis, for all kinds of reasons. But I think it’s a shame if we only start thinking about

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interculturality when we face crises. Interculturality should be at the core of our lives all the time. 2. “Interculturality doesn’t exist. It lives within us, and us together!”. A lot of times when people talk about interculturality, it seems to me that they refer to a ‘thing’, an ‘object’—not persons. But interculturality is really about us! It is alive, it’s moving and shifting. Actually, maybe I am wrong in the way I phrase it. Interculturality doesn’t exist; it does not have an agency. It’s us, me, and you, and what we do together that create processes of interculturality. 3. “Interculturality is never on holiday. It is always at work.” The reason why I wrote this is because the other day someone said: “why is it that you always write down your thoughts? And why do you spend so much time thinking about interculturality? Can’t you give it a break?”. I explained that I can’t leave it as it is. We need to continue thinking about interculturality, we need to move on with it. We need to stop thinking that we actually know what it is and how to do it. Student 8: I would like to comment on the first fragment, which inspired me a lot because this word ‘crisis’ sounds very serious in Chinese. I can think of one perfect example from the business world. When people do business abroad, only when they face some crisis, will they think that interculturality matters. I think that this fragment is very important for e.g. entrepreneurship because entrepreneurs need to value interculturality all the time. The section ends with two quotes. One from Elias Canetti (1905–1994), who wrote: “You keep taking notes of whatever confirms your ideas—better to write down what refutes and weakens them!” (Canetti, 1989: 60). What Canetti is saying here is that confirming your own beliefs and opinions is ‘poor’ compared to revising them when confronted with other opinions, views, ideologies that actually potentially weaken them. As such I also believe that the only way we can move forward, the only way we could become better (maybe temporarily) at being social beings, is through frictions of ideas, feelings, ideologies, etc. When one looks at interculturality in the world, in research, for example, there are clearly different groups and tribes of researchers and educators who believe in different ideologies but who never talk to each other. We [I include myself here] never confront our own (complex and often unstable) ideologies with other (complex and unstable) ideologies. This makes it impossible to move forward. When you are made to believe that only your ideas are the ‘right’ ones because you don’t want to clash with others, when you feel too comfortable with your own ideas, there is a danger for research, education and society… The second quote is from American composer John Cage (1912–1992): “The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful, is, why do I think is not beautiful. And very shortly, you discover that there’s no reason” (Cage in Hewitt, 2011: 466). I think that summarizes well many of the points that we have made in this book hitherto. For example, when we looked at the pictures in a previous section, although it was not about something being beautiful or not you could replace the word here with other terms such as acceptable, ethical, tolerant,

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etc. If I paraphrase Cage: “When something doesn’t seem to be acceptable, ethical, tolerant, is, why do I think is not acceptable, ethical, tolerant?”. To finish, two questions to be considered in the future chapters: – Are you optimistic for the future of interculturality in the post-pandemic world? Explain why (not). – How familiar are you with the idea of cultural appropriation? How do you understand it? Is it discussed in China? Examples? [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – What do you make of the concept of encountrictions proposed by Fred? Can you try to define it for yourself and to recall examples from your own intercultural encounters? – How do you position yourself in relation to the necessity to revive endangered languages? – Go back to the discussion around the pictures from China described in the chapter and try to imagine how people around you would interpret/perceive them. – Imagine that you are going to give a presentation to a group of people from other countries. You need to include three pictures describing certain aspects of daily life in your own context. Pick the pictures and reflect on what they might mean to different people and, maybe most importantly, why is it that you chose these pictures? – Have you ever reconsidered what you have labelled as ‘contradictory’ and/or ‘unacceptable’ while talking to someone from another country? Explain. – What comes to mind when you read these words: “Interculturality doesn’t exist; it does not have an agency. It’s us, me, and you, and what we do together that create processes of interculturality”? – Following Cage (in Hewitt, 2011: 466) and replacing the adjectives in the modified quote with any adjective you have used during one day to evaluate things, people and phenomena, ask yourself why is it that you label things, people and phenomena as you do… “When something doesn’t seem to be acceptable, ethical, tolerant, is, why do I think is not acceptable, ethical, tolerant?” – For a couple of hours, try to make a conscious effort to revise systematically your opinions. As soon as you say “I think that…”, “in my opinion…”, take another perspective either in your mind or in speaking with others. Reflect on how this exercise makes you feel, on the influence(s) that it might have on yourself and others, and your relationships. As in previous chapters, we recommend two publications to continue exploring some of the topics covered in this chapter. The first book is by Ming Dong Gu (2013), a Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Dallas, USA. The book proposes sinologism, defined as “a new concept (…) to refer to the problematics in Western knowledge production about China and Chinese knowledge production about the West” (Gu, 2013: 5), as an alternative to other

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critical perspectives. The other book is by Roland Barthes (1981) on how to look at photography and how photos shape perception and memory. – Gu, M. D. (2013). Sinologism. An Alternative to Orientalism and postcolonialism. New York: Routledge. – Barthes, R. (1981). Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang.

References Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. Chicago University Press. Barthes, R. (1981). Camera lucida. Reflections on photography. Hill and Wang. Braque, G. (1971). Illustrated notebooks: 1917–1955. Dover Publications. Canetti, E. (1989). The secret heart of the clock. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Dervin, F. (2022). Interculturality in fragments: A reflexive approach. Springer. Dervin, F., & Jacobsson, A. (2022). Intercultural communication education: Broken realities and rebellious dreams. Springer. Gu, M. D. (2013). Sinologism. An alternative to orientalism and postcolonialism. Routledge. Hewitt, M. (2011). A few of my favourite things about North Carolina pottery. In R. Cashman, T. Mould, & P. Shukla (Eds.), The individual and tradition (pp. 455–470). Indiana University Press. Lichtenberg, G. C. (1959). The lichtenberg reader. Beacon Press.

Chapter 12

Refreshing Our Ideas, Thoughts and Attitudes

Abstract This chapter deepens our engagement with pictorial representations of interculturality by listening to the students’ reactions to the photographs shared by a teacher in dialogue 4. Multifaceted interpretations of both the photographs and different reactions to them are shared. In doing so, the students show their wish and interest in listening to other voices, even to those they might disagree with. Engagement with the photographs leads to the following topics being discussed: globalization, diversity from within, social media discourses and ethnocentrism. The chapter shows that the students are eager to confront their own ideas, thoughts and attitudes after taking part in the latest dialogue. Keywords Globalization · Photographs · Diversity · Ethnocentrism · Multiple perspectives This chapter presents the students’ reactions to the fourth dialogue, with a focus on the pictures from Chinese daily life that Fred had selected. As a reminder the pictures show: – Picture 1: A doormat in front of someone’s flat saying in Chinese 大户人家 (which translates word for word as ‘big family’) and in English ‘A wealthy and influential family’ – Picture 2: Packages of toilet paper with the words ‘I love 中国 China’ on display in a supermarket – Picture 3: A ‘traditional’ Chinese building with a Starbucks sign – Picture 4: A Chinese lady wearing a traditional Hanfu 汉服 costume standing next to a Christmas tree – Picture 5: A mannequin in a window display with a T-shirt with Jesus printed on it, and a black jacket with a dragon pattern placed over it – Picture 6: A lady carrying a toy bazooka on the streets of Beijing This conversation made me realize the significance of thinking and asking questions. To me, intercultural communication is not only a kind of disciplinary knowledge, but also a perspective and thinking method, which enables us to get out of the comfort zone we are used to and take for granted, and to feel and understand other people’s cultures and life patterns. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_12

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The focus of the dialogue from the previous chapter is surveying oneself instead of staring at the other. Fred showed us interesting pictures from daily life in China and made us look at them from an outsider’s perspective. Selling toilet paper with ‘I Love China’ printed on the package in China perfectly illustrates this point. Before the dialogue, I had never thought that some foreigners might be frightened and surprised to see toy guns on the streets, because it is quite common for elders to give toys to their children in China. These are issues that we in China don’t even notice. There is no good or bad, I think it is the result of many factors such as ideologies. (Student 1). In the last conversation, Fred showed us how different Chinese and foreigners might think via six pictures. When I saw the first photo in class, I thought it was a sign hanging in front of a tourist attraction, with the purpose of introducing the origin of a building or related knowledge to visitors. At that time, I felt very confused and wondered what the significance of the sign was. But when I discussed it with my classmates after class, they told me that it was actually a carpet placed at the entrance of a home. In China, many people would place a small square rug at the entrance of their homes for changing shoes so as not to get the floor dirty. The text on the rug, ‘da hu ren jia’ in Chinese and English, is more likely to be a spoof. Because the house owner thought it funny to put such exaggerated words on a mat in front of his/her ordinary house, this interesting phenomenon is very common in China. For example, during my college years, one of the dormitories had a plaque saying jian pu zhai (简朴寨), which means a simple and unadorned stockade/county, it is also pronounced the same way as the country of Cambodia in Chinese. Actually, this plaque did not reflect their pursuit of a simple life or that their dorm was plain, it was just a harmonic joke which contrasts to their exquisite life. (Student 2). What struck me very much were the pictures that were discussed in the dialogue. To us, these pictures are scenes that occur in everyday life and may not have any deep meaning. However, it is worth noting that people from other countries may interpret these pictures differently. For example, in the picture of the woman holding the toy bazooka for her grandchild on the streets, the bright colours of the toy already highlight its attributes, and it is clear that she is looking after her own grandchildren. These are all based on the context of China’s strict gun control, and as ordinary people in everyday life, the safety of our surroundings would hardly give us any disturbing associations with such toys. Therefore, I think that when analyzing intercultural perceptions of the same thing, it is important to contextualize them, as a direct reading out of context can inevitably lead to misunderstandings. (Student 3). The most exciting part of this conversation with Fred was the last picture he showed us, an old lady holding a toy water gun. The question Fred asked us to think about was what we as Chinese see and what this picture might look like to a foreigner. At first, I was puzzled by this question because I thought the picture pointed to the obvious: an old woman holding her grandson’s toy water gun, but after Fred explained the reason for the picture, I thought this example was fascinating. People in some foreign countries, especially in countries where gun ownership is legal, might be very frightened to see this picture, because they might not think it is a toy like we do. This is the process of people’s minds being challenged in different environments. China

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explicitly prohibits the use of firearms, so we take it for granted that this would be a fake gun. Sometimes this effect is so subtle that we can hardly notice it. (Student 4). After looking at the six pictures, I realized the differences in understanding caused by cultural differences through the different responses of my classmates and Fred to these pictures. My inspiration is that we can’t take things we’re used to for granted. Because, to people in other cultures, these things might be incomprehensible. We should first recognize the differences in living environments and cognition of different cultural groups, then understand their differences in culture and further try to look at these cultural differences from the perspective of the other party. But we cannot force others to think that we are right or to accept our culture completely. Based on the principle of respect, one culture cannot be made to be superior to any other culture. (Student 5). It was a quite challenging session about the topic of encountriction. The task around the pictures potentially pushed us out of our comfort zone. (Student 6). I was thinking of an interesting phenomenon called “Be a troll online but a chicken in real life”. In reality, when someone shares his/her opinion, people tend to say “yes, you are right” no matter what their true thoughts are. Because they think it will bother them to start arguing about something. Or maybe the life pace is so fast that people just don’t have the patience to listen to others’ opinions carefully. But online it’s a new extreme. The “confrontation” can be very aggressive and irrational, because netizens merely want to vent their stress. I think we should reflect on this phenomenon and be brave to communicate with someone holding different opinions and think about their points of view seriously. That kind of “collision” between thoughts can really benefit both parties. (Student 7). I really like the word Encountriction. I think it depicts perfectly how we understand things. We form our perception with the frictions that we already have in mind. So, when we discuss interculturality, we are putting those frictions on the table and see how and where we picked them up, so we are not “staring at others”, but “surveying ourselves”. Furthermore, I think that, when we are outputting opinions, we are assembling these frictions. It is really hard to tell which is original, and perhaps, there is no originality. When we are not sure about the originality of our ideas, how can we be sure that we have independent thinking? (Student 8). It’s quite impressive that the Icelandic and French governments devote much effort to protect their local languages, they tell their local residents what language they should use in their daily life and translate English into their local language. It’s really interesting to hear that ‘I love China’ on the toilet paper might make foreign people feel surprised but Chinese people feel it’s reasonable to put the slogan on daily necessities. What’s more, some foreign people might think that allowing foreign brands such as Starbucks to combine or rent an old building in their own country means destroying their heritage, while Chinese people might not even notice that kind of thing. (Student 9). I love the sentence on the slide: “you keep taking notes of whatever confirms your idea–better to write down what refutes and weakens them” (Canetti, 1989: 60). And also, this motto explains perfectly why I think there is huge disinformation

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between China and other countries even though everything is available online. For most Chinese people, they don’t know the bigger world out of China and vice versa. I am curious about what Fred thinks of the boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, which was triggered because of some so-called human right issues in Xinjiang. Regardless of political positions and political considerations, I really want to know how people from other countries view this controversy. In my opinion, honestly, I do think that, sometimes, the media exaggerate. Don’t you think that in most cases the media would pick up what would sell and attract readers while at the same time influence the public in making their own mind about certain issues? I am not defending potential mistakes, neither am I denying the truth that governments always need to improve the sense of humanity in many ways. I am also curious about the following: if people believe media reports about the Chinese government and human rights issues (they have the right to do so, which is not reprobative), will they transfer this anger to ordinary Chinese people? Will this cause something negative in intercultural communication between ordinary and innocent people? (Student 10). As a learner of intercultural communication, I need to bear in mind that I should unthink and rethink interculturality all the time. Normally, I only notice cultural differences when I interact with foreigners. However, I realize that I could use interculturality in my daily life. As a northerner studying in the southern part of China, I can use the theories of interculturality to think and reflect on what has changed in me during these years. It is a great practice for me to understand how interculturality influences us. (Student 11). The most interesting picture in the last session was the one of a Chinese woman standing in the street with a toy gun. This reminded me of a film called Matrix, which has a high philosophical meaning: human beings will be trapped in a matrix of thinking; they can’t break their inherent understanding; they can only think about problems in a regular way within the framework of past education and surroundings; and they can’t jump from a low-dimensional perspective to a higher-dimensional one to see problems. In short: we can’t see the whole picture of the world because of our limited perspectives and thinking patterns. As an old Chinese saying goes, “You can’t see the true appearance of Mount Lushan because you are in it”. Going back to the photo, if the person who sees it doesn’t think within their own framework, and if they know that guns are forbidden in China, then they might start seeing the whole picture differently. (Student 12). Fred talked about whether or not to preserve endangered languages. From my perspective, it is definitely necessary to preserve them. An endangered language is not a dead language. Endangered languages are at risk of going extinct. They’re used by fewer and fewer people every day. And in some cases, only they might have just one speaker left. While on the surface a language may seem like nothing more than a collection of words, in fact, it is much more. Language is culture. It is the medium that we use to connect with our ideas, beliefs and emotions. It communicates our place in the world, our history and our culture. When a language disappears, it takes away the ability to communicate one’s identity with it. And the world becomes smaller. History, art and culture are tied to a language, but so are the hard sciences.

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For instance, there are many indigenous cultures that use undocumented herbs and medicines to treat ailments. Learning the health benefits, studying these medical practices, could help us advance medicine. (Student 13). Fred wrote a sentence on his PPT that made me think: “We must think and rethink interculturality all the time—not just in times of crisis”. In fact, I thought that intercultural communication was very far away from me because I have not communicated with people who have big cultural differences with me. But now I think that intercultural communication can happen in our lives at any moment. (Student 14). I want to discuss the interpretation of the Chinese phrase “大户人家” which was printed on the doormat in one of the pictures. When I saw the English translation, “wealthy and influential family”, I found the deep roots of two distinct cultures collide. As a Chinese, I might translate the phrase as “A local symbolic family with wealthy cultural heritage”. It seems that the English translation focuses more on economic aspects. (Student 15). I totally agree with what Fred quoted from Arendt (1958: 155): “If people were not different, they would have nothing to say to each other. And if they were not the same, they would not understand each other.” In a sense, it summarized very well interculturality—we are different, we are similar and we understand but we don’t understand each other totally. (Student 16). I agree with Fred’s fragment: “Interculturality is about oneself surveying oneself, rather than oneself staring at the other.” The process of interculturality is like looking in a mirror which reflects our feelings, emotional patterns, habits, basic values towards the world and so on. And intercultural communication can be viewed as a process whereby we start accepting others’ opinions, then we review ourselves and ‘refresh’ our thoughts, ideas and attitudes. (Student 17). The package of toilet paper printed with the words ‘I love China’ and the Chinese flag are not strange to us due to the patriotic education that we have received and the concept of the ‘Chinese dream’. Fred’s argument that “interculturality is never on holiday. It is always at work” was also interesting. Indeed, when we work with people from different cultural backgrounds, we will take differences and alternative perspectives more seriously and try to solve them. When we socialize with others casually, it might be easier to solve small cultural differences. In such situations, we might be willing to listen to and learn from those cultural differences because we are relaxed and have no conflict of interest. (Student 18). In 2007, at the appeal of a well-known public figure, a Starbucks café, which had been in the Forbidden City for seven years, was asked to move out. Some Chinese scholars believed that such events reflected the sensitivity of the Chinese to the old colonial past and the anxiety of the country’s economic transition. But 14 years later, this kind of news has been gradually reduced, I think this may have something to do with Chinese development. There is a greater belief that globalization has brought us benefits, so we are more tolerant of this kind of ‘cultural integration’. As far as I am concerned, such commercial activities can be quite creative under the premise of fulfilling the cultural heritage protection rules. It can also help to attract young coffee lovers to experience more traditional culture. (Student 19).

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Fred’s assertion that “Interculturality does not exist. It lives within us, and us together” impressed me a lot. Interculturality is not a thing that only happens when people misunderstand others’ culture, instead, it coexists with(in) us and it is a kind of “nature” embedded in our lives. (Student 20). In this dialogue, Fred asked us to discuss six pictures showing aspects of Chinese daily life. The meanings expressed by these pictures could be contradictory in the eyes of Chinese people and foreigners. During the discussion about the pictures, I think that the interaction between Fred and us was actually an interculturality process. Just as he said, interculturality is about “oneself surveying oneself rather than oneself staring at the other”. Listening to our points of view and comparing them with the views of others were a good way for Fred to survey himself too. Additionally, the words from Elias Canetti were stimulating: we usually keep taking notes of whatever confirms our ideas and ignore what opposes us. This phenomenon has also been discussed in behavioural economics and is described by the term “confirmation bias”. In order to reduce misunderstandings caused by this bias, we need to listen to different voices and opposing views. Only in this way can we think about the problem more comprehensively. (Student 21). I found the argument that “nothing is unacceptable in interculturality” to be surprising. When we see something that contradicts our current beliefs or understandings, we should not rush to the conclusion that the opposite side is wrong or impenetrable, maybe we simply need to pay more efforts to try to understand each other. (Student 22). [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – Why do you feel it would be important to listen to voices that disagree with our own views, values and ideologies concerning interculturality? – What do you make of the argument that “nothing is unacceptable in interculturality”? Does it make sense to you? – How do you see different aspects of today’s globalization, from economic to creative aspects? Are you open to the idea of globalization? – Do you mind big companies like Apple or Burger King renting local heritage buildings for their business? – Look into the Chinese idiom: “You can’t see the true appearance of Mount Lushan because you are in it”. Where does it come from and what can it teach us about interculturality? – Like one of the students in the past, do you still feel that interculturality is something far away from your own daily life? – Give examples of interculturality within the country where you live (in terms of, e.g., regions, social classes, languages). – Are you aware of how much negative (social) media reports on a given country and/or part of the world influence you in your views and takes on them? Give some examples.

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– “When we are not sure about the originality of our ideas, how can we be sure that we have independent thinking?” What ideas does this quote from a student inspire you with? – Have you been made to believe that some cultures are ‘better’ than others? Think of examples and try to trace back to how these beliefs have been passed onto you.

References Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. Chicago University Press. Canetti, E. (1989). The secret heart of the clock. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Chapter 13

Politics of Interculturality

Abstract Increasingly, scholars and educators are urged to engage with the notion of interculturality through the lens of politics. As a project of potential togetherness, social justice and inclusion, interculturality is highly ideologically oriented, influenced by, e.g., economic and political forces. In this chapter, the students reflect on the intrinsic links between interculturality and politics. They consider the ‘Western’ idea of cultural appropriation, which is not commonly used in their context, and discuss it from ‘Chinese perspectives’. The era when the dialogues took place was dominated by different crises, especially the COVID-19 pandemic. In the chapter, the students also speculate about the future of interculturality after this global catastrophe. Here again, politics is central in their take on this issue. Keywords COVID-19 · Cultural appropriation · Ideology · Politics · Chinese perspectives Discussions are introduced in this chapter based on the following two sets of questions: – How familiar are you with the idea of cultural appropriation? How do you understand it? Is it discussed in China? – Are you optimistic for the future of interculturality in the post-pandemic world? Explain why (not).

13.1 Discussion 1: Making sense of the Discourse Instrument of Cultural Appropriation Cultural appropriation is understood here in its broad definition of “taking of intellectual property, cultural expressions or artefacts, history, and ways of knowledge” (Siems, 2019: 408). Cultural appropriation is the use of things (food, traditional stories, clothing, etc.) that do not belong to one’s own culture. I think it is an objective phenomenon and a double-edged sword. It promotes the spread of culture, but may also cause people © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_13

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to forget and misunderstand the source of culture. But there is no denying that it has promoted the process of globalization. In China, there are some good examples of cultural appropriation that have infiltrated. With the introduction of Western food such as KFC, McDonald’s and Starbucks, eating fast food and drinking coffee have become the dietary habits of most contemporary people. Some personal dressing styles, such as Japanese JK uniform and European and American makeup, can also be good illustrations of cultural appropriation. Western weddings, yoga and other lifestyles represent other examples. I also note that Chinese food, the Chinese cheongsam dress and Chinese wedding styles are also being appropriated by foreigners. Cultural appropriation, it seems, manifests itself in many ways. (Student 1) Cultural appropriation refers to the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture. In our general perception, it is a relatively pejorative concept. For example, in the field of fashion and art, the selection criteria of some brands for Chinese models are based on the model having ‘Danfeng’ eyes (‘slender eyes’) and high cheekbones. In the Disney movie Mulan, the ‘monkeying up’ of makeup and the ‘metaphysics’ of Chi are poor imitations of Chinese culture. In a Dolce and Gabbana’s campaign video, they also misused Chinese elements and mocked Chinese chopsticks in what could be described as an arrogant and biased way. This stereotype-laden cultural appropriation has caused great discontent in China, and many people have spontaneously boycotted Dolce and Gabbana and refrained from buying the brand’s clothes. In addition, I think that cultural theft is also a derivative of cultural appropriation. In Chinese society, when people mention Korea, they accuse them of stealing Chinese culture. Koreans have repeatedly stated in public that “kimchi” is a traditional Korean dish, but kimchi originated from China, as it was described in the ancient Chinese poetry book ‘Shi Jing’ 3000 years ago. Also, many Koreans still insist that Chinese hanbok is copied from Korean costumes, and claim that Chinese knots are traditional Korean handicrafts, etc. (Student 2) When I came across the concept of cultural appropriation, I actually felt that the term might be more pejorative in nature, but I wasn’t sure of its exact connotation. I searched the internet for its definition and found: “The term cultural appropriation is sometimes used to describe the act of borrowing aspects of another culture”. This situation may occur frequently in our lives and is often something that invariably has some impact. In interculturality, appropriation inevitably occurs as a result of communication. I think this can often be due to the absence of a corresponding concept in the local culture and the direct borrowing from other cultures, which has some influence on the local culture. The concept of cultural appropriation reminds me of a legal book I once read, Searching for Harmony in the Natural Order. I think that one of the legal phenomena mentioned in this book is very much in line with the idea of cultural appropriation. The book compares and contrasts many Chinese and Western legal concepts, suggesting that China was very hasty in reforming its legal system at the end of

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the Qing Dynasty, blindly borrowing Western legal concepts and ignoring the differences between China’s indigenous legal culture and Western legal culture. The consequence of the direct introduction of Western legal concepts under the neglect of the differences was that it led to a complete contradiction with the local characteristics of China and many contradictions when carrying out the reform. For example, it is often suggested that the ancient Chinese legal system was characterized by an emphasis on criminal law over civil law, but actually in essence there is no room for the concept of ‘private law’ in the Chinese legal tradition. Traditional Chinese culture emphasizes the concept of ‘family and state’, where there is no individual and naturally no basis for ‘private law’, i.e., individual rights. This assessment is a refutation of the traditional concept of Chinese law through the appropriation of the Western concept of legal system. It is for this reason that in many of the legal reforms of the late Qing Dynasty and even now, there is inevitably some cultural appropriation of legal concepts, which naturally differ from one culture to another and whose direct use may not be fully adapted to the development of our judicial system. (Student 3) In fact, I think that cultural appropriation is very common, especially in today’s globalization. The aim of some cultural appropriation is not bad, such as some luxury brands wanting to add Chinese elements to their designs for market development purposes. However, some cultural appropriation is not very well intentioned. In this regard, I was most struck by the friction between Korean culture and Chinese culture. Korea was known as Gaoli in ancient times and was a vassal state of China in some dynasties, as a result, many Korean cultural elements were passed on from China. For example, Korea spoke Korean but wrote Chinese characters in ancient times. Today, the boundaries of these cultural elements are beginning to blur, as Koreans would argue that these elements are originally Korean, but Chinese would argue that they originated in China. A few years ago, Korea’s inscription of the Dragon Boat Festival as their ‘heritage’ caused a very strong discussion, up to this day. Both China and Korea are very sensitive in this regard. Whether it is a well-intentioned cultural appropriation or ‘cultural grab’ for historical reasons, it seems that most of the results are not good, especially when the culture of the weaker party is being misused by the stronger party, and the weaker party doesn’t have the resources or the voice to ‘correct’ it for the world. I often see certain luxury brands boycotted by Chinese netizens for their Chinese designs, some because the designers are unfriendly to China, but more often I think it’s because they have a superficial understanding of Chinese culture. In my view, we could call ‘good’ cultural appropriation cultural homage. (Student 4) In my opinion, cultural appropriation is derogatory and refers more to the bullying of a ‘weak’ culture by a ‘strong’ culture. When a person or groups of people do not fully understand another culture and copy it stiffly, it will lead to the misunderstanding of that culture. The relatively weak party does not have enough voice to defend itself, so it is difficult to correct the wrong perception of its culture by the outside world, while the strong party deepens wrong stereotypes of this culture for the outside world. (Student 5)

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Actually, I have not heard of this word before and I think it is not a commonly used word in Chinese daily life. It might be some terminology used in academia. From my perspective, I think it means that the culture borrowed from other countries or regions has some influence on local people or culture. I think that Mandarin phonetic symbols (pinyin) is an example of cultural appropriation. With this spelling method borrowed from Latin-based languages, we can ‘spell’ Chinese and teach it in a new way. And this has a great influence on our language. For instance, we can use a keyboard to type Chinese. (Student 6) Cultural appropriation is a common phenomenon in all societies. It is borrowing elements, characters, ideas, styles, designs, etc. from another culture. The trend of chinoiserie is an example of cultural appropriation. Chinoiserie is the European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and other east Asian traditions in the arts, architecture, literature and so on. Chinoiserie is still popular today in elite interior design and fashion. And some fashion designers were influenced and inspired by Chinese styles and created new designs based on the imagination and fantasy of Chinese civilization. For example, Yves Saint Laurent and John Galliano both added Chinese characters and elements to their designs, generating unique patterns. (Student 7) The first time I heard about cultural appropriation was when I read the news of an American girl wearing Chinese Qipao (旗袍) at her graduation party, and I got this idea of inappropriate adoption of an element of a certain culture by members from other cultures as the meaning of cultural appropriation. Where was the inappropriateness laying? I was confused at the beginning because Qipao to me was nothing but a type of beautiful Chinese traditional dress, and I would be proud if there is someone from another culture who appreciates it like me. I remained doubtful of some Chinese netizens’ criticism until I learned that Qipao was not only a piece of art but a symbol of activism to fight for the extreme patriarchal oppression in Chinese history. The idea is that it is not a dress for a prom party but something that only those who carry this history can wear. (Student 8) In my understanding, cultural appropriation is perhaps not a positive term because by definition, cultural appropriation has the characteristic of not showing that you understand or respect a given culture. As a Chinese, I have also experienced some negative incidents related to cultural appropriation. This is because many cultural appropriations are often associated with spoofing (in Chinese: 恶搞), ridicule or stereotyping, which often makes the spoofed person feel uncomfortable. Certainly, I wholeheartedly welcome “cultural appropriation” from foreign friends with good intentions and a willingness to learn, as this will better facilitate intercultural communication and promote mutual understanding, which I believe is beneficial. (Student 9) For me, cultural appropriation refers to the use of objects or elements of one culture in a way that doesn’t respect their original meanings, give credits to their source, but that reinforces stereotypes. It may be natural to merge cultures as people from different backgrounds come together and interact. In fact, many wonderful inventions have been born from the merging of such cultures. However, cultural appropriation involves a lack of understanding of or appreciation for the historical

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context that influences the act of what is being borrowed. For example, the news that Jiangling Dragon Boat Festival was declared as cultural heritage of South Korea by the UNESCO irritated many people in China, because this festival originates from China. Many people think it’s a kind of cultural appropriation. (Student 10) I started to learn about this notion when a popular online music show was on several years ago. It was called “Rap of China”. I remember that one Black person referred to this show as ‘cultural appropriation’. He felt uncomfortable because a bunch of Chinese took their black culture and changed it into something he could not understand. He also believed that the Chinese could never grasp the essence of hip-pop music because they did not experience the history behind this. Cultural appropriation is also constantly discussed in China with the concept of cultural assimilation. Since the values advocated in hip-pop music always run counter to the traditional and contemporary values in China, some believe that Chinese rappers had “lost their roots”. But when some talented rappers combined traditional Chinese music with rap music and produce what we called Chinese style hip-pop, the same people started to support them. (Student 11) We are familiar with the issue regarding cultural appropriation. For example, South Korea has filed a complaint with the UN Cultural Agency accusing China of misappropriating their own festivals, such as Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival. Personally speaking, I suppose the root cause of cultural plagiarism and cultural appropriation is the lack of cultural confidence and a sense of inferiority in one’s own culture. China’s responses to these complaints have been explicit and firm. If we do not hold a firm attitude towards this primary and essential issue regarding cultural foundation, it is not conducive to our cultural export and cultural development. In recent years, China has also enhanced its cultural communications and interculturality with multiple countries through improving promotion of Chinese culture, making documentaries, telling Chinese stories to foreign countries. (Student 12) Some people find cultural appropriation offensive, or they feel that it should be considered as theft. But from my point of view, adopting things from other cultures is not necessarily harmful, especially when it is done in a conscious, thoughtful way. Cultural exchange has often been very beneficial historically, and that sharing artefacts between cultures can lead to interesting conversations and greater mutual understanding. (Student 13) After doing some research, I found that the phenomenon of cultural appropriation is very common in China, so that we hardly realize that it is cultural appropriation. Its original intention may be derogatory, but I think it can be regarded as a positive word too, as long as the use is not based on malice. I think that cultural misappropriation is an inevitable phenomenon in cultural exchange, cultural integration and mutual understanding, and there is absolutely no need to restrict others from using our cultural characters for the sake of protecting our own culture. However, the phenomenon of demonizing Chinese people with Chinese cultural elements will be resisted by netizens, which usually happens in some business activities. (Student 14)

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The development of culture can be understood as a form of appropriation and stereotype, but on the other hand it can also be understood as a form of innovation, integration and development. (Student 15) While differences may occur during the process of coding and uncoding another culture, if understood and used properly, it will have positive effects in interculturality. If not, it will be a worthy lesson in interculturality. (Student 16) In my opinion, cultural appropriation is the transformation and utilization of culture that does not belong to one’s own country, for non-universal purposes such as commerce, so that culture can be applied to a wider field than before. (Student 17) People always criticize many K-pop stars of stealing Chinese elements for the idols’ costumes. I consider this thing to be connected to politics. When the two countries are politically opposed, they tend to call the utilization of each other’s civilization a kind of ‘appropriation’; but when the two countries are politically friendly, they won’t treat it as a serious thing but refer to it as cultural fusion. China’s relationship with Korea became bad since Korea allowed the USA to deploy the THAAD system in their country. After that China has become unusually sensitive towards Korea’s cultural activities. (Student 18) In recent years, as Chinese culture is gradually understood and liked by people all over the world, cultural appropriation became a frequently discussed topic. For example, foreigners often like to tattoo Chinese words on their bodies. However, since they don’t necessarily understand the meanings, they often tattoo some meaningless or even ridiculous words and sentences. Although this kind of borrowing might sound ridiculous, it reflects that Chinese culture has indeed entered the global stage, which is an important step in cultural promotion. (Student 19) Cultural appropriation is not simply a matter of right or wrong. On the one hand, in the process of globalization, we are inevitably exposed to things from other cultures. This process also inspires us. In the construction of human civilization, appropriation itself was also an important part. Buddhism, for example, spread from India to China and Japan, and Zen was born. In this case, people from different regions tried to understand the spirit of Buddhism from different angles. Perhaps people at that time thought Zen was a disrespectful ‘tampering’ of the original meaning of Indian Buddhism, but from a broader civilizational point of view, it enriched its interpretation. Therefore, cultural appropriation might be one of the means for cultural development. (Student 20)

13.2 Discussion 2: The ‘Post-Pandemic’ World and Interculturality Although the sudden outbreak and severe consequences of the epidemic have caused some people to question the benefits of globalization for their own countries and individuals, creating a trend of counter-globalization, I still believe that interculturality will become increasingly important in the post-epidemic world.

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Firstly, the epidemic has brought the world closer together, with a clearer division of labour in the industry chain. For example, China donated masks to Brazil, and Brazil organized test subjects to help China develop the vaccines. Secondly, the pandemic has revealed a series of social and cultural issues such as racism and discrimination, social inequality and status divide in different contexts and reflected on the problems of crisis response, social mobilization and social governance in different countries. Therefore, in the post-pandemic period, it is urgent and necessary to address the above issues through an interculturality approach. (Student 1) Personally, I am still optimistic about the future of interculturality in the postCOVID-19 pandemic world. Firstly, from a practical point of view, COVID-19 has indeed caused a lot of inconvenience in our daily lives, not only interculturality has been affected by this, but offline interaction has been hindered to varying degrees. However, I don’t think that the limitations of the format will affect the future development of interculturality. People’s thoughts, cultures and ideas continue to collide and merge unceasingly, and these will not die out because of the reduction in face-to-face contacts. One could argue that people can communicate more easily and are no longer restricted by geography. Secondly, in terms of the issue itself, as mentioned in the last few exchanges, interculturality is a process that has neither a beginning nor an end, and its trends are beyond our ability to predict or limit. Although COVID-19 may have exacerbated the trend towards reverse globalization to a certain extent, interculturality has its own unique characteristics in each historical period and stage, and the post COVID-19-pandemic world will also have its own unique problems. As an interesting example, I recently learnt that many international arbitration cases during the epidemic required online hearings. However, lawyers in different countries may take different approaches to the question of whether or not the cameras need to be turned on for online hearings. Generally speaking, Chinese lawyers prefer to turn on the camera only when they need to speak, which some arbitral tribunals may consider to be an act that is not in keeping with the etiquette of the tribunal. The same situation actually occurs in our classes, and I have noticed a gradual decrease in the number of students turning on the video in online classes, with people preferring to turn on the camera only when they speak. (Student 2) I remain neutral. Because the future of interculturality is full of both opportunities and challenges, I don’t deny that interculturality is happening all the time, but in ways and with frequencies that may not be the same as before. In the short term, the pandemic will curb globalization to some extent, and both de-globalization and regionalization are likely to occur. International trade and business are much less active than they were before the pandemic, and the resulting reduction in social mobility will lead to changes in interculturality’s patterns. Although interculturality is still happening and will not stop, I believe that interculturality problems will be more acute and complex in the future, and conflicts in interculturality need to be solved urgently. In this way, on the one hand, contradictions and conflicts between different nations and groups will promote the development of interculturality studies,

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especially the study of conflict resolution. On the other hand, such a state of conflict will hinder intercultural communication, which will have a negative impact on other aspects of interculturality research. (Student 3) In my opinion, I am kind of optimistic for the post-COVID-19-pandemic world. I have thought about the meaning of life and what the most important and pitiful things are in my life over and over again during the pandemic. These used to be the questions that I wouldn’t spend time on thinking about. And I realized that cherishing the people around us and accomplishing my ambition might the best way to reduce pity in life. And I have found online that there are many people who feel the same as I do. Therefore, I think that there might be a resurgence of traditional communication and social ways. People may contact each other more frequently and through video or audio rather that texting. We might communicate with others face to face more than before if the situation allows. (Student 4) When I saw this question “are you optimistic for the future in the post-pandemic world?” I was a little puzzled. This single question inspired me to ask more questions. What is a post-pandemic world? Will the pandemic end in the future? Can human beings get rid of the COVID-19 pandemic? And what is the future about? Whose future? Is the future about all human beings or about intercultural communication or something else? Many governments stated that we should accept the coexistence between human beings and coronavirus. Maybe the pandemic will never end and we will fight against it forever. And how to interpret the word “future” in the question? In the future, there may be more threats and disasters waiting for us. As for the future of intercultural communication, the effect of the pandemic is ambiguous. On the one hand, the quarantine policies distanced people and reduced our opportunities to meet with each other. The large proportion of communication was conducted online. We had to communicate through text messages, audio conversations and video communication. Gradually, we found ourselves more accustomed to and skilled in online communication. And people felt more comfortable communicating online. We found another efficient way to communicate with each other. On the other hand, the pandemic intensified racial, national and other conflicts. These could lead to more misunderstandings and stereotypes. The pandemic thus indirectly added obstacles to intercultural communication. Lastly, this question relates to my attitude about the future. In my opinion, there is no future in people’s mind. There is only today’s imagination. So, the future is now. Nobody knows what will happen in the future. The future is also a margin. It is about changes and it is based on today. And everyone has his or her own judgement about this margin. (Student 5) When it comes to being optimistic or not, is it for the scale of interculturality or the impact of interculturality? I am fairly optimistic. Currently, there are so many people around the world including me waiting for the travel ban to be lifted. It is to be expected that there will be a large number of physical encounters when we enter the post-COVID-19pandemic world. Encounter is a key element for interculturality to occur, and thus the scale of interculturality would be largely improved then. And as we have developed

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the familiarity of communicating online, I think we will carry on with this form of communication even when the physical form is restored. The impact of interculturality remains unsure. On the one hand, the reward of interculturality will be delayed due to people’s mindset in this uncertain era. During the COVID-19 period, isolationism tried to get into the mainstream, and persecutory delusions of entities prevailed; there was mistrust between cultures, which made many people get accustomed to believing only in people from their own culture. As Fred’s idea of encountriction stands, for a long time, friction will dominate interculturality, and transformation will occur for a long time after encounters. On the other hand, people had a real taste of interculturality and craved for more secretly. During the COVID-19 era, people from some areas were, in fact, pushed to collaborate in certain fields to combat our same ‘enemy’—the virus! People realized that, sometimes, interculturality can’t be diminished just by politics or nationalist sentiments. (Student 6) I am still optimistic about the future of intercultural communication, perhaps because I am an optimist by nature. It seems to me that things are spiralling, that there may be twists and turns, that it may not be smooth sailing, but that eventually the rains will pass. There will always be an objective need for intercultural communication, and we need to have faith in the future, despite the gloom of the COVID-19 pandemic that is currently hanging over humanity. (Student 7) Interculturality is a never-ending endeavour and it will still play an important role in the post-pandemic world. Seemingly, the pandemic did affect some old “media” of interculturality: we couldn’t study or travel abroad and the amount of international trade decreased, etc. But at the same time, through some new “media” like online studying, we can still communicate with people from different cultures well. My point is that the pandemic did set obstacles but it will never stop interculturality. (Student 8) I am optimistic. I think, to some extent, we have long been preparing for a future like this. If we look back 10 to 20 years, most of the new technology that we enjoy now is preparing us for a future where we work from home, entertain alone and communicate efficiently with people far away. The emergence of the idea of the “metaverse” may even build a new world that we cannot imagine (yet). But as communication itself being separated from physical encounter, it may take in very different forms. I am optimistic that we won’t experience maladaptation when we step into the post COVID-19-pandemic world, but I am very unsure about what it will look like. (Student 9) Actually, I feel optimistic for the future in the post-COVID-19-pandemic world. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused terrible damage in the travel and transportation industries. Fortunately, however, it has also caused a leap in digitalization that is changing our perception of mobility, leading to a broader re-imagination of how we view places and spaces in the physical world. Households, companies and entire communities are now rethinking how they work, shop and live in the light of these newly established alternatives. During lockdown, communication without social platforms, entertainment without streaming and shopping without ordering online would have been impossible.

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At work, companies have relied on digital platforms to enable them to expand their office environments into employees’ homes. Digitally reconnecting with employees, suppliers and customers has allowed companies to establish a resilience that many would have thought impossible before. With work and life now integrating digitally, we have reduced the need for cars and transport, while regained city space is becoming available for new mixes of work, life, shopping and entertainment. Although such changes initially seem daunting for traditional companies, the integration of digital mobility and services will result in opportunities far larger than the challenges. (Student 10) I am pessimistic about the future of globalization in the post-pandemic era. Due to the incredible development of globalization in past decades, the industrial chains of various industries are distributed around the world. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has woken people out of their wonderful dreams of globalization. As a result of lockdown policies and the impact of COVID-19, economic development in all countries has stagnated, resulting in serious problems in global production. A growing number of countries are embracing the idea of anti-globalization and investors shift from overseas investment and production to their home countries to avoid the uncertainties caused by the pandemic. As long as the pandemic cannot be addressed, I think the trend of globalization will be stagnant. (Student 11) I am very optimistic about the world after the epidemic. Although the epidemic can be said to be a major natural disaster in the history of human development, it also makes us reflect, and these reflections can make the world a better place. The epidemic is a huge disaster. It caused countless deaths, made the world economy suddenly stagnate, trapped people’s life and work at home and brought great impact to the politics of various countries. In a word, it has brought bad influence to every aspect of our lives. But we should also see those warm winds from the south in the cold winter, which indicate the arrival of a new spring. First of all, economically, the epidemic has made everyone think seriously about the profound problem of globalization, its advantages and disadvantages. Globalization makes the economy a boiling river circulating among countries on earth, just like human blood. Countries like China have benefited from it, while some countries have lost factories due to industrial migration. Politically and culturally, we discuss enthusiastically the views and measures taken by other countries in the world about the epidemic situation, and we try to understand other countries from cultural and political perspectives. As a student, this is indeed the first time that I have thought deeply about the responses of other countries to the epidemic and the cultural or political logics behind them, which makes me have a deeper understanding of this diverse world, diverse ideologies, ways of thinking and various matrices. (Student 12) I would like to say that interculturality can be maintained but cannot be strengthened at least in the next years if the pandemic does not disappear. Nowadays, despite the pandemic and the resulting quarantine, various kinds of online communication forms have replaced face-to-face communication. Many people all over the world turn to choose ‘cloud’ communication platforms when interacting people from other

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countries. Therefore, I suppose even in this post-pandemic era, people can still communicate with each other and learn from each other. (Student 13) I think this is twofold. On the one hand, my feelings are on the negative side. The pandemic interrupts us from time to time. Two days ago, one of our teachers needed to do a Nucleic Acid Test because a case was suddenly discovered, so we had to postpone the course, the epidemic brings a lot of uncertainty. But I have to admit that we had a period of home isolation which made many of us start to rethink the meaning of life. It has to be acknowledged that the pandemic has led to many emerging industries of new areas such as telecommuting. The direct benefit will be that we will probably have a more flexible and immersive experience in the future and that ‘Working across space’ will be smoother. (Student 14) I personally hold a negative attitude towards this. First of all, COVID-19 may become a virus that will always accompany people, just like a cold, but it does more harm to us than a cold. This means that it may be difficult for people to take off their masks in the future. At present, there is only getting vaccinated as a countermeasure, and the virus is mutating quietly, and the strength of human protection against it also needs to be constantly changed. Maybe in the future a specific drug can be developed, but I don’t think it can be mass produced and used in clinical practice in the short term. Second, the epidemic has caused tremendous pressure and losses economically. It weakens international trade, and it is difficult for countries that rely on imports or exports to drive economic growth to maintain their original economic development momentum. Once the economy stagnates, social development will inevitably slow down. I believe that the recent wage cuts and layoffs in many Chinese public institutions and companies are related to the economic pressure after the epidemic. (Student 15) For sure, I am optimistic for the future in the post COVID-19-pandemic world. Since we have made so much progress in solving or fighting for the disease, the intelligence of human beings is infinite, which means the solution to this disaster will be developed and improved as time and technology go on. Moreover, I think that the pandemic provides us with the opportunity to explore a new way of life as well as the time to reflect on past behaviours which do harm to the environment and, thus, to ourselves. (Student 16) As a student without further analysis, my attitude towards the post-epidemic world is neither hopeful nor disappointed. On the contrary, my attitude is more prudent and compromised. The outbreak of the epidemic has lasted for a very long time, and it has constantly mutated and updated within a range that is harsh to predict. This has created a very strong uncertainty for our future. Of course, I hope that one day we can take off our masks and smile at each other; we can remove this cold wall and embrace each other again. Obviously, many countries have done well in epidemic control, but we cannot ignore the institutional, organizational and cultural obstacles we encounter when cooperating across countries. To overcome these obstacles, we still have a long way to go. (Student 17)

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I am optimistic for the future of interculturality in the post COVID-19-pandemic world because interculturality is everywhere and we can’t live without it. (Student 18) First, I must admit that, the first thing came to my mind when seeing this question wasn’t anything positive. As we saw hatred, hostility grew and pervaded when the pandemic first broke out in people’s lives. And this has aggravated the already intense international relationships. But immediately, I started to realize that general catastrophes unite people make us stronger. Ultimately, human beings will not face the pandemic alone, whether as a nation or a political union which had already been formed, we are going to overcome it together. (Student 19) [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – How familiar are you with the idea of cultural appropriation? How much is it used in your context? By whom and in reference to which ‘culture’? How do you translate the term in the languages that you know? – What do you make of this student’s argument: “I wholeheartedly welcome “cultural appropriation” from foreign friends with good intentions and a willingness to learn, as this will better facilitate intercultural communication and promote mutual understanding, which I believe is beneficial”? – A student argues that “the development of culture can be understood as a form of appropriation and stereotype, but on the other hand, it can also be understood as a form of innovation, integration and development”. How to balance these two poles of the described continuum? – The concept of cultural development is very much used in Chinese contexts and has been included by many students in the dialogues. How do you understand the idea behind it? Is there an equivalent in your own context? – In their comments, the students use several potential synonyms for cultural appropriation: ‘cultural grab’, cultural homage, cultural assimilation, cultural plagiarism, cultural fusion and cultural theft. Review each of these alternatives and decide which one(s) you could see yourself using and why. – Is your country currently involved in disputes with other countries about ‘cultural grabs’ (as one student puts it), e.g., Kimchi between China and Korea? – Do you agree that the 2020-20xx pandemic “has brought the world closer together”? Explain. – What were the consequences of the same pandemic for different kinds of people in your society? How has it affected intercultural relations and encounters within your country? – Was there anything that surprised you in what the students wrote about interculturality in the post-pandemic world?

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Reference Siems, M. (2019). The law and ethics of ‘cultural appropriation.’ International Journal of Law in Context, 5(4), 408–423.

Chapter 14

Dialogue V: Daring to Ask, Daring to Challenge

Abstract This chapter corresponds to the fifth and final dialogue between the students and the teacher. It starts with a dialogue within a dialogue: the teacher reacting to the students’ commentaries in the two previous chapters. In this dialogue within a dialogue, the teacher also tries to demonstrate how he surveyed himself while reading the students’ reactions to the photographs discussed in the previous dialogue. Three interrelated topics are then introduced and reinforced: language, supercriticality and being ‘good’ at interculturality. The final dialogue ends with a summary of the five dialogues and makes suggestions as to what to take away from them. Keywords Language · Intercultural competence · Dialogue with dialogue · Photographs · Reflexivity Let me start this final dialogue with a few comments on the previous chapters. One of the pictures from the last dialogue triggered some interesting reactions from the students: the picture of the Chinese lady carrying a toy gun. One of the students wrote: “I was so shocked that actually maybe foreigners might be afraid or might see the situation as potentially dangerous. For us this is normal because in the Chinese context, people are not afraid of guns – fake guns.” Another student wrote: “This is the process of people’s minds being changed by being involved in different environments.” For example, in the US, Finland, Israel and in many other parts of the world, if someone carries something that looks like a (real) gun, people around them might not feel safe. A student mentioned this excerpt from a Chinese poem, “You can’t see the true appearance of Mount Lushan because you are in it”, which I have been using myself in my research for many years because I think that it really captures very well one important aspect of interculturality: To look at things from different perspectives constantly. This doesn’t mean that we should do it from time to time, but all the time. As much as one needs to look at the mountain from different standpoints, one needs to engage with interculturality from different perspectives. This also means that, in a sense, nobody can really claim to be ‘fully’ right, or accuse anyone of being ‘fully’ wrong about interculturality as an object of research and education. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_14

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Another interesting hint in what the students wrote was a reference to the saying “to be a troll online but a chicken in real life”. I’m not sure if this is a Chinese idiom. This is about identity online and offline, about the fact that, in our online lives, we might tend to be more direct see aggressive and irrational than face to face. On the internet, many of us might forget about emotions, sociality, and politeness. The student concludes by asserting: “I think that we should reflect on this phenomenon and be brave enough to communicate with someone, holding different opinions and thinking about their points of view seriously”. I do believe that this is what interculturality should be about, but unfortunately direct confrontation is avoided, a lot of training on intercultural communication is basically asking people not to speak their minds, no to question anything, not to be overly critical about anything. Collisions, arguments and confrontations do matter in interculturality although they might make us feel uncomfortable and hurt us. The picture of the doormat also led to interesting comments from the students. One of them proposed that the accompanying text in English was not really a translation of the Chinese and that “a local symbolic family with wealthy cultural heritage” might have been better than a wealthy and influential family. And another student also commented on the fact that the English version was more direct with the inclusion of the ideas of wealth and influence. I think that interesting questions to consider in the future about this mat could include: “Who has designed it?”, “Why did the people buy this carpet?” and “What is the real purpose of the use of the English words?”.

14.1 Languages in Interculturality In what follows I propose a few comments on the links between language and interculturality. Recently, I was asked these two questions: “Fred, in what language do you dream?” and “What about thinking? In what language do you think?”. I have heard these questions a hundred times before. I speak six languages, but they are all, except the Finnish language, Indo-European languages. Let me share my reactions to the questions first: (1) They are systematically asked in the singular (i.e., in what language) as if people only dreamed or thought in one language. The reality is that we think and dream in different languages and dialects, mixing them and even using languages we don’t know. I rarely remember dreams and all I know is that they seem to take place in all kinds of languages, even in languages I don’t know. In general, I would say that dreams are interesting because they represent ideal places of “chaos” and “surrealism”: Anyone/anything can be your friend, your enemy; everything gets sort of mixed up, changed and transformed. Dreams, in this sense, disrupt our usual views and experiences of sociality. When people say “what language do you dream in?” or “do you think in?”, there’s always an expectation of borders between languages. But are there borders between languages? As I said I can speak six languages, but I don’t think that in my head I’m necessarily dividing these languages when I think or dream. If I speak to someone then I know I should use ‘pieces of languages’ that they know. In my family, we often

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mix words and structures. There’s no real border between our languages because we share them. It’s only when we find ourselves in situations where there is no possibility for mixing that we know we should stick to one or two languages. Once, I was with a family member on a bus and we were speaking to each other in our ‘common’ language. I noticed that someone was listening to us. After 15 min they turned to us and said: “Can I ask you what’s the language you’re speaking? Because it sounds like a mix of different languages”. I explained to them that we have always mixed bits and pieces of the languages that we know. Her response was interesting: She claimed that she had never imagined that people would mix different languages when speaking to each other. In the world, there are in fact millions of people who use languages this way.

14.2 Criticality and Reflexivity: Towards Supercriticality? As we are drawing to a close, let’s discuss criticality and reflexivity now. This is what this book has been about. Criticality and reflexivity are two key words for interculturality, but they are also key words for education in general today. What they mean, and how people ‘do’ them around the world vary immensely. However, our teachers, our society and our ministers of education all tell us that we must be critical (e.g., “you must become a critical thinker”). But we have a major problem here: what is criticality? What does it mean for different kinds of people? When I used to travel the world, people I met often wanted their children or students to be critical. If I asked them, “So what does it mean to be critical?” they struggled to try to find a definition or they would use very Western references to justify their viewpoints. As a teacher if I say “you must be critical”, does it mean that I’m assuming that my students are not critical? Does it mean that I think that I am critical and that my students must be like me? But am I really critical as a teacher? Can I claim to be critical? And can I assume that my students are not critical? What is more, when we say “you must be critical”, do we mean that you must be critical the way I want you to be critical? Aren’t we then imposing our own way of seeing criticality? Recently someone sent me an email and asked how I define criticality. I was very tired at the time and I did not want to answer but I wrote the following. It’s not a real proposal for a definition, but it’s more like points for discussion about criticality: For me criticality means reflecting openly (in writing or orally) on what I say and hear while I am saying and/or hearing it, with others, noting what I perceive as contradictions, abuses of power, etc. (which are also based on personal and changeable interests and foci). It also means to never be satisfied with whatever answer I might give to a question (or an answer heard from others), knowing that I must go back to it again and again. There is no end to criticality and I assume no real final objective. Criticality and reflexivity cannot be separated, I think, and also go hand in hand with identity since they cannot be ‘done’ without the others.

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Like interculturality, criticality is a never-ending process in research and education, to which we need to get back to again and again. I do not even think that there is a final objective to criticality. What are we trying to achieve? If it’s a process, a neverending process that we must exercise our whole lives then there is no final objective. That is obviously a problem for education because education must present something final, something that can be assessed, for example. But ‘assessing’ criticality is basically impossible. My final point about criticality is that the most important aspect to me is to be critical and reflexive of our own criticality and reflexivity. I think that it should be the main objective because I hear a lot of critiques these days but they tend to ‘stop’ short by ignoring their own criticality. In order to ensure the longevity of criticality, we need to be critical of our own criticality. About reflexivity, I do believe and, of course, I’m not the only one, that reflexivity is human. Animals cannot be reflexive. We can reflect on what we do, what we say, what we did in the past and will do in the future. Sometimes we voice our reflectivity, we reflect with others, for others openly by writing and speaking. Sometimes we don’t voice it and keep our reflexivity for ourselves. And we do this constantly. While you are reading now, you are reflecting on what I am writing and while I’m writing I am also reflecting on what I am saying. And that’s why sometimes I correct myself, I correct what I say. And of course, it depends on the interlocutor and the context. Finally, the act of being reflexive can also be triggered, urged, imposed (e.g., when teachers ask their students to be reflexive) or occurring ‘naturally’. It can be instant and/or delayed. When I reflect on something I have heard or said, I might ‘correct’ myself, add an argument, 5 min later, in 20 days, in 2 years. Reflexivity is always there, and it goes hand in hand with criticality. What we need to do for interculturality is to start observing how we reflect because we do it all the time.

14.3 Can we be Good at Interculturality After All? We now focus on one central question: Can we be good at interculturality after all this? Let’s listen to what some students have to say: Student 1: First, let me comment on the use of “good” here. If there is ‘good’ then there must be ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’. There would be correct and incorrect aspects, which means that there are some judgments behind these adjectives. I think that there is no ‘good’ or ‘wrong’ as far as interculturality is concerned. It’s more like letting more voices in instead of judging who is ‘good’ and who is ‘bad’. Student 2: We all have many imaginaries about people from other cultures. I think that interculturality is meant to ‘decrease’ the distortion that they represent. And I think that interculturality is like a ‘sand clock’: we reverse the sand clock again and again. But every time, the distribution of the sand is not even, some of it remains in each compartment. When we turn

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the sand clock around, the old sand falls through and there is new sand at the bottom. Interculturality is just the process of reversing again and again. So being ‘good’ at it is challenging. Student 3: When we say that “we can be good at something”, it always relates to an ability or a capability. I agree that intercultural communication is more about reflecting on or understand ourselves than understanding others. I think I can then interpret this question to be “Can we be good at understanding how others see or look at us?”. This question is easier to answer. Fred: You suggest to transform the question and to turn it into looking at ourselves, reflecting on ourselves and understanding ourselves at the same time. I think that this is a very good goal because that’s the only thing we might be able to examine, trying to understand why we say this or that, why we behave in a given way, etc. Understanding and explaining the other are real challenges because we never know why people say something. Of course, many of us might wonder what the point of it all is then. I look at myself when I look at you, and what I say about myself looking at myself in the mirror that you represent is pushing you also to look at yourself in the mirror, etc. So, the process involves two people, two mirrors, and mirrors reflecting each other. “Can we be good at interculturality?”. The answer is yes and/or no, yes and no or yes and no because it depends on how you define interculturality. Besides, we can be good, we can believe that we are good at it, but maybe the other we are communicating with doesn’t think that we are good at it. I would thus argue that “We can never really know” if we are being good at it. Interculturality is always a two-way process and an extremely contextualised process. It means that we cannot programme success for interculturality. Let’s take an example. If we are in a café and we are speaking a foreign language to another person, we might think we are doing very good and, e.g., having good rapport together. However not all observers might agree with that evaluation of what is happening between us. So, it depends on who is judging and there cannot be any agreed upon/universal criteria for determining ‘goodness’ in interculturality. Models of intercultural competence tell us how to be ‘good’ at interculturality. But does anyone have the right to give orders as to what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’?

14.4 Summarizing Before we engage with students’ final questions, let me highlight a few important points that have been made in the book: 1. There is no beginning, no end to interculturality. 2. Interculturality is first and foremost about changing together. 3. Interculturality is about translation.

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Interculturality is about listening—not hearing. Interculturality is re-acting. It is essential to consider differilitude. Surveying oneself is central to interculturality.

The first point, we have discussed repeatedly in the dialogues: There’s no beginning no end in interculturality, so it keeps us busy every second of our lives until the day we die. At no point could we ever be able to say: I am done with interculturality or I am fully ready for it. The idea of change is omnipresent in interculturality. We change together when we meet; it’s about ‘inter-’, is about ‘us’. Both of us influence each other, pushing and pulling in all directions. In the book, we have discussed language and translation throughout. As such it is becoming clear that interculturality is not about culture but about translation first and foremost. Increasingly, culture does appear to be the low hanging fruit of interculturality. What it means and what it does to people, nobody really knows. Language and translation, on the other hand, could be considered as the real important aspects of interculturality. How do we talk about interculturality? How do we do things with words when we talk to each other? The next point is about listening to people rather than just hearing: Taking the time to be silent, engaging and asking questions about what people say and do, absorbing what they say and reconstructing discourses, actions, feelings, etc. together. I phrase another important aspect of interculturality as re-acting to what we do together. Reacting to the other means to act again and again with the other. We have discussed performance extensively in the dialogues and re-acting could hint at moving as closest as we can to the backstage of what we say and do together. Differilitude, a concept that I have coined to encompass both difference and similitude, can represent an interesting alternative take on interculturality. Instead of focusing on what ‘separates’ us, we can shift our attention to both separation/difference and similitudes. Finally surveying oneself while ‘doing’ interculturality matters as much as observing the other. We have argued that the more we survey ourselves, the more we can ask questions to ourselves, the more we are ready to ask questions to others, and, maybe the more we are ready to be modest, and to put aside some of our imaginaries about the other but also about ourselves.

14.5 Final Questions and Answers Student 4: I’d like to ask a question about interculturality in relation to Esperanto, the ‘artificial’ international language created in the nineteenth century. Do you think that we could invent a certain kind of international language to facilitate interculturality? Fred: I’ve been thinking about this myself quite a lot. There are many languages that have been invented like, for example, in the movie Star Trek they invented an entire language. The problem of Esperanto is that it based

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on Indo-European languages. This is why it could never be a real international language because it excludes many languages outside this language family. If you really wanted to create a language for interculturality that is inclusive, you would need to be inspired by languages from the whole world. Many questions come to mind when I think about your question: Who defines what an international language is? Who would design it? The one who could make a decision about these questions would have the power to influence others in the way they think, in the way they see the world, because different languages can have different influences on us in so many ways. In any case, whenever we use an international language, some of us will always be privileged compared to others because (maybe) we are so-called native speakers of the language or the language in question is considered as powerful. People who have English as their first language do have a huge advantage on the market at the moment because they will be preferred in many situations, because there’s this idea that ‘non-native speakers’ are not as good as others. So, I think that there’s no real answer to your question. We cannot solve this problem. The only thing we can solve is to negotiate the connotations of words and to dare to ask questions to each other (and answer them from time to time). Student 5: It seems that textbook authors in China don’t care a lot about different kinds of English. They just think that English is a kind of concept. As far as I know people from Singapore use a very specific form of English which was is a mix of English and other local languages. They speak Singapore English. Fred: When I lived in Hong Kong 20 years ago, British English was preferred. I’m not sure what the situation is today. When I recruited teachers of English there, I was given very specific orders not to hire anyone who spoke e.g. American English. In Mainland China today, I think that people don’t pay so much attention to that and I think that’s very refreshing actually. Student 6: My question is simple and provocative: Do you think there are any ‘good’ culture or ‘bad’ cultures in this world? In this course we were taught that we can’t have some prejudice or feeling of superiority over other cultures. However, for example the caste system in India, I can’t accept that, but can we see it as a ‘bad culture’? That’s a controversial question, indeed. Actually, I know that in Chinese Fred: you have the concept of cultural dross, culture which should be ‘removed’. I think that in Europe people might avoid using this concept and the ideologies that go with it, which would be considered as ‘politically incorrect’. They would not feel comfortable with uttering it, although many people might think there are ‘bad’ aspects of culture, of which one could get rid. About the caste system in India. Most societies have ‘unofficial’ castes of people, which are neither labelled nor

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‘officialised’ as such. In Europe, for example, many groups are discriminated against: Homeless people, marginals and many immigrants. A lot of poor people are also looked down upon and discriminated against. Your address (the place where you live), your name, your skin colour, the way you speak might lead to you experiencing discrimination. You might not be selected for a job, flats may not be rented to you, etc. These happen in Europe and we have research proving it. What I mean is that we can always judge other societies or cultures, or say “I don’t like this”, “I think it’s not acceptable”, but I think that the mirror is a good tool here. A phenomenon that might look different and unacceptable somewhere else, might take place in our own societies too. But we may not see them… We are back here again with the “good” and “bad” issue, balancing them on a continuum. I can talk about my society, I can have an opinion about my society, about what, maybe, I find good or not so good. And sometimes I don’t really want to position myself about other societies especially because I might not know enough about the context. I think that most people in the world believe that there are ‘bad’ cultures or ‘bad’ aspects to other cultures. But maybe they are misinformed, or maybe they haven’t thought so much about this. And it’s always easy to look at the “bad” aspects of other cultures. But to look at what’s going on in our own place is challenging. Student 6: I was wondering: Since we don’t have standards to judge cultures, so how can our culture be improved? If we think that our culture doesn’t have any good or bad standard, so we can’t improve it because we can’t decide what is good or bad. Fred: Of course, you can always judge as an individual. This is your right. You can do whatever you want—and we all judge, sometimes without noticing. But as an intellectual, a scholar, a teacher, I don’t have the right to do this. I mean, again, I can do it for myself. I can reflect on it, I can reflect on why I think this or that. When you look at something, when you judge something as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, you use your own criteria and I don’t think that internationally we can agree on what would be good, what would be bad because there are so many different views and ways of defining aspects of interculturality. Talking to each other is thus the only way to come to an agreement. Unfortunately, in research, or on the global political stage, although they are expected to do this, it seems to be very difficult. These are challenges for the future and I feel that we are lucky to have these challenges since they will keep us busy forever. Student 7: You mentioned that “language barriers are often an excuse in intercultural communication”. But speaking a foreign language poorly does affect communication. Like now, my spoken English is not very good and I would prefer to communicate in Chinese. What are your views on that?

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Thank you so much for daring to ask me this question—although I feel that your English is excellent. Let’s start with English as ‘a global language’. I believe that it gives us the big illusion that we can talk to each other. Very often when you ask people about English, they would say that it is an easy language and that we can all talk to each other without major problems. But actually, English is a very difficult language like all other languages. Secondly, although it’s a somewhat ‘miraculous’ language today because it allows millions of people to communicate with each other, it does lead to a lot of misunderstandings and nonunderstandings—like all other languages—because we are not always talking about the same things. In other words, we often ‘float past each other’ in English because the words that we use in the language may not have the same connotations and flavours. For example, a few months ago a Chinese friend of mine was talking about an acquaintance, to whom she kept referring to as a ‘playmate’. I was not too sure what she meant by this word because to me the word has at least two meanings: a substitute for the word ‘friend’ when talking about children socializing and a reference to a magazine for men. When I asked her to explain what she meant by ‘playmate’ she explained: “she’s just someone I use, you know when I to go to the cinema or sing karaoke. She’s not a real friend”.

Playmate here is both a mistranslation and an ‘untranslatable’ of a Chinese word. So, learning different languages is always a good thing because it allows us to come into a new world: a new world of connotations, a new world of meanings, a new world of history and archaeology in a sense. Every word in a given language reflects a certain part of our history from local and global history. When I was in China, I was happily surprised to note that some universities organize what they call “English corners”, where Chinese students meet to practise English together. I believe that this would never work in Europe, especially if there are no speakers of other languages and/or so-called native speakers. Most people would find it embarrassing to speak a foreign language with people who share the same first language. Student 7: I’m learning Spanish and our Spanish teacher told us that we need to learn Spanish culture too, not just the language. Fred: I would tend to disagree with your teacher. Because Spanish is spoken in so many different places. It’s not just spoken in Spain. It’s spoken in many parts of South America, it’s spoken in some part of Africa, also very few places here and there. So, it’s a global language. So, when you learn Spanish, you don’t really learn Spanish culture, but you’re dealing with a “global” culture and interculturality. Student 7: Different cultures of Latin America actually. In Latin America, there are many people who actually reject the so-called Fred: Spanish ‘culture’ and even the Spanish language because it was not originally the language of local people. When Europeans invaded Latin America, Spanish started to be spoken there. Spanish is a fascinating

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language, and just like English, it is extremely complex and it allows you to enter intercultural realms, but from somewhat different perspectives than English. I have a question for you Fred. As these students will do internships international organizations in the future, do you have any recommendations or suggestions for them? International organizations are obviously really interesting for several reasons: (1) all international organizations have their own so-called ‘culture’ (or should I say ‘interculture’?) so when you join such an organization, you enter a specific intercultural situation with people from different places, working together and speaking different languages. For example, if you take an institution like the European Union, they determine certain ways of speaking to each other, and for example specific ways of doing “inclusive communication”. They might ask you not to use just “he” or “she” when talking about someone but to offer the option of using “they” too in order to avoid reproducing gender divides. All of this might create, in a sense, a very interesting bond between e.g. employees because, although they come from different parts of the world, with different languages, they have to create a sense of community together around specific institutional values.

[CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – Mention one of the most important things that you have learnt by reading the different chapters of the book. – How would you react if you saw someone with a very realistic toy gun/bazooka on the streets? – Have you come across an idiom or a saying similar to “to be a troll online but a chicken in real life” in the languages that you know? – Would you agree with this statement: “Collisions, arguments and confrontations do matter in interculturality although they might make us feel uncomfortable”? – Imagine that you are visiting someone’s place and before you ring their bell you notice that the doormat says “a wealthy and influential family” in English. What could be your reactions? – Do you often ask people about the languages they dream and/or think in (and/or something else)? If someone asks you, do you feel you are able to answer these questions? – We are reaching the end of the book soon, how would you define supercriticality now? – Do you think that reflexivity is something we can learn at school or from books? – Next time you hear someone use the word ‘critical’ ask them how they understand it and why they define it this particular way. – Can we be ‘good’ and/or ‘bad’ at interculturality?

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– Review the 7 most important points to take away from the book and try to explain how you understand them. Give examples to illustrate what they are meant to hint at. – Interculturality keeps us busy every second of our lives until the day we die. Do you consider this statement to be motivating to ‘strive’ for interculturality? – Think of differilitudes that you have come across in intercultural contexts. – Would we need to create a new and ‘neutral’ international language? Explain. – What comes to mind when you see the phrase cultural dross? What could it mean? Can you speculate as to how people use it—for example in China? – What’s your position towards the following claim: “language barriers are often an excuse in intercultural communication”?

Chapter 15

The Indispensable Collision of Thoughts

Abstract This chapter deals with the important issue of being ‘good’ at interculturality—hinting at the ideology of intercultural competence. The students seem confident in the fact that one cannot really determine both what ‘good’ would mean here and that one cannot find a ‘miraculous’ recipe ensuring that ‘good’ occurs. Sharing about their own experiences in China and (some) abroad, the students demonstrate aspects of their supercriticality, for example concerning their ‘cocooning use’ of social media as sources of information and their openness to ‘collisions of thoughts’ in intercultural encounters. All in all, at the end of the series of dialogues, the students appear less certain of what interculturality is, what it entails and how it should/could be ‘done’. Keywords Intercultural competence · Cocoon information · Collision · Definition · Plurality of thoughts This chapter presents the students’ last reactions to the dialogues, drawing some (temporary) conclusions to what we have discussed concerning interculturality in the book. The focus is on a (provocative) question asked by Fred during the dialogues: Can we be ‘good’ at interculturality? To the question can we be good at interculturality?, in class, my answer was negative because I regard interculturality as a dynamic process which is constantly digesting old ideas while embracing new ones. As a result, no one can say that they are intercultural experts with great confidence. Everyone has something they don’t know. However, later, my answer changed into YES. Why do we need intercultural communication? The reason is that we aim to get what we want to know but haven’t known yet. We usually stop when we get a satisfactory answer. No matter if this answer is a truth or a lie, it fills a void in our minds and maximize our psychological values. I think the point of life is to realize value rather than to find the truth. As long as we keep curiosity going and have the courage to explore new things, we could say that we are ‘good’ at interculturality. (Student 1). I have known and studied the traditional theories of intercultural communication such as Hofstede and Edward T Hall. But in this class, I can see more possibilities in the field and it is indeed an infinite field of research. It is not merely related to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_15

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talking with others or foreigners. Instead, it is also about understanding ourselves and inclusiveness. Therefore, despite the various knowledge I have learned in class, the open mind and multi-angle thinking method are the most important and precious gains. (Student 2). It is as if interculturality has opened another window in my thinking through which I can view things from new perspectives. In fact, in my previous life, I had always been exposed to intercultural communication, but I just didn’t realize it. It turns out that I have always been a practitioner of intercultural communication. Now, I can combine what I have learnt with a ‘more professional’ perspective and look at social phenomena rather than just understanding the events. This series of reflections has brought me closer to the essence of the problem, thus enabling me to appreciate more deeply the joy of combining theory and practice. (Student 3). I have realized that translation is by no means a panacea and that words and languages are often untranslatable, such as the ‘大户人家’ that gave us such a headache in class. We were reminded on more than one occasions that we must constantly re-examine our own views, ‘thinking and rethinking’, to better understand various cultural phenomena. (Student 4). I was not a fan of intercultural communication courses before because of the stereotypes that were further enforced in them (e.g. ‘good’ and ‘old’ negotiation skills in Japanese-American business communication). However, I am so inspired by the ideas we generated in this particular IC course and grateful for the great criticality in it. I wouldn’t say that any of my doubts were fully solved because of the dialogues we had, but I have learned how to tackle doubts—asking more questions to clarify and reflect on certain questions, always coming back to unthink and rethink. (Student 5). The question “can we be good at interculturality?” has made me reflect. There were several angles of analysis to this question, which reflected a number of things I had learnt during this session. Firstly, before answering the question, we should think about the question itself, i.e. whether we need to judge good or bad in interculturality. In fact, there are many questions in life that, when thought about deeply, may be the same as this one, and we are often guided by the direction of the answer. If we focus only on the good sides, we will inevitably have scruples in our communication. Secondly, when answering questions, we should focus on deconstructing the question itself, for example, what is the definition of interculturality itself? These are seemingly common words that we come across, but everyone understands them differently, which can lead to differences in answers. But it is also these seemingly meaningless questions and seemingly different answers that give us space to think and dimensions to answer. Often, we think about the meaning behind the questions and answers, as if we should not ask or answer if the question does not make sense or if the answer is not correct. But in our exchanges, I have come to understand that meaning and correctness may not be so important as long as we are thinking and asking and answering, which is what interculturality is all about. This is also true of many things in our daily life. (Student 6).

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For me, interculturality is not a separate subject, it is always closely related to politics, cultures, values and so on. And everything seems so mixed under the mindset of interculturality. (Student 7). I think that questions are always raised based on a certain position, a certain background and a certain purpose, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Therefore, the process of asking questions and answering questions will become a process of shaping and solidifying people’s thinking. This can make people live in a fixed cognitive mode, so that they will be unconsciously blinded and unable to see the world in its complexity. And a person with critical thinking should break this solidification pattern, penetrate the surface of things and see clearly the essence behind them. For example, when watching a character in a game, what you see is not the character, but the computer code that supports the character’s operation. Then, you know all the ins and outs of the character’s actions like the back of your hand, and you won’t feel unhappy because of the character’s stubbornness or rudeness. Critical thinking can help us jump out of the existing cognitive model, see the world without being restricted by various regulations or obstacles. Now that I know critical thinking, I also know that everything around me has its cause and effect. (Student 8). I have a clearer understanding of how thoughts should collide. It is common to hold different views in the process of intercultural communications. Understanding the views from different perspectives could promote better intercultural communication, which I think is also a way to realize “interculturalizing interculturality”. Besides we need to be critical when comprehending others’ views, in other words, we should not take an answer to a question for granted. Instead, we should estimate the answer with both subjective and objective judgement and careful thinking. Lastly, since interculturality is a perplexing process, I consider it to be a long-term process of surveying and connecting with multiple channels and dimensions. (Student 9). To me, criticality means never being satisfied with any answer given to us, knowing that we must go back to it again and again for criticality and reflexivity cannot ever be separated. And the most important thing is to be critical and reflexive of our own criticality. What is more, even if I don’t have much knowledge on intercultural communication, I can come up with some thoughts as well because I live in a hyperdiverse society and I have access to millions of pieces of information on social media. Finally, it’s not realistic to believe that a global language can promote interculturality because languages influence how people think and perceive the world, no one in the world can really invent and design a language that could cover all these different flavours. Take English as an example, it’s divided into American English, British English, Australian English, etc. (Student 10). This is the fourth time that I have taken a course related to the concept of ‘intercultural communication’. I used to regard ‘intercultural communication’ as a way to understand how to interact with foreigners, for example, learning the differences of customs, languages, and values. However, during the conversations with Fred and Huiyu, I realized something crucial: intercultural communication does not require us to generalize differences between cultures, but rather to be aware of the presence

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of possible communication barriers and always to be opened and tolerant of these differences. (Student 11). In the last dialogue, Fred asked whether we can be good at interculturality. From all the dialogues and lectures, we got to know that interculturality is a complex mix of all kinds of things, including culture, social conduct, verbal and non-verbal language, emotions, feelings, values and other related things. Just as Fred said, it is always a two-way process which is very contextualized. Nobody can really know the right answer. First of all, the standard for what is ‘good’ is difficult to define and complex for us to follow. In my opinion, interculturality is something that cannot be followed in some kind of pattern. Different persons may have different explanations and actions for dealing with interculturality. The fundamental rule for interculturality is continuous communication and cultural exchange. It does not have an explicit line for ‘good’ interculturality. (Student 12). I was initially concerned about the course content when I saw the syllabus, but once we began, it came to me clearly. It turns out that instead of being prepared before each communication, we are constantly thinking about why intercultural communication might produce ‘collisions’. I also really like the double-mirror that Fred mentioned, which can push the other person to reflect as well. Since interculturality is a process of re-acting, acting again and again, reflection cannot be done by just one of the interactants. When one party reflects openly, that is, I see you in the mirror and myself in the mirror, and you see that I am reflecting, this pushes the other party to reflect as well, and this can create a virtuous process. (Student 13). If I unconsciously recognize some cultural elements as ‘bad’, am I judging others with arrogance? (Student 14). After the final dialogue, I feel more inspired to rethink the influence of a global language like English on the way we think about interculturality. And, in a sense, I am fortunate to be able to speak Mandarin since it creates a ‘safe zone’ for us to reflect independently, to think differently, but also to stay ‘calm’ and ‘awake’ in front of the real complexity of interculturality as a system of complex discourses. (Student 15). Another interesting question which inspired me is “Can we be good at interculturality?”. In my opinion, the process of building mutual understanding is not easy because people’s ideas and opinions are quite difficult to be changed. As Nietzsche (2018: 573) once said: “The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind” (Student 16). I keep trying to find an absolutely neutral way to express or to think, but until now I’ve found no perfect way of doing this. Once I begin to think critically, I try to create several dimensions to observe one object, but when I think about one aspect I ask myself: am I dividing it the right way? does the division have itself deeper interpretations? And for one question I might create an arborescent frame with deeper and deeper—and yet endless—interpretations. So, I have some questions about criticality: what’s the proper depth of clarity? If everything needs to be critically considered, will there be absolute truth? (Student 17).

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Fred said that when he lived in Hong Kong, many of his dreams were in Cantonese, but he couldn’t speak Cantonese himself. Since our dreams can reflect our mapping of our environment and the cultural influence we are subconsciously affected by, I think it is the best way to understand the local environment. (Student 18). Before this class, I found it easy to enter some kind of ‘comfort zone’ which we might call an ‘information cocoon’. This means that we tend to follow people who agree with our thoughts on, e.g., the internet. And after a while, we will be surrounded by homogenous ideas and thus think that our point of view is the only ‘correct’ one. After the last dialogue, I think that criticality and reflexivity are the best medicine against information cocoons. Even if we are surrounded by similar information, we need to remember that the information around us is not the only truth. And then we can break the cocoon and actively listen to multiple voices. (Student 19). I want to use the phrase “潜移默化” (a ‘silent transforming influence’) to describe how Fred has influenced me in our dialogues. Now when I face some interesting phenomena in life, I try to make use of interculturality thinking to analyse them. (Student 20). Can we be good at interculturality? Two other questions come to mind: Is interculturality a two-way process or just something we see for ourselves? And how do we define whether or not we are good at interculturality? In my opinion, this is all about the willingness to understand others, and to be open to difference and similarity. It is this openness that allows us to share our feelings and our views, to let ‘two souls’ communicate. I believe that openness can break any ice on which arrogance and insecurity rest, at an individual and national level. And yet there’s no real criteria for ‘good enough interculturality’ since it’s a never-ending process. (Student 21). [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – Reflect on one further question asked by one student: “How do we define whether or not we are good at interculturality?”. – Have you ever come across the idea of ‘information cocoon’ that one student used? Do you often try to shift between different sources of news and information to broaden your views on the world? – Is speaking different languages a plus to reflect on interculturality? Explain why (not). – One student claims that Mandarin is for them ‘a safe zone’ to reflect independently and to think differently. What do you make of this statement? – About potentially inventing a global language for interculturality, one student argues that “it’s not realistic to believe that a global language can promote interculturality because languages influence how people think and perceive the world, no one in the world can really invent and design a language that could cover all these different flavours”. Do you agree with them? – How confident are you when “thoughts collide” in intercultural encounters? Do you often try to avoid conflicts?

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– This is how a student defines critical thinking: “it can help us jump out of the existing cognitive model, see the world without being restricted by various regulations or obstacles”. Do you share their views? What would you change in this definition? – For one student, the dialogues have enabled them to realize that “in my previous life, I had always been exposed to intercultural communication”. At the end of the book, have your views on what is intercultural expanded too?

Reference Nietzsche, F. (2018). The dawn of day. Outlook Verlag GmbH.

Chapter 16

Instilling Interculturality in Our Practices

Abstract This last chapter around the dialogues is meant to sum up what the students take away from interacting with multiple voices during the months they spent with others discussing interculturality. The following questions were asked: Could you explain in your own words what ‘interculturalizing interculturality’ could mean? Could you also give a concrete example of how to do it? Interculturalizing interculturality is used here to signal the need to open up the way the notion is defined, used and practised. In their answers, the students share different and, at times, differing views. However, it appears that they agree on two central aspects: letting others voice their views on interculturality and moving away from Western centrism. Keywords Western centrism · Interculturalizing · Voices · Plurality · Politics This is the last chapter of the book presenting students’ reflections on one ‘concluding’ question asked during the dialogues: Could you explain in your own words what ‘interculturalizing interculturality’ could mean? Could you also give a concrete example of how to do so?

16.1 Interculturalizing Interculturality This means that one single conception of interculturality may not be not enough. We have to make this concept literally intercultural, that is, to some degree, thinking about it in a more diverse way. If we articulate this idea in research and education, merely invoking the term interculturality is not enough, we have to instil the idea into our practices. (Student 1). Interculturality is always shifting and flowing, like an oscillating movement influenced by different powers. As a result, these powers can be critical in the making. How to ensure or at least enhance the balance in the process? Interculturalizing interculturality requires diverse perspectives and various dimensions. It’s the opposite of the ‘old’ Westernized interculturality dominated by Western ideologies. In the old context, we observed phenomena such as Eurocentrism, racial © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_16

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superiority and Western hegemony, preventing different perspectives to interculturalize in the formation of interculturality. Only when we integrate interculturalizing interculturality can we allow a more balanced perspective in both research and education. Hofstede’s five dimensions in cultures have been favoured in research and education. However, he defined non-Western cultures from a highly Eurocentric perspective. This has been found to be reinforcing stereotypes and dehumanizing groups of people. That’s why it is important to listen to others actively and to be willing to let their voices emerge. This is what I consider to be an example of interculturalizing interculturality. (Student 2). In my opinion, I think that ‘interculturalizing interculturality’ in research and education can be interpreted through four aspects. Firstly, research on interculturality should move away from explicit prejudices. In fact, many researchers’ works on interculturality seem to be reinforcing stereotypes of specific countries and races, which opposes the original purpose of interculturality. Secondly, it may also mean anti-Eurocentrism because the main theories we learn in relation to interculturality were put forward by European scholars. Many of them stand on a position of superiority to evaluate others. If we interculturalize interculturality, we may include more diverse theories from all over the world. Thirdly, interculturalizing interculturality should force us to communicate and discuss with scholars from different contexts and countries. Last but not least, interculturalizing interculturality is accepting that interculturality has no end and maybe that there is no answer to it. (Student 3). Interculturality is not a fixed conception, when we research and study it, the notion changes as well. (Student 4). I feel that the ways we use ideas related to interculturality cannot catch up with the speed of subjects’ progress and change. Formal ways may direct our attention to stagnant and solid elements because researchers might tend to use the same way to study common problems. I got the following idea from our classes. We need to talk with each other so that distinctive opinions can emerge, which may inspire others and lead to even more discussions. We learn from each other as we inspire each other too. (Student 5). In my opinion, academic studies about interculturality conducted are deeply influenced by the culture, context and background of the scholar’s nation and specific geopolitical aspects. For example, in China, scholars are currently involved in researching about ‘how to tell the Chinese story well’. (Student 6). Interculturalizing interculturality requires us to deconstruct and then reconstruct interculturality in different ways, taking into account how the other might perceive the notion. (Student 7). In everyday life, most of our exposure to interculturality is through the media. We are being exposed to all kinds of news from all over the world. How we see this information, how we interpret it and how we respond or comment on them are practices of interculturality. For example, when COVID-19 first broke out in Wuhan in 2020, not only fear arose domestically, but also fake news and even attacks with

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no good intention of foreigners were flying on the Internet. In this situation, how we react to these irresponsible attitudes and protect the image of China became important. Rather than sitting silently we can try to provide ‘true’ and ‘objective’ news to others. In this way, we can actively interculturalize interculturality. (Student 8). Interculturalizing is not just ‘easy talk’ between people from two countries or two cultures, but letting people voice their views on what is happening between us when we meet, from perspectives that we may not be aware of and/or disagree with. (Student 9). Research on interculturality may vary from one country/context to another. That is, they may have different perspectives, so scholars may form various opinions. Therefore, ‘interculturalizing interculturality’ means that people from different contexts should negotiate their own ideologies about interculturality. Through dialogues, we may know others’ ways of thinking and reflecting on ourselves. (Student 10). Interculturalizing involves the processes of continuous rethinking, expressing, exchanging and accepting. We need to jump out of our rigid mindsets towards other ideologies. (Student 11). In my opinion, interculturality is much more like a viewpoint. I think that interculturality is something that has already been formed in people’s mindset. While ‘interculturality’ is something that has been formed up, ‘interculturalizing’ continues to develop. They are not mutually exclusive. Instead, they are closely connected and cannot be separated completely. (Student 12). The following is a concrete example of how to ‘do’ interculturalizing interculturality. We can imagine that interculturality is like climbing up circular stairs. During the communication process, we can’t reach the information we want in a linear way, because communication can’t be perfect. We have to ask questions again and again to test others. We use more information to verify our understanding or adjust our misunderstanding. This is why we climb up in a ‘circled’ manner. It seems that we waste time and energy, but it is unavoidable. But like interculturality, it is a continuous and dynamic process. (Student 13). When we disagree with someone or some theory, we often rush to criticize them with no solid reason. Why? Many people just read some fragments of what others say online and try to find confirmations of their own opinions. In order to realize interculturalizing, we should try to accept new ideas rather than repeating ourselves and those we believe are ‘right’. Information is booming in our societies, but listening with an open heart seems to be disappearing. (Student 14).

16.2 Huiyu Reflects on the Last Dialogue Students were so eager to ask Fred many questions in the last dialogue, which had been on their mind for several weeks. Some examples: Students asked if there are good or bad cultures in the world? Fred responded that it’s a “good but controversial” question. He used his life experiences in India and

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Europe to build up his line of argumentation. In Europe, it seems that for example, there is no caste system, but many people are in fact discriminated against and part of an indirect ‘caste system’: homeless people, immigrants, marginals, etc. I remembered that we had discussed so-called cultural space in one of our sessions. Such space indicates where people live, their communities, streets, houses, home decorations, etc., and silently tells people (insiders and outsiders) which social classes they belong to. Fred’s message was strong: If we talk about, e.g., the Indian caste system in some way, then what should we say about the (different) classification systems in our society? They are silently there, staying with us all the time. Fred discussed the mirror metaphor that he uses for interculturality and argued that a phenomenon that looks different and unacceptable somewhere else might also take place in our own society but we do not see it, although it might just be there in front of us. When the mirror is put to work, we may become aware of the unfair judgements that we make on self and others. There were also very touching moments during the final dialogue. When a student wrote to Fred frankly: “I don’t have much knowledge on intercultural communication so I don’t have anything to disagree with in what you are saying about interculturality”. Although we might know little about a field but have a good opportunity to learn from a big name, we might easily worship ‘big names’ and follow whatever they say. However, as sincere as this student, Fred explained: “You are a social being so you have intercultural experience; you are from China, a hyper-diverse society; you are yourself very complex; you have watched hundreds of films and TV series, and listened to music from outside China, therefore, you are qualified to disagree with me”. At this time, my students sighed “Wow, wow, wow. Can we?” in the classroom. They were greatly touched again by the air of egalitarianism throughout the dialogues. The second moment took place before we finished our dialogue: “As these students will do an internship or work in international organizations in the future, do you have any suggestions and/or recommendations for them before the end of our dialogue?” I remember that all the students were staring at their screens in the classroom, with the same curiosity and eagerness. Fred told us: “If you work for an international organization, always remember to Speak for China and the Chinese, to systematically try to include Chinese stories. I think this is so important to make people really remember that the world is not just about dominating voices, but that China also has a voice that can help us to think further about interculturality”. Following his words, a long-lasting round of applause arose. Such a touching moment! My students were smiling, nodding, endorsing with their applauds. I turned my microphone on and let Fred listen to what was going on in the class. I believe that my students were not only thankful for gaining power from the dialogues, but more importantly, for becoming more confident and prouder of their identity as Chinese now and in the future. These are very unforgettable moments of interculturality.

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Secret: My students told me after the 5th dialogue that they felt they had experienced a “Socrates-Plato” dialogical-type of learning. [CONTINUE TO REFLECT] – What do you make of the idea of interculturalizing interculturality? – How do you understand what this student is saying here: “All of us are the product of interculturalizing and filled with interculturality”? – For one student, “To ‘interculturalise’ is the active endeavor to think about every problem interculturally”. Do you think that we should treat every single problem that we encounter as if it were about interculturality? – Another student argues that “Interculturalizing is not just ‘easy talk’ between people from two countries or two cultures, but letting people voice their views on what is happening between us when we meet, from perspectives that we may not be aware of and/or disagree with”. Go back to your views on promoting/avoiding conflicts in interculturality: Do you still hold the same view on the matter? – “In order to realize interculturalizing, we should try to accept new ideas rather than repeat ourselves and those we believe are ‘right’”. One potential problem about this argument is how to evaluate ‘new ideas’. How do you suggest doing so? – How has the education you have received prepared you for dealing with media discourses? Do you feel well equipped to read (super)critically and reflexively what the media construct about our worlds? – Interculturalizing interculturality is also about moving away from, e.g., Eurocentrism and Western hegemony. How ready are you to do so? Do you feel well equipped to look for alternatives? – Having reflected on interculturalizing interculturality now, would you revise the metaphors for interculturality that you proposed in Chapter 9? – Finally, reflect back on ideology and research on interculturality. Have you come across ideas shared by scholars which you felt were stereotyping and putting someone down? Can you recall what they were?

Chapter 17

Conclusions: Supercriticality as a Way of Dealing with ‘Interculturalese’

Abstract This chapter concludes the book. The authors share their reflections on the dialogues and the paratexts produced by the students. They note that the proposed pedagogical and/or personal approach to interculturality (complex dialogues between all actors) is not miraculous. As such while some aspects of supercriticality are evident in the dialogues, there is a need to continue exploring ways of making it a lifelong endeavour in the way we engage with others. Paying attention to our ‘interculturalese’ (limited and limiting ways of discoursing around interculturality) and seizing any opportunity to be astonished and to ‘enlarge’ it represent two important objectives to ensure flourishing of interculturality in both research and education. Keywords Interculturalese · Bridges · Astonishment · Opportunities · Listening to This book was about us all teachers and students—but also readers—together. It offered snapshots of continua: our (joint) vulnerabilities and strengths, our synergies and divergences, our hesitations and certainties in relation to the notion of interculturality. The book was not meant to teach about interculturality as we ‘do’ it with others in communication but to help us reflect on the notion as a ‘scientific’ construct, which is always embedded in specific economic and political zeitgeists. The book introduced five dialogues between teachers of interculturality and their students, navigating between China and Finland. The themes of the dialogues included: – Crossing bridges in two directions (in reference to the dia of dialogue) – Advising versus preparing (with advising indicating that intercultural communication education is always about providing others with opinions rather than ‘orders’—pre-pare) – The continuum of balance and chaos included in all aspects of interculturality – Looking at all things intercultural from an uncountable number of perspectives and asking whose perspective is dominating – Daring to ask, daring to challenge. The students’ reactions and input during the dialogues were manifold and complex, and left partly for the reader to consider for themselves. At times, it was obvious that they were merely ‘karaokeing’ certain research and political ideologies—as we all do. The different chapters indicated that they seemed to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 F. Dervin and H. Tan, Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue, Encounters between East and West, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7572-1_17

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agree on a certain number of general principles for looking into interculturality, which illustrates some aspects of supercriticality: – There is no formula for intercultural communication – Thinking big and thinking deep – The need to refresh our ideas, thoughts and attitudes. They also seemed to have a general agreement on the necessity to resonate with others, accepting the collision of thoughts and compromises. The students also showed strong abilities in analysing the politics of interculturality.

17.1 Beyond Being Overwhelmed by the Reality of the Problem In this section, Huiyu reflects first on the series of dialogues between the students and us. 為政: 子曰: 學而不思則罔, 思而不學則殆。 “Wei Zheng: The Master said, ‘Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous’”.

Confucius (551BC–479BC), The Analects (Chinese Text Project, 2022). This quote by Confucius summarizes well what we have experienced together through the dialogues in this book. The dialogues seemed so smooth, sincere and fruitful, like water flowing, a canal is formed naturally in the end. Fruitful here means that the notion of interculturality was discussed, examined in depth, through simple but profound explorations, ancient and present ‘wisdom’, our individual life experiences and issues related to China and the world… Together, we dug and dug; questioned and questioned. The students named these processes “a progressive loop/circle” of unbuilding and rebuilding— or, as Fred calls it, “a never-ending process”. Each dialogue was also challenging, brain-racking, imaginative and echoing. Until now, I clearly remember the eagerness and expectations in the students’ eyes before each dialogue, and the excitement after each one as they left as stimulated and forward-looking as we two were. I clearly remember the glitters in their eyes. What a sobering experience! Born in the late 1990s, these graduate students grew up in a relatively stable society experiencing continuing economic growth. As we can see from the dialogues, they have received good education; they are sincere, positive and enthusiastic, with optimistic and positive attitudes towards the future. They are also knowledgeable about Chinese and world history and development, and can engage around the past, the present and the future. At times, dialoguing with Fred and I was not easy especially when we dealt with, e.g., metaphors from anthropological, sociological or philosophical studies, which sounded very abstract and challenging for reflecting on interculturality. However, under Fred’s guidance, they were quick to draw relevant analogies and thoughts

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from Ancient Chinese mythology and philosophy, making for instance clear and fascinating references to 盘古开天 (Pan Gu), 盲人摸象 (the blind men and the elephant), 精卫填海 (the bird Jingwei trying to fill the sea), 大道至简 (the Great Way is as simple as it can be), 掩耳盗铃 (hiding one’s ears and stealing a bell)… These Chinese idioms and fables are perfect fits for characterizing interculturality as a complex object of research and education, flavouring it with Chinese ‘stories’ of interculturality (Dervin, 2022b). Students also showed other aspects of supercriticality throughout. The five dialogues progressed from simple questions to deeper ones, from something tangible in our daily communication to abstract ones, especially in the third dialogue, when Fred introduced abstract issues such as “interculturality as performance” and “the stranger on the train phenomenon”, the students fell into silence for some time, but after spending some time thinking about them, as I observed, they gathered their courage to react to and question them. I remember holding my breath first and then being relieved after listening to what they had to say. In the dialogues, I often sensed the students’ social responsibility and kindness. The COVID-19 global epidemic that was raging at the time was accompanied by global political disputes over nations and regions, economic recessions, massive unemployment, etc. The world appeared to be more depressing than ever, with more isolationism, xenophobia, stigmatization or even hatred. These have left many of us feeling sceptical, frustrated and disillusioned, as well as raising many questions about intercultural communication: has the pandemic proved that intercultural education is a failure? Has it manifested that globalization has stepped into regression or stagnation? And as Fred asked in the last dialogue, “is intercultural communication an impasse or should we be more positive about the future of interculturality?”. I was myself hesitant. However, these young students were still looking forward to the future, with their kindness, sincerity and responsibility. When I recall each session that we had this semester, I notice that they often looked beyond the problems that China was facing, including larger visions of globalization, collaboration rather than isolation to communication. They chose to tackle problems together. They were very much aware of the complexity of world problems and discussed global issues such as racism, the fate of refugees, poverty, inequality, social injustice combining them systematically with intercultural topics. As a student asserted: “More global issues require more global cooperation and communication, so I’m positive about the future of intercultural communication”. The students seem to keep an optimistic attitude, believing that the development of science and technology will help people to communicate with the world in other ways. After all this, I was not surprised when most of the students chose to be “more positive about the future of interculturality” rather than labelling “intercultural communication as an impasse”. The curiosity, sincerity and kindness of these young students in the dialogues reminded me of a question posed in the last two sessions of the course: “How to tell Chinese stories (讲好中国故事 ‘jiang hao Zhong guo gu shi’) to the world?”, which has served as a very popular question in Chinese educational circles and other fields in recent years. Fred has also engaged with this question, raking for answers in different aspects of Chinese society, history, language, culture and politics.

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There seems to be no unified answer for this question though, mostly because of the interpretation of the Chinese character “好hao”, which is highly polysemic. In class, our students interpreted the Chinese character in two ways: “(1) Telling good Chinese stories (value oriented)”; (2) “Telling Chinese stories well (with appropriate methods, channels)”. Although there’s no unified answer from our class either, I believe that our dialogues have shown that they are telling a ‘good Chinese story of interculturality’ to the world, using their supercriticality to balance different opinions, to listen to others but also to use their own right to speak about a complex phenomenon that they know about. A poet from the Song dynasty, Lin Bu (林逋, 967AD-1028AD) wrote: “器满则 益, 人满则丧”—which can translate as “When the vessel is full, it is spilling; when the person is full, they are lost”. This seems to fit well to describe what we take away from our dialogues on interculturality. If we are satisfied with the lower fruits of the ‘tree of interculturality’, we can never reach for the higher ones. In the dialogues, we were touched by Fred’s ‘never-ending endeavor’ for interculturality, using the metaphors of Sisyphus and 夸父 (Quafu) to share with us what our task is about: we must continue to work tirelessly but we can never give up on interculturality. Finally, I believe that good teaching is never about ‘feeding’ students but about stimulating their supercriticality, pushing them in all directions. Fred’s questioning and answering style during the dialogues was very specific and he progressively trained them to unthink and think further. But it does not stop here. Supercriticality and intercultural dialogue (maybe two terms that mean the same and thus repeat the same ideas!) can never be achieved fully and, with the sparkles from the experiment described in this book, I hope that we will all continue to practise and develop them—including our readers!

17.2 Paying Attention to ‘Interculturalese’ as a Priority In Chapter 1, we introduced a play by Ionesco called The Lesson (1958). A comedic parable of the dangers of indoctrination, the play revolves around a professor who uses words in very specific ways to dominate over an eager female student. At the beginning of The Lesson, the following discussion takes place between them (Ionesco, 1958: 1389): PROFESSOR: If you will … now … we … we … I … I will begin by making a brief examination of your knowledge, past and present, so that we may chart our future course … Good. How is your perception of plurality? PUPIL: It’s rather vague … confused. PROFESSOR: Good. We shall see.

Although the play is absurd, this excerpt could summarize well the main message of our book: our perception of interculturality should also be ‘rather vague’ and ‘confused’. What we have done with the students in the book shows that the closer we look at the notion, the further away it seems to move. Reading through the

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chapters, we note that we often ‘solidify’ our thoughts while opening up new vistas; we create stereotypical ideas while ‘blowing up’ some; we promote contagious ideas while deconstructing others; we contradict ourselves and others; etc. Our dialogues do confirm that to grasp the complexity of interculturality is unattainable, we experience plurality all the time and yet, we can’t seem to be able to fully pluralize the way we talk about it. The word ‘interculturalese’ from the title of this section is meant to encapsulate these movements, contradictions, distortions and never-ending negotiations around the notion. We argue that being supercritical starts with the awareness that we all make use of some form of ‘interculturalese’ when we deal with interculturality as an object of research and education. As such, putting words on this inexhaustible notion tends to crystallize it, the words become (at times temporary) beliefs that have the power of contaminating others. There is nothing we can do about it but reminding ourselves and others constantly of this problem. More importantly, we must stop being arrogant, pretending that ‘interculturalese’ is ‘done’ only by other researchers and other educators. In the book, we have attempted to put into practice the idea of supercriticality as an open guide for interculturality. Our ‘motto’ for supercriticality was the oxymoron “No one really knows, but everybody knows”. Many aspects of supercriticality seem to have worked and somewhat systematized by ourselves and the students (see Fig. 1.1). As such we find many good examples of relearning astonishment by asking questions about questions in the dialogues. Yet, as one would expect, some aspects of supercriticality would need to be explicitly worked upon such as forcing oneself to contradict oneself and thus experiencing more intellectual discomfort in trying to delineate the notion. Identifying our clandestine a priori (e.g., ‘officialese’) is difficult since it requires being able to sort out the different economic-political influences in us. Some attempts have been made to open up different epistemes (specific and alternative knowledge systems) in the dialogues, however we tended to remain within the ‘Western-centric’ sphere of references, concepts and ideologies most of the time. In order to enrich the supercriticality approach, we would also need to focus on the unsaid in how we speak about interculturality, on what remains at the back of our mind, on what we don’t dare to say or don’t have time to say… We do encourage teachers and researchers of interculturality to try what we did in their own contexts and with colleagues from other countries, placing their students at the centre of their practice. Pushing each other, questioning each other’s questions, destabilizing each other and tackling interculturality from more creative perspectives (e.g., mythologies, metaphors) can prove to be rewarding in exploring the notion. What we take from the months we spent together is that our knowledge of interculturality requires to be ‘fed in’ by others all the time. As such the more we interact around the notion, the more we confuse ourselves with others, the more we encounter frictions with others, the more we can unthink, rethink and expand our own ‘interculturalese’. Anything can then turn into an inspiration to move forward, from someone’s

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use of a metaphor to a literary reference of which we might be unaware. Our knowledge of interculturality can only be enriched every time we interact with others around it, beyond uniformity. A direct consequence of this is that judging and condemning others for the way they engage with the notion in research and education should be avoided. Our different ‘interculturaleses’ are changeable, malleable and somewhat unstable. No one is immune against imperfections, especially when inadequacies are always in the eyes of the beholder. Accusing someone of being a culturalist and/or essentialist gives us the illusion of perfection and immunity against short-sightedness, intolerance and arrogance. However, it appears clearer and clearer that no one is a superhero in research and education. Instead of pointing a finger in/directly at others, let’s take the time to self-examine, to put our own ideological positions and instabilities on the table and think again. There is no flawlessness in interculturality as an object of research and education. Finally, the dialogues taught us that, like philosophy somehow, interculturality forces us to ask endless questions but that it does not necessarily beg for answers. In a similar vein, after rereading the book, Huiyu shared the following comment via Weixin: “Reading the book is like going through a tunnel, with some light in front of you, but you cannot catch it, even if you go further and further”. Let’s dare to enter this complex space of humanity and forget about both the entrance and the exit. Let’s just explore it together! The reference to philosophy in the previous paragraph also reminds us that, although this book was mostly about interculturality as a construct related to different nations and ‘cultures’—limited and limiting lenses—what we do together with the notion in the dialogues, has very much to do with humanity. With the global crises that we have been experiencing since the early 2020s, which are often reminiscent of past tragedies, supercriticality and intercultural dialogue appear to be inspiring ‘buffers’ for the decades to come.

References Chinese Text Project (2022). Confucius. The Analects (trans: J. Legge). https://ctext.org/analects/ wei-zheng Dervin, F. (2022). Why ‘Chinese’ stories of interculturality? In M. Yuan, F. Dervin, N. Sude, & N. Chen. Change and exchange in global education—Learning with Chinese stories of interculturality, (pp. 1–16). Palgrave Macmillan. Fei, X. (2015). Globalization and cultural self-awareness. Springer. Ionesco, E. (1958). The bald soprano and other plays. Grove Press.