Cultural Awkwardness...

I'm sure a lot of you have heard about President Bush and his "massage" incident. For those of you who haven't heard, President Bush gave German Chancellor Angela Merkel a quick friendly neck massage in passing during the G-8 summit in Russia this last week. I whole-heartedly believe President Bush was just trying to be nice and show support to the lady, who might have been stressed with the work of the conference. However, I know from personal experience, that Germans are not the touchy-feely types, especially in a professional setting (I would imagine). Poor President Bush. He thought he was making a nice gesture, when in reality, he was weirding out poor Chancellor Merkel. The pictures of it are pretty funny, as she raises her arms and shoulders to signal him to stop the massage. Uh... awkward!

This incident of cultural awkwardness is something that is a fact of interacting with those of different cultures... people just don't act/do the same things in one country that they do in another. For example, when I went to Spain in high school and kissed about 30 people in one day when I met my host family and the host daughter's friends (the custom to kiss on the cheek upon meeting new people), I felt slightly weird for the remainder of the night.

Another incident that comes to mind is when my family was out to dinner in Munich, Germany with a former exchange student, Oliver, and his family. We were excited to meet Oliver's family after Oliver had stayed with us in Wisconsin for a few weeks. The dinner was nice, although a bit ackward trying to make conversation in German/English with people you don't know, but then came a slight slip of Dad's tongue. Dad had forgotten German Social Rule #11: "Don't call people by their first names if you are not previously acquainted and are not familiar." Dad said something to Oliver's dad like, "So, Dieter... it's Dieter, right?" Dieter nodded his head, looking slightly confused. Oops. Oh well, you can't take offense at that stuff... I hope he realized that Dad wasn't trying to be rude.

Anyhow, I'm sure I'll have plently of cultural awkwardness upon going to Spain this fall as I try to get the hang of everything... so I'll be sure to keep you posted of my cultural findings! If you have any cultural awkwardness stories, I'd love to hear them!