Evaluating Intercultural Behavior

Culture takes root from a people’s history, memories, conventions, customs and traditions and shapes one’s habits, values, virtues and prejudices. Our culture determines the way we think and behave, the way we perceive and interpret reality and the way we react to others. Asians and Americans have very different cultural traits due to the differences in their history and culture. This, indeed, is a source of misunderstanding and conflict between Asians and Americans which may ruin any intercultural-interpersonal relationships.

For instance, Asians and Americans have conflicting perspectives when they are discussing human rights issues based on their respective cultural backgrounds. In a society, many a times, individual liberty comes at the expense of social order and harmony. Given a choice between the two, many Asians would prefer public order to personal freedom. On the other hand, most Americans would simply choose individual liberty when confronted with the same choice.

The Asians’ choice can only be understood in the context of the history of Asia which has experienced so many tragedies and disasters resulting from war, conflict, revolution and anarchy. For these reasons, many Asians fear social chaos and attach great value to public order and social harmony. On the other hand, the Americans’ choice makes good sense in their cultural background because America was founded by European settlers who had fled persecution and oppression. This was reinforced by subsequent waves of refugees, for example, the Jews, who fled Nazi persecution and the death camps. Given this historical background, it is not surprising that the liberty of individual is paramount.

If both parties are culture insensitive and do not understand each other's history, they would not understand why they make different choices. The Americans would not understand why the Asians do not think and behave in exactly the same way like them and vice versa. Therefore, to overcome ethnocentrism, stereotyping and prejudice, we should develop cultural self-awareness and try to understand each other's histories, cultures and mindsets.

Ignorance breeds misunderstanding. I strongly believed that knowledge can lead to understanding and only with understanding can there be mutual respect and effective intercultural interaction.

Potential Research Project Topics

Lately, the unprecedented effects of global warming are shocking. The second largest summer shrinkage of Arctic ice cap was reported by National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSDIC). It was also predicted by NSIDC glaciologist, Mark Serreze, that the North Pole itself could even become free of ice by September for the first time in modern history. In another phenomenon, a chunk of 19-square-mile ice shelf, nearly the size of Manhattan, broken off from the 4,500-year-old Markham Ice Shelf located at Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic and is currently adrift in the Arctic Ocean.

These episodes of global warming significantly indicate how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier. To combat global warming, human activities such as burning of fuels that emit large amount of greenhouse gases have to be greatly reduced. On a personal level, one can contribute less to global warming by making conscientious effort in cutting down his/her carbon footprint. Education is a channel to increase public awareness of individual carbon footprint. Students will learn to manage their carbon footprint effectively in order to fight global warming and, hopefully, they will also share their low carbon footprint practices with other family members.

In Singapore schools, there are tremendous efforts to educate students on the main culprit of global warming -human activities- and its catastrophic effects. My group would like to find how much do students know about global warming -its causes and effects. In addition, the number of students who attempt to cut down their carbon footprint in daily lives is not as high despite the teaching efforts. My group would also like to find out the reasons for this in hope that better ways can be introduced to inculcate reduced carbon footprint habits in students.