• CQ is a consistent predictor of performance and adjustment in multicultural settings. (From CulturalQ).
• CQ is a person’s capability to function effectively in situations characterized by cultural diversity. (From Lynn VanDyne)
• CQ is the capability to function effectively across national, ethnic, and organizational cultures. (From the Cultural Intelligence Portal)

David Livermore has written on this subject and had summarized the four capabilities that get to the core of a person’s Cultural Intelligence. These factors are similar to those looked at when determining emotional intelligence or social intelligence, but they’re tailored to address the unique challenges faced in multicultural and cross cultural environments. I’ve re-shaped these a bit to try to capture their essence:

CQ Motivation. The person’s interest in and confidence at functioning effectively in culturally diverse settings. Are they eager to interact with people of different cultural backgrounds?

CQ Knowledge. The person’s knowledge of how cultures are similar and different. It includes knowledge about economic and legal systems, norms for social interaction, religious beliefs, aesthetic values, and language in different cultures. Are they aware of their own cultural bias, and alert to others’?

CQ Strategy. How the person goes about making sense of culturally diverse experiences. It reflects the processes individuals use to acquire and understand cultural knowledge. It occurs when people make judgments about their own thought processes and those of others. This includes strategizing before an inter-cultural encounter, checking assumptions during an encounter, and adjusting mental maps when actual experiences differ from expectations. Do they know how to anticipate how people will respond and react to events?

CQ Behavior. A person’s capability to adapt verbal and nonverbal behavior so it is appropriate for different cultures. It includes having a flexible repertoire of behavioral responses that are appropriate in a variety of situations. Are they flexible?

Cross Cultural Lessons for Expats

1. When looking at “who will make it” and “who won’t”, it’s not all a mystery! There are measurable, observable characteristics that people demonstrate, showing that they’re in a good position to be effective or that they’re likely to experience a lot of failure.
2. Although personality and background play a big part, these ‘intelligences’ can be developed by any willing person. If a person really wants to be effective in culturally diverse contexts, they can work on it, and develop abilities in these areas.
3. Often, it’s not until you’re actually in that cross-cultural environment that you begin to learn a lot about your own cultural bias. It’s at that point that you face the biggest challenge: will I learn to understand myself and others, or will I go with the default, all-too-common ethnocentric posture?
4. These 4 factors are intertwined. It’s unlikely that you’ll be a “10″ in one of these areas, without being pretty solid in others.
5. We’re all pretty poor at seeing ourselves objectively, so get some help: open yourself up to the input and assessment of others.

What do you think? Give your definition of what “cultural intelligence” ought to include.

Come back next week to read the sequel: Cultural Ignorance – What’s your non-CQ?

The post Cultural Intelligence – What’s your CQ? appeared first on Culture Happens.

Oh well, no need to force myself upon this busy man. So I headed for the door, and, on my way out noticed a nice sign that said, “Please Renew Policy Before Expiration“. Must be a matter of minutes or hours; certainly not DAYS!

I went to another office (they’re all nice and close to each other), and found a very friendly agent (I think he remembered me because I renewed my friend’s car insurance here a few months ago, and chatted with this man at that time). Yes, he was quite warm and friendly with the greetings. He also remarked that I had 2 more days, then explained that I needed a photo copy of my current policy. My singular question about locating the closest photo copy machine seemed to indicate that I was going to be WAY too much trouble. Keeping his friendly smile (and neglecting to tell me about any photo copy machine), he pointed down the way and said, “that company can renew your policy”.

So I quickly summarized for myself the lessons I was learning:

1. Come early, but not TOO early. Check.
2. Get photocopies, but don’t ASK about photocopies. Check.
3. Wear good walking shoes. Check

I went in out the door, and turned in the indicated direction and guess what I found? Yes! The company that was currently insuring me! I climbed the  stairs, trying not to touch the walls in order to keep my clothes clean, and found a familiar array of desks and, um, sitting devices (can’t honestly call them chairs). I handed them my policy and, can you guess what the guy said first? Yep: “Your policy hasn’t expired yet!” But I was pretty clued in to this little problem by now, and was able to say, “Yeah, we’re coming a bit early this time.” They gave me a form to fill out, and took my Rs. 1200. Since this company did not require any photo copies, I guess they decided I could stay. I was told to come back in a few days to pick up my new policy. Done!

Expat Lessons & Cross Cultural Observations

• My lack of Hindi MUST be factored in. All subtlety goes out the window when we have to use my Hindi, or their English. We’re reduced to pretty basic stuff like pointing out the door!
• Don’t assume they don’t want my business, it might be something else, like….
  • The profit margin is so small on my particular policy, it truly ISN’T worth their time.
  • They’re just more familiar with renewing policies AFTER they expire, and they’re just not up for the boring job of renewing a current policy.
  • They make more money if the policy lapses (they can collect the fine for letting it lapse), so it’s better if I come back in 3 days
  • They know that rivalry among the companies can make life uncomfortable; better to send me away than to “steal me” from the competition.
  • Or, sorry to say, it could be that their salary is tied NOT to increasing sales or revenue for the company, but tied only to having their body in the office. It’s more relaxing to read a newspaper than to renew a policy that’s still got 2 days of life on it!
  • Remember: it’s all clear to the one who’s done it enough. You have to remind yourself that you’re missing cues, you’re not acting “normal”, there are some ‘working assumptions’ that the other 1 billion locals have that you DON’T have, and it makes YOU the more difficult of all customers.
  • One last point: last year I did it with Vikas, a local friend. He knew what would be “normal” and what would be “unacceptable”. Since I’m still a relative “new-comer” (perhaps for the rest of my life??), I can expect to mis-read things for awhile longer.

How about you? C’mon, tell me what YOU think! And to my Indian readers, don’t be shy! Put down some thoughts, o.k.? Tell me what you think!

Ron VanPeursem writes about the challenges that expats face when living and working away from home. Ron and Kandy VanPeursem live and work in India where Ron is Director of Asia Operations for Shift Digital Media. He also writes about Content Marketing on his other blog.

A few photos

The post Auto Insurance: Selling to you just ain’t worth it! appeared first on Culture Happens.

I bought the Hard Shell Samsonite. The no-frills, ‘get-the-job-done’ tough guy suitcase. You’ve seen them on the carrousels before: simple plastic; one color; wheels and a handle. I have broken plenty of “life-time guarantee” suitcases in my years of international travel, and could never quite locate the right shop to actually FIX the things when they broke. So this time I went to the top: Samsonite! Is there another name in luggage that outshines this one?! I bought my “Hard Shell” and happily received my 10-year warranty. Cool.

But not good enough

Then it happened: the telescoping handle got ripped right out of the back of my Hard Shell. I can only imagine how it happened: Bruno the luggage handler, having perfected the suitcase-toss, saw that shiny handle and couldn’t resist. He jerked it up off the ground and started spinning. Nothing broke; so, a bit disappointed, Bruno started slamming the thing against the tractor. “Oh shoot!” he said, “I didn’t realize this was a Samsonite! No wonder it ain’t crackin’” Refusing to be thwarted in his passion for destruction (why else would he take the job of luggage [mis]-handler?), he extended the telescoping handle on my Hard Shell, laid it down on the tarmac, and backed his tractor right over it. “Yeah!” He shouts, “I knew those Samsonites were no good!” By the way, this assuredly took place at London-Heathrow, not at New Delhi!

The local Samsonite guy – so willing, so eager!

Anyway, after retrieving my wounded hard shell, I decided to take it to the Samsonite shop here in my North Indian city.

Making it Work

“Hey, I have a broken Samsonite, and I still have my warranty with me! How cool to find you here in my city! Can you replace this for me?”

“Well, sorry sir, I cannot. But I can take a handle off of a similar used one, and we can screw that one onto your Hard Shell.”

So we set out, together, working on that thing. I even ran to a hardware store nearby and bought some epoxy glue so that, when we began to screw the new handle in, I could make it even more “Bruno-proof” by gluing the handle all along the back of my suitcase.

The local Samsonite rep was so eager, so willing, and so helpful. The warranty turned out – once again – to be a non-factor (not sure I understand what ‘warranty’ means anymore), but the new-used handle fit perfectly, the screws went nicely into the holes, and the added glue (a bit amusing to my new Samsonite friend) will certainly extend the life of “old faithful”.

Jugaad

JUGAAD - An improvised rain coat

One thing you’ve got to love about India: there will almost ALWAYS be a way to make an adjustment, to make things work, to wrestle up a solution to whatever you might face. I think Indians have been doing this for generations, and they don’t seem to get frustrated or intimidated by these kinds of hurdles (which are normally seen by Westerners as “closed doors” or “dead ends”). I’ll admit, sometimes the “jerry-rig” approach strikes me as a terrible solution! But most of the time, this calm confidence that “we can make it work”, turns out to be rather successful. Some would use the Hindi word “jugaad” (जुगाड़) to describe this characteristic I’m talking about. Jugaad literally means an “improvised arrangement or work-around, which has to be used because of lack of resources”.

But be careful! Many of my friends here are not fans of the jugaad solutions! They use that word to describe half-baked, short-term, guaranteed-to-fail solutions also!

What do you think? Any experiences with “jugaad” you’d like to share?

The post Samsonite Guarantee – Indian Style – the beauty of “jugaad” appeared first on Culture Happens.

I want to wish all Indians a Happy Independence Day.

Take a look here for some excellent photos of “The Many Faces of India”.

I’ll copy a couple pics below to whet your appetite (all credit to yahoo news for the photo essay).

The post Culture Happens wishes all Indians a HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! appeared first on Culture Happens.

A Great Discussion on LinkedIn

My earlier post about Cultural Cages has sparked a very helpful discussion in a LinkedIn discussion group called ExpatSense, and I invite you to visit that discussion HERE, and engage with some highly experienced people who are thinking honestly and deeply about this challenge. I’m encouraged and refreshed to find people that are thinking critically and humbly about what’s happening around them, and what’s happening IN them. Thanks to all of you that contributed there!

A Few Fresh Thoughts about our Cultural Cages

1) Hey, sometimes it’s absolutely correct to see that certain things in a culture are just simply WRONG. We don’t have to keep trying to find a “culturally tuned-in way” to put a positive spin on abuse, deceit, discrimination or unkindness, even if you find yourself in a place where such things are deeply embedded in the context, and accepted as “normal”. Don’t confuse objective critique with ethnocentric narrowness. It’s not ethnocentrism to call something wrong, especially when even the locals see it as such!

2) Most of the time, however, it’s best to make the effort to uncover the local perspective on things before allowing your outsider perspective to paint any hard-and-fast conclusions. For example, a value like “showing respect” takes many different forms. What might look like fakery or superficial show to an outsider, might be genuine, heartfelt respect for insiders. Work hard to get inside the local perspective first. You’ll have plenty of time later to think about the rightness or wrongness of what you’re seeing.

3) Culture doesn’t explain EVERYTHING. I appreciated a comment from Richard, reminding us that sometimes the reason that people struggle to understand and connect with others is NOT explained by cultural differences. Sometimes it can be due to a personality issue, a personal concern, or the way a person perceives himself. These are the kinds of things that persist and continue to limit a person’s ability to connect, even if the person DOES become a cultural insider.

A couple other comments from the LinkedIn discussion

Brenna says, ” The problem then becomes what you do about your “cultural cage” when you live in other cultures. Do you persist in

remaining in your own cage, or “comfort zone”? Or do you walk through your cage, learn, absorb and immerse yourself in the culture you now live in?”

Patty says, “Many expats I have met don’t recognize the cage they are in and miss out on the joys of opening the door and stepping out of their cage.”

As we say here at Culture Happens:
Be a Learner | Get Local

The post Culture Happens in Cages: An Ongoing Discussion appeared first on Culture Happens.

Cultural shock: the emotional roller-coaster ride

My family has a long history of cross-border marriages and geographical mobility. If there was an incarnation of “the global family”, we probably would be a good fit because we truly are a melting pot of living multiculturalism.

Despite this seemingly “cultural-shock proof” background, I lamentably failed to pass the cultural shock test without going through an unexpected and unstoppable emotional rollercoaster ride.

I spent nights digging in internet and books to get to know more about my host culture and have been excited like a child on Christmas day for many months discovering new aspects of the country. I also touched bottom and probably went through a small episode of depression. I had this cruel moment of unexplained hatred and rejection toward my host culture.

This passionate relationship is something we all experience and laugh about afterward but it is definitely not a spontaneous mechanism to be able to identify what is happening to us when we are going through the hardships of adaptation and integration.

Culture is like a big iceberg

No matter how much we prepare ourselves, or how much we think we are prepared, only when we reach the end of the ride do we realize that culture is more than a floating concept. It is hard to grasp its full meaning, in fact culture could very much be

described as a big iceberg.

The visible part is made of obvious things and stereotypes we can be mentally prepared to deal with. On the contrary, the larger underwater part is subconscious for the most part, unperceivable and inaccessible to outsiders unless we have a powerful imagination, or a strong capacity to believe in the fact that we are not the center of the world. In other words, one must be able to detach himself from his own landmarks and subjectivity. In an ideal situation we should be able to apprehend the world like babies would. For most of us, this is impossible.

The unwritten rules of the social game

To get the new “unwritten rules of the social game” (as Geert Hofstede defines culture) we must then go through different stages. Eventually and with perseverance we can all overcome the trauma we experience when moving into a culture different from our own.

Cultural shock “is precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse. These signs include the thousand and one ways in which we orient ourselves in the situations of daily life.” (Oberg, 1960, quoted from Gibson).

Even if each one of us live and feel this shock in a unique and personal way, a few patterns have been pointed out to be commonly present in our numerous experiences.

At the Honeymoon stage, we find ourselves curious and smart, we try to understand with an open-mind and are full of optimism. Everything is fascinating; we take tons of pictures and completely take over our friend’s newsfeeds on Facebook by commenting on every dish we eat or place we visit. This stage is bliss and we are extremely vocal about it.

Nothing prepares us for the second stage: THE CULTURAL SHOCK. We start by being more realistic and quickly shift toward a cynic vision and mockeries and end up seeing only negative aspects of the culture.

Looking back, I clearly went through a small depression at that stage. I was frustrated and confused. I felt anxious and helpless. I could not get over the language problem no matter how hard I studied, and I just did not get why they were reacting in such weird and unpredictable ways. “What is wrong with these people!!!! ”.

That is also called the “morning after” stage. Probably the worst place to be if we professionally deal with important projects or assignments.

The adjustment stage is like a warm sunrise after a long stormy night. We finally adjust. We have built a routine, feel settled and start acquiring a greater knowledge of the local culture and language.

I am not sure if it is because it coincided with the arrival of spring and the start of a new job, but I finally opened up and found my good old self back. Around then, I regained motivation, a sense of humor and happiness in general and accepted differences in thoughts and behaviors. I realized that I (and my culture) was not the center of this world and that other thinking systems existed out there. They might be different but they are not weird (in the negative way), wrong, or to be feared. That sounds obvious, but even the most open-minded ones among us can be reduced to such simplistic thoughts when these strong psychological mechanisms take over our reasoning. Ask anybody who has spent more than a couple of years abroad or who has been repetitively exposed to different cultures.

This whole process leads us to the final stage of genuine enthusiasm and culture mastery. I realized I had developed a strong feeling of biculturalism. The host culture had taken a considerable place in how I define myself. I started acting like my local friends, sometimes without even noticing. At some point I could not help but bow all the time like Japanese do, even to my French friends who were shocked about what I had become. I also turned into an apologetic person. “I am sorry” came out left and right (sometimes along with the bowing…I was clearly a nut case according to my friends back home).

I realized how much this society had to offer and I was finally in peace with its negative aspects. Even if my compatriots might think the contrary, it is not as if we French were perfect anyway. I even started favoring certain aspects of Japanese culture over my own. Japanese people are polite, clean and know how to live together and respect each other (even in the midst of terrible natural disasters, like the 11th March earthquake which took the lives of thousands of people).

This foreign culture I am talking about is the Japanese culture. I was born and raised in France but I am half Japanese. I am not sure whether or not this factor made my experience more complex or on the contrary easier compared to other people without this pre-existent condition, but for sure this tells you that, really, we can never really be prepared enough for cultural shocks.

However, being aware of this unavoidable rollercoaster ride, and accepting it as a natural process, will help us in handling cultural shocks.

French-Japanese, with Italian, Sicilian, Spanish and North African roots, Sara-Elly Shimabukuro comes from a circus family, a tribe of bohemians and globe trotters. As they toured around the Mediterranean, building circus theaters in the cities they visited, the circus absorbed a bit of everything on the way, bringing unique colors to her family. She continues to make this patchwork of cultures: recently she added Canadian and Taiwanese beauty to her family lines. Her son holds four nationalities from birth. Some might see it as a spell, she calls it a miracle.

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Holi is an annual festival celebrated on the day after the full moon in the Hindu month of Phalguna (early March). It celebrates spring, commemorates various events in Hindu mythology and is a time of disregarding social norms (because all end up colored, no matter what their social status) and indulging in general merrymaking. Holi is probably the least religious of Hindu holidays. During Holi, Hindus attend a public bonfire, spray friends and family with colored powders and water, and generally go a bit wild in the streets (from religionfacts.com).

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People have asked me about this thing that I call “cultural cages”, so I wanted to see if I could develop a clear description here, and apply it to ourselves and to those around us in cross cultural contexts.

First: What is culture? Well…culture happens all around us; but more importantly to this discussion, culture happens IN us! Culture, as most of my readers know, eludes simple definitions. The key components of what we call culture would include: shared beliefs; shared values; learned responses; patterns of behavior; all passed on through a socialization process. For the anthropologically and technically oriented, these descriptors do an adequate job of painting the picture. HOWEVER, I find that all of us benefit from talking about culture in much more earthy, concrete terms. So let’s just add these common-man’s key components of culture: it’s the way you feel about things, the way you decide that one thing is more important than another. It’s actually behind your reaction to movies and to what you call “good music”. Culture even pushes you to feel repulsed by some ‘foods’ and to feel very strongly attracted to others. (My Faroese friend loves the “aged” meat from the head of a sheep, but nearly vomits at the thought of peanut  butter). Culture is what makes you feel like some people are “weird” and other people are “normal”. It’s culture that causes you to recognize that you’re not “at home” when you’re in a different country (or a different PART of the country, or city). Like I said, culture happens ALL AROUND US; but it’s important to recognize that culture happens in us.

Let me point out one really interesting feature of culture! Your culture is nearly invisible to yourself. Culture is like water for a fish: they don’t notice it! They only notice if they’re OUT of it! It’s like the lenses in a good pair of glasses: you don’t see them, you only see THROUGH them. Those lenses affect every single thing that you see, but you’re rarely even aware that the lenses are shaping (and changing the shape) of the images coming to your eyes. Culture does the same thing: it shapes what we see, how we feel, what we like, what we dread, but the thing itself – culture – is practically invisible to us.

Now, let’s talk about CULTURAL CAGES. Cages keep things in, and keep things out. Our ‘cultural cage’ is what limits our perception. It locks us into a very narrow range of possibilities. For example, “Dangerous Driving” is something that most can talk about, but country-to-country people will not agree on what it looks like. An Indian will feel very differently from an American about what “dangerous driving” looks like. The “cage” that’s built by culture has, over time, become pretty strong! Both the Indian and the American have heard, since infancy, references to “that crazy driver!”. But what their mom or dad or friend is referring to when making such a pronouncement is very different. When the Indian and American stand side by side in the middle of traffic, trying to cross the street, they will NOT agree about whether or not there are “crazy drivers” or “dangerous driving” all around them. They’re inside their respective cages, and can’t seem to get out. They see it “one way”, and can’t seem to see it another!

Most of my readers are living in the very real, the very concrete and palpable context of cultural tension and cultural misunderstanding. This isn’t difficult to predict! If people from the same cultures experience interpersonal conflict as a rather expected routine, imagine how much MORE common it is in multicultural contexts! Here’s the deal: we naturally move AWAY from that tension. Yep. That’s what humans do: we avoid the hassle and the discomfort that comes from working through cross-cultural obstacles. So what happens? What happens is separation, stereotyping and ostracism. People that are comfortable with their cage are happy to hang with people who live in similar cages. We all see things the same way! We all “know” what’s good, what’s bad and what’s ugly. But those “other people” have such a DIFFERENT way of seeing things. We all look out through the bars of our cages at each other, pointing our fingers at each other, saying in unison, “You’re weird!”.

When thinking about ourselves as cultural beings, it’s fair (I think) to lump ourselves into two basic categories: (1) Mono-cultural and (2) Multi-cultural. The mono-cultural person, unfortunately, lives out their life without ever really taking a deep look at the cultural influences that shaped them, and consequently rarely knows how to understand, respect or appreciate OTHER cultural ‘shapes’. They’re just sort of ‘stuck in their cultural cage’. But the Multi-cultural person (which, by the way, can even be achieved by people living in their own home culture) takes a posture of inquisitive exploration, desiring to “get inside” of why other people “live life differently”. This multi-cultural person believes that they’ll discover good reasons why people are different. They know that they’ll be able to disagree too, but that they’ll disagree from a position of understanding, rather than from a default position of ignorance. The multi-cultural person is attracted to the idea of crossing from “outsider” status, to “insider” status, and by the intrigue of developing friendships with people that are, at first “different”, but soon to become “understood”. The multi-cultural person actually starts SEEING their own “cage”, recognizing that they’ve been shaped by a particular community. They’re “o.k.” with that; they even love that. But they do recognize that it’s only “one shape among many”. They sometimes move on toward beginning to see inside of other people’s cages, trying to understand the values, beliefs and priorities that form THAT particular view. This is what makes them ‘multi-cultural people’.

What do you think about YOUR cultural cage? Can you see it? Can you see the “cages” of others? Which category are you in: Mono-cultural or Multi-cultural? Which category would you LIKE to be in? Please leave a comment, and share your perspective with us!

This conversation was revived recently (June, 2012). You can keep up with the ongoing discussion here: Cultural Cages Continued.

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I was interviewed recently by Bea Stanford of Insego, and she asked me about why we chose to live and work in India. You can CLICK HERE to read the full interview on the Insego website. But I just wanted to mention a few things here about expat life, ethnocentrism, cultural adjustment and cross-cultural communication, in case you don’t go over to Insego to read my interview.

Thinking about the challenge of becoming a ‘cultural insider’, I’d like to make a point about what “bi-lingual” and “bi-cultural” really looks like. I believe that attempting, as an adult, to become bi-lingual and bi-cultural is a very demanding ambition. However, I actually believe that it CAN be done! But let’s be clear about what we mean.

I’m not saying that you’ll become the same as the local residents who have spent their entire lives in a particular cultural context. Nope. You won’t speak quite like them; nor will you find yourself thinking and responding quite like them. But being bi-lingual and bi-cultural implies TWO cultures and TWO languages, right? Isn’t that the point? We move from MONO-cultural to BI-cultural. The person who is becoming bi-cultural continues to carry around their original language and many of their deepest values and cultural perspectives. They learn to respect and appreciate a new way of seeing things, and they learn a new way to express themselves. But if they’re really BI-cultural, then they’re different from the mono-cultural people that surround them.

There are some good reasons to CHOOSE to be an expat. One of them is the challenge and the intrigue of learning and of watching yourself change and grow. There are many, many things that a person can learn while remaining in their own cultural context. But what happens to expats (the ones that are trying!) is that they do much more than “learn”; they actually CHANGE. They become different people from who they were before. They’ll always be a little ‘odd’ when compared to local residents. But if they choose to take on the attitude of an honest learner, they’ll eventually be much richer than they were before they came.

If you’re interested, please take a look at some of my earlier posts where I wrote about Becoming a Cultural Insider, or the one about being inadvertently RUDE by saying “yes”. These will give you a little taste of the challenge that expats face.

Again, if you want to read that interview by Insego, just click here.

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HOWEVER… Before you watch this short film (4 1/2 minutes), I need to point out a few things:

1. Culture Happens - Yeah, that’s our Mantra around here. Please notice in this film that we’re observing something “normal”, something “expected”, and something highly valued and appreciated. We have satisfied customers. Then ponder, why is this scene horrifying for some, and highly valued by others. When you can get inside that question (and its answers) you’re getting inside of culture (your own, and that of others).
2. The price of 80 rupees, back in 2005, has probably gone up to 100 rupees, so Pushkar and Pyara are now charging about $2 (two U.S. dollars).
3. Note Pushkar’s Principle: “If my patient is happy, then I’m happy to charge. If he’s NOT happy, then I don’t want to charge.” Pretty tough principle for a Dentist, who can RARELY get the sense that his patient is actually “happy”!
4. A Root Canal in the U.S. costs between $800 and $1200 per molar. I’m getting mine done (again, with chairs, tools, etc.) for $142. Not bad!
5. You simply GOTTA LOVE the Indian “Can-do Spirit”. The adjustments that are made, the risks that are taken, the calm and confident move forward into the unknown, are ALL qualities that I find to be prevalent here. Like our good dentist Pyara, he knew how to repair bicycles, so simply moved from that into repairing people’s teeth. No problem.

Enjoy this glimpse into Dental Ingenuity (or Dental Terror?)

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