“Most of us are locked up pretty tightly inside our “cultural cages”, and it’s the rare person that even BEGINS to see this about himself.” - a short quote from my “About” page. 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...

I live in a place where my definition of “trash” doesn’t work any longer. My definition of “gross” and “ugly” are even starting to suffer under the pressure of conflicting views. I’ve written elsewhere about ethnocentrism, proving that I’m at least AWARE of the tendency to view things inaccurately due to ignorance...

Culture happens. What? Yeah, I said, ‘culture happens’! It means that what you see around you – ALL AROUND YOU – is a reflection and demonstration of the values, priorities and beliefs of the people living there. Here are some things about the people and culture of Indian that I really enjoy: 1)      Respect for elders. It’s wonderful to see the high...

Local Arrogance & Bigotry. Arrogant? Yeah, we know what that means, and we react pretty strongly when such a label is stuck on us! Boiled down, I suppose we could say that arrogance is unduly inflating the importance of someone or their ideas. Bigoted? O.K., that one takes a bit more thought, and means that we form opinions and conclusions without just cause. We...

They say I’m an American. I’m not exactly saying that I’m not one. I was born there, raised there, and people can spot me from a mile away! But 25 years of working in International Business, in cross-cultural contexts, and living OUTSIDE the U.S.A. has certainly chipped away a bit at my “american-ness”, right? Yeah, there is still...