Page 52 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

The Study of Culture 37

another would not. The rules seemed to change almost weekly.
Even at my neighborhood branch, one teller would let me with-
draw my money and another would refuse. Whenever I expressed
dissatisfaction about the lack of standardization, they would coolly
respond that Madame had better take her complaints to the down-
town headquarters. Despite my intellectual understanding of the
French pattern of centralization, I still reacted emotionally to the
frustration of not being able to get my money. It was a struggle to
keep a culturally relative outlook and tell myself, “Something is
going on which seems stupid to me, but if these French people
came to America they might be just as exasperated with our bank-
ing system as I am with theirs.”
You do not have to visit another country, however, to experi-
ence the urge to judge others regarding their time-related behav-
ior—all you need is to have friends, coworkers, or baby-sitters
from another culture in order to inwardly denounce entire groups
of people. When I find myself seething and thinking, “Why are
they always late?” “Why do they always wait until the last minute
to cancel or confirm appointments?” “Why does it take them so
long to leave?” I try to remind myself that rules regarding time are
culturally relative. And I might make my expectations explicit by
telling my wonderful Ethiopian baby-sitter that I need her to come
at “seven o’clock American time,” because I really need to leave
at seven, not 7:20.
Acknowledging our differences is the first step. The second is
deciding who will do the cultural adjusting. The “When in Rome…”
rule may work well while traveling, but what about encounters
with our friends from other cultures here at home? And what con-
stitutes “Deaf Rome”? If we attend a meeting of a Deaf club or a
predominantly Deaf party, we may assume that Deaf cultural
norms should be followed, but what about a one-to-one interac-
tion or an ongoing friendship?
One way to approach such questions is to talk about them
openly with our friends and associates and admit how far we are
willing to go in adjusting our own behavior and what areas make
us uncomfortable. At a meeting I attended recently, the facilitator
asked the participants to introduce themselves by giving their name
and occupation and by sharing one accomplishment that they
were very proud of. This instruction was followed all the way
around the room until it was the turn of a participant who was
visiting from Holland. The Dutch woman gave her name and oc-

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