Inking a comic about the glorious variety that is life. Published weekly from Aotearoa 🇳🇿 New Zealand

Cultures

Perception of other cultures. Linear, with single-culture fluency: on the left, labeled POLISH is a Triangle-person: blue-eyed, long-haired, with a scar over their eye, holding a blade of grass in their mouth, hilts of two swords poking over their shoulders. In the right hand they hold a wooden crucifix, in the left hand a piglet on a leash. There is some hills in the background. On the right, right there is a Triangle-person with a question mark instead of their face, labeled EXOTIC. There is an arrow connecting the POLISH and EXOTIC, and on that arrow there is a German flag (closer to the left) and Japanese flag (closer to the right). Nuanced with multi-culture fluency: on the top left there is the same POLISH person. On the right in the middle there is the same question mark EXOTIC person. In the bottom left, there is a Triangle-person labeled KIWI NZ. They wear short pants, a wooly hat, hold a climbing pick in one hand, and a leash with a sheep in the other. There is tall mountains in the background, and there is a rocket launching into the sky. The three characters are connected with bidirectional arrows, forming a triangle shape. German flag is towards top left, while Japanese is more towards the bottom right.

Perception of other cultures.

Linear, with single-culture fluency: on the left, labeled POLISH is a Triangle-person: blue-eyed, long-haired, with a scar over their eye, holding a blade of grass in their mouth, hilts of two swords poking over their shoulders. In the right hand they hold a wooden crucifix, in the left hand a piglet on a leash. There is some hills in the background.

On the right, right there is a Triangle-person with a question mark instead of their face, labeled EXOTIC. There is an arrow connecting the POLISH and EXOTIC, and on that arrow there is a German flag (closer to the left) and Japanese flag (closer to the right).

Nuanced with multi-culture fluency: on the top left there is the same POLISH person. On the right in the middle there is the same question mark EXOTIC person. In the bottom left, there is a Triangle-person labeled KIWI NZ. They wear short pants, a wooly hat, hold a climbing pick in one hand, and a leash with a sheep in the other. There is tall mountains in the background, and there is a rocket launching into the sky.

The three characters are connected with bidirectional arrows, forming a triangle shape. German flag is towards top left, while Japanese is more towards the bottom right.

If you are only embedded in one culture, you tend to experience other cultures as either “close” or “far”. If you are proficient with more cultures, you then have more reference points which help see “exotic” with nuance.

This is demonstrated in the comic with the Polish and NZ cultures as reference points, and German and Japanese cultures as examples. In the linear perception, German culture is closer to Polish (shared European ancestry), and Japanese is further away (less shared history).

In the “triangulated” multi-cultural perception, German culture sits closer to the reference cultures overall, but is perceived as more Polish than NZ (Germany had a huge influence on Poland over the course of history, despite the language gap). Japanese culture is somewhat further, but is perceived as closer to NZ instead (it’s a volcanic island nation - loves seafood, and has similar landscapes.)

The comic is just based on my own expat example. Cross-cultural proficiency can happen in other ways too, but I think it has to clear a minimum threshold to be useful. Fluently operating the language is a good start, but a degree of living experience and cultural immersion is also needed.

#society