Here’s A Good Example of a Cultural Divide for Better Understanding
Meet Roy…
Roy is an “up by his bootstraps” kind of guy, who is ambitious, industrious, and can’t sit still. He is a dynamo at work, task-oriented and energetic. He claims that part of his “secret to success” is that he doesn’t tolerate idleness in himself – or anybody else fo r that matter. His every waking moment is filled with activity, whether he’s at work or at home. He feels uncomfortable and even guilty when he’s not doing something to be productive. His profession doesn’t require hard physical work – it’s mostly mental – but it does require a degree of precision to be able to plan, execute, evaluate and report on the results of his team. He starts each month with a list of goals to accomplish, sets weekly targets,and generates a detailed to do list for himself every single day. He is a fair but tough boss who evaluates his team based on their productivity and manages them by their results. They know he will hold them accountable for every deadline missed or mistake made, and demand documentation for every lesson learned. At work, Roy doesn’t have time or tolerance for idle chit- chat or overt socializing. Every conversation and every activity has one purpose only – to move the progress of the job forward.
Away from work, Roy is just as busy. Not only is he a skilled handyman, he’s a fair carpenter and woodworker. There’s always something to do around the house, and evenings after work, once he’s grabbed a bite of dinner and checked out the evening news, he goes out to the garage to repair something, refinish something, or plan his next project.
During his free weekends, he’ll take on one major project or another – never stopping to admire the progress he’s making or taking a minute to just enjoy a sense of accomplishment. Friends will drop by once in a while, but unless they’re interested in picking up a paintbrush or holding a wrench while they talk, Roy doesn’t have much time for them. Roy’s first wife left him after 15 years of feeling ignored, shut out, and pressured to spend every moment with him engaged in some type of “productive” activity. She says that she started felt guilty for wanting to take time to do anything Roy called “frivolous” like watching a sunset, spending a lazy Sunday with the crossword puzzle and the comics, taking a ballroom dance class just for fun, or doing anything that didn’t produce some kind of concrete “result.” Roy defends himself by saying (to anyone who might ask) that he considers the purpose of life to be getting things done. He believes that the worth of a man is contained in the results he has produced throughout his life.
Roy, approaching 50, is starting to feel mortal and realize he is alone. His constant activity, though satisfying, doesn’t produce much joy. He knows there is something “missing” in his life. He’d like to find a good woman to spend the rest of his years with but he’s worried that he’s too old to change his ways.
Meet Tola…
Tola is a Thai woman with many accomplishments to her credit. The first in her family to achieve a university education, she has a good job with a reputable company, and many friends. Her job as a manager is fun. It allows her to meet and get to know people from all over the world, as well as to help the members of her team learn the skills and make the connections that will help them move up in the company just like she has. Her job is not a physical one, it’s mostly mental. It requires her ability to hand out tasks to her team according to their abilities and interests, and make sure that they all get along at work while they get things done. Tola realizes that to meet the company goals her team has to collaborate and be happy with their work, and she knows they’re all doing the best they can to please her because they understand how lucky they are to be working at such an impressive company. She is a fair boss, well-liked not only by her team but by her superiors who count on Tola to preserve the company’s traditions and reputation for quality. She takes the time to get to know her team members individually and offer them any help she can, realizing that they will respond by helping her and doing her favors when she asks. She enjoys hearing about their families and loves to gossip, tease, and laugh with them. When someone makes a mistake or misses a deadline, she understands it’s because life is unpredictable, not because the person is somehow incompetent or lazy.
Away from work, Tola pursues many interests and has many friends. She enjoys playing the piano and has a gift for Zen brush painting – but will interrupt her practice the minute a friend calls to suggest something fun to do. Considered a very modern Thai woman, she loves exploring new restaurants and seeing the latest trendy films, but when her parents call to ask her to visit, she easily steps into the traditional role of “daughter,” helping them by bringing gifts, cooking a meal, or entertaining their grandchildren in her Bangkok apartment. Tola’s first husband, a prominent and well-connected businessman, left her after 10 years because she tired of quietly accepting his pursuit of other women, so common in her culture. The last straw was when his latest girlfriend called one weekend while he and Tola were dining with her parents. Humiliated, Tola had erupted in sobs and fallen to her knees to beg him to stop seeing other women, but he had roughly pulled her up by the arm and told her it was over between them. Her parents, shocked by this obvious disrespect, intervened and told him he was no longer welcome in their home. She defends herself by telling her friends and family that it was her bad luck to have married him in the first place – it must have happened so she could repay a Karmic debt. After all, she knows the purpose of life is to accept what comes and use it to achieve balance and serenity.
Tola would like to get married again eventually. While she enjoys her job, her hobbies, and her friends and family, she would like to meet someone special who will love, protect, and respect her. She longs to find a good man with a joyful heart and a generous nature.
“To Be…or To Do…?” THAT is the Question
Let me begin by asking you a question: Is life a collection of events to be experienced, or is it a series of problems to be solved?
If you paid attention to the articles about Time, you’ll remember that your culture views time as linear and sequential…everything that happens falls along that line. And the focus of that line is the future. Therefore you, as a Western guy, will probably answer that life consists of a series of problems and it is your job to solve them in the correct order.
According to your Western culture (whether it’s American, Australian, British, or northern European), your job is to spend your life making something of yourself – to produce, to be useful, to contribute. You may have been raised with the idea that “idle hands are the devil’s playground,” and feel you must fill every day with “doing.” Your life is probably fast, hectic, and stressful as a result.
Your culture is a Doing culture.
We Thais, on the other hand, with our cultural focus on time as a shifting sphere that holds all things simultaneously, would answer that life is a collection of events to be experienced, and it is our task to “be” – no matter what life presents to us. And our focus is the present, colored by the past.
Therefore our job in life, according to our culture, is to seek harmony, balance, and participation – and enjoy the rhythm of life as it occurs, instead of trying to “change” or “improve” it. We have been raised with the idea that all events are drivenby Karma and are pretty much inevitable, so we fill our days with contemplation, reflection and deepening our inner understanding of the “status quo.” Our lives (Bangkok excepted!) are slower, more relaxed, and more playful as a result.
The Thai culture is a Being culture.
Here are a few more questions that will help you see the difference between your “Doing” culture and our “Being” culture more clearly:
1. Which is better: a fast-paced life or a slow-paced life?
2. Do you judge people according to how much they do, how much they accomplish, and how productive they are?
3. Does “not doing something productive” mean you are a lazy (and therefore bad) person?
4. Is it possible to change the circumstances of your life? Can anyone?
5. What’s more important: to work well or to play well?
As a typical Westerner, your answers would be pretty predictable. You’d prefer a fast-paced and productive life, and your culture would approve. After all, isn’t “sloth” (laziness) one of the 7 Deadly Sins? And if you are American, you were brought up to believe in your heart that anybody can change their own circumstances if they work hard enough and long enough at it. You might even feel guilty if you take time off to sit and stare at the landscape, sneak off for an afternoon nap, or even take a vacation.
A typical Thai would answer those questions very differently. Life is life, with its own rhythm and pace. We hold monks who devote their lives to silence and contemplation in the highest regard – knowing that they are experiencing the fullness of life’s events by just letting them be and adjusting themselves to the circumstances. We grow up knowing and believing in our hearts that life is an unpredictable kaleidoscope of which we are only a part, and that no amount of will or effort will change our circumstances. We are able to see the joy in combining work with play, and don’t view either one of them as more important than the other.
Let’s look at some examples:
Roy and Tola are discussing one of Roy’s friends. Roy says, “I really respect Frank. He’s worked his way up from nothing, and owns three businesses – he’s a self-taught genius, and everything he touches is a success. Sure, he can be a bit of a bastard sometimes, but it’s all aimed at getting results as fast as he can – and he’s brilliant at it.” In Roy’s description, you can see how much he admires what Frank does. The goals he pursues. The results he gets. The “doing” that is Frank. Tola describes Frank differently: “Roy’s friend Frank is unhappy, arrogant, and hurtful to people with his words.” His “doing-ness” is not as important to her – it’s how he is “being” that strikes her as his most important characteristic.
Here’s another example.
Let’s say you’re working in Thailand, running an office that employs many Thai workers. Your American company has brought a serious climate of “work is for work” into Bangkok, and you are finding yourself frustrated by how much time the Thai workers spend chatting, socializing, and making and receiving personal phone calls – in other words, they’re not paying attention to the “task at hand” and clearly having too much fun. It’s pretty easy to see that your Thai workers are “being” at work, rather than “doing” the work.
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