Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:08 Hello, Joseph shawls. Welcome to the deep culture podcast, where we explore culture and the science of mind. I am in Tokyo. I am here with Yvonne Vanderpoel, who is not in Tokyo.
Speaker 1 00:00:25 Definitely not in Tokyo, for sure. We still have all those travel restrictions and yes, I'm living in Europe.
Speaker 0 00:00:32 Well, Yvonne, this is the 12th episode of the deep culture podcast. It is the final episode of season one. We'll be off in August and starting season two in September.
Speaker 1 00:00:45 Wow. It's amazing. It's a year since we started on this project together and I've been really happy to connect with listeners in different countries. And to have these conversations with Joseph, one of our main goals was to connect with cultural bridge people in different places to build community.
Speaker 0 00:01:03 So for this episode, we won't be focusing on science or theory. We're going to look back on the vision that started this podcast, and we're going to hear the voices of several cultural bridge people, some set off on a cultural adventure, but we'll also hear from someone raised in a multicultural environment with no choice, but to be a cultural bridge person, Yvonne. And I will tell our stories as well and what we all share. And what we share with many of you listeners is this experience of navigating between different cultural world.
Speaker 1 00:01:42 And that brings us to part one at Fort hall and the cultural bridge person.
Speaker 0 00:02:05 I remember recording the first episode of this podcast last year, Yvonne, uh, there were terrible storms in Tokyo. Uh, the pandemic was starting to rage out of control.
Speaker 1 00:02:18 Yes, it was another lighthearted episode. Maybe we can listen back. Yeah, let's listen back.
Speaker 0 00:02:29 That's the sound of rain outside of my apartment here in Tokyo. We've had torrential rains this year. There is a global climate change crisis. It is a dark time around the world. We're in the midst of a global pandemic with millions suffering and every part of the world, a time when we need to come together to solve humanity's shared problems, but you know who I find inspiring right now? It's Edward T. Hall for hall. Superficial appreciation of other cultures is easy. It's interesting, but deeper in your cultural understanding requires more than that. Cultural difference is not just a set of customs. It represents a different way of making sense of the world of valuing of being ourselves.
Speaker 1 00:03:26 We've talked about Edward Hall on this podcast more than once. He was a visionary, the father of the field of intercultural communication. And we had listeners say that they were inspired to be hearing about expert Hall's work. Again, all thought that intercultural understanding is harder than most people think that you had to undergo a sort of inner transformation. You have to let go of your attachments to the way you look at.
Speaker 0 00:03:54 Oh, that sounds very Buddhist. When you say it that way. Although I think he was looking at it. I think he was looking at it from the perspective of the unconscious mind. You know, he said that we have an unconscious attachment to our cultural view of the world, which, which he called extensions.
Speaker 1 00:04:12 And he thought you need to experience other cultural worlds to even become aware of this attachments. Experiencing cultural difference can kind of wake you up, but it's not necessarily easy. Okay. But before we go too deep, let's back up. Joseph, who are we talking about here? Who is a cultural bridge person?
Speaker 0 00:04:33 No one knows what it's like to be part of different social worlds. You could feel like one person at home with your family and feel like someone else with your friends at school. And that gap is what makes you a bridge person because you're going between these different worlds.
Speaker 1 00:04:50 But certain people have to navigate between different cultural worlds at a really deep level.
Speaker 0 00:04:56 It's not so much being a world traveler as it is living and functioning in different cultural worlds. I mean, it could be an expatriate who's living in a foreign country or working abroad, but it could be a migrant or an immigrant who has come to country, could be someone working internationally or working in an international environment. Or sometimes you hear about what are called third culture kids, which is someone who grows up in many different places around the world.
Speaker 1 00:05:25 Yes. And of course, some people live between different cultural worlds without traveling internationally. Think about people with the multicultural backgrounds whose parents are immigrants, or have a multicultural family or people who grow up in a minority community or religious, ethnic, or racial minority. When you live between different cultural words, you face a certain dilemma or contradiction
Speaker 0 00:05:52 Feeling of being connected to different worlds, but you feel this kind of distance. I mean, I remember after being in Japan for three years, I went back to visit my family. And one of my brothers said, oh, so Joe how's Japan. And I started to talk about my experience and he listened politely for a minute, but then he changed the subject. He just, he couldn't really relate. I had discovered this other world in Japan, but there were people back home who couldn't really understand my experience. It sounds like an odd feeling, but you too, right? I mean, you grew up in a small town in the Netherlands and then you went off and were living in a village in central America.
Speaker 1 00:06:32 I can recall similar reactions when I was back. People are interested in your stories, but only to a certain extent. And can they really grasp what happened to you? I must say I often fell alone in dealing with how I had changed, like reverse culture shock coming back home, and everything is familiar. But at the same time, it looks different too. So we could say on the one hand you experienced different worlds. But on the other hand, you have two minutes, these different worlds,
Speaker 0 00:07:03 And there can be hard choices. You, you discover new places, but you want to have roots too. And how much should you adapt yourself to a foreign way of living or what if your values change and your family back home doesn't understand, or maybe your partner has no idea about the cultural world or worlds that you grew up in, or maybe you spend huge energy learning a new language and trying to fit into another society. But people still treat you like a foreigner.
Speaker 1 00:07:36 So you want to connect, but you may feel separate. And this is why I like the term bridge person. Because if you are a bridge, you can feel connected even when there's a separation.
Speaker 0 00:07:48 So as Edward Hall knew these things could be hard, but there are a lot of rewards.
Speaker 1 00:07:54 And that brings us to part two, the fours of experience. Okay. Speaking of experiences, the introduction of your book, the intercultural mind, Joseph talks about the deep cultural experiences of the students you teach at university in Tokyo. Could you read that section to us?
Speaker 0 00:08:29 Sure. Be happy to. I love Tuesday afternoons. That's the day I teach 40 or so international students from more than 15 countries about cultural difference and adapting to life abroad. Many are study abroad, students living abroad in Japan, others have international backgrounds, perhaps they've moved around the world with their family, or have parents from countries. Some have not traveled much, but aspire to international careers. They share stories about their experiences, cultural surprises, the excitement of foreign places and people cross-cultural misunderstandings and the ups and downs of intercultural stress. At the end of each class, I have more energy than when I began
Speaker 1 00:09:18 That's lot of cultural experiences. It's very
Speaker 0 00:09:22 Intense to hear about these experiences. And I do talk to them about this idea of being a cultural bridge person. I'll I'll have a student say, you know, when I heard you talk about being a cultural bridge person, I thought, yes, that's what I am. It says though, putting a name to this experience is very meaningful for them. And often they've never had a chance to talk about them in this way with anyone. Wow. That's really great for them. Feels like family because I feel connected to their stories. I've been living away from where I grew up for more than 30 years. And it gives me energy to hear about all of their cultural adventures and I'm really sympathetic to all their ups and downs.
Speaker 1 00:10:07 And I wonder though, our young people growing up with internet and social media, having a different kind of intercultural experience, it's quite different to when we started traveling and living abroad. No,
Speaker 0 00:10:20 That's really true. When I first went to Mexico, I was not physically that far away, but it was really like being in a totally different world.
Speaker 1 00:10:29 And what are your students saying these days?
Speaker 0 00:10:32 Well, one thing I hear is that popular culture online can be a first step towards this deeper kind of cultural exploration. So let's hear from one of my students. This is AMI, she's ethnic Malay from Singapore, fascinated by Japanese culture from a young age.
Speaker 2 00:10:53 Hi everybody. My name is Amira. You can call me I'm you and I am from Singapore. So, um, I like to talk a bit about my experience being a cultural bridge person. So, um, I guess my experience that, that since I was really young and it kind of take first at my own home actually. So, um, I come up a multi family. So in Singapore, Mali is a minority and everyone in my household loves watching well Maleah drama basically. And, um, I didn't know it was me and I started watching, um, derive on it first. And then I watched Korean Sinton and then I realized I actually like, um, Japanese media and modern multimedia. So, but at the same time, I do enjoy many Vermonters movies. So it's not like as if I was discarding my own culture. So that's kind of, uh, being a cultural beach person for me is trying to renegotiate all these boundaries. That society kind of sets upon us like a married person has to like believe culture, things like that.
Speaker 0 00:12:09 One of the interesting things she mentioned was feeling a cultural difference between generations.
Speaker 2 00:12:17 One of the most memorable experience that I had was when I was speaking to my grandparents, actually. So my grandma, uh, she, she went through to Japanese occupation in Singapore, um, and the experience wasn't really that good. And then I hit my late grandfather who did not experience the Japanese occupation. In fact, he was in Japan render what happened. She wants to see, you know, back then and seeing these two very, very different experiences happening in two different countries. It's, it's a really interesting thing. These experiences, I would say the, the really have affected me in a way. It kind of gave me a very different sort of worldview. Different experiences opens my eyes for so many different possibilities. It has really influenced how I look at my life in the future. I don't intend to just stay here in my country and I intend to go all around the world possible meeting friends that I meet along the way. Um, if possible setting no analytic culture. Yeah. I'll see how that goes. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 0 00:13:40 Yeah. And there's this very optimistic feeling to her story that I like a lot, you know, you can really feel that she's inspired to want to go out and explore the world.
Speaker 1 00:13:51 Well, this feeling of discovering the larger world that's reminds me of your interview with Ken hill Anthon
Speaker 0 00:13:58 Any listeners missed episode six out my conversation with Karen Hill Anton. She was one of my first intercultural role models. She wrote a weekly column for the Japan times crossing cultures. And she recently published a remarkable memoir that talks about her life, adapting to a rural farming village in Japan.
Speaker 1 00:14:21 And one of the things he talks about is this feeling of cultural discovery. When she first left the United States, that's supposed to be 40 internet or social media, of course. And you left the country, you really entered into another world. So let's take a listen back. I was 19. I went to Europe for the first time, just took off the whole world, breadth of France and Spain, Germany, Belgium. I went to Denmark twice. Um, I also went to Tamara just for a short time, but I, I ran. I felt like I was running all over the place in a way, taking it all in. It was just so exciting and I just absolutely loved it
Speaker 0 00:15:11 In your memoir. You said the first experience of living outside the United States changed me in ways. I don't even know how to describe it.
Speaker 1 00:15:20 Probably. I would say that I realize that there was so much more than what I had been exposed to. I saw interacting with an could appreciate that there was an entire world of experience of art, of food, of clothes, of ways to live, um, communicate that had no inkling before I felt I could absorb it like a sponge, almost everything. And meaning for me, I was definitely very much effected by absolutely everything that I was experiencing.
Speaker 0 00:16:10 I like this feeling. She gives of wanting to drink everything in, you know, she says I could absorb it like a sponge. Of course we know intellectually that foreign places exist, but experiencing them directly is really powerful.
Speaker 1 00:16:27 Things are very different now, of course, and there are some people grow up between different cultures from the beginning. That's another very intense kind of rich person experience.
Speaker 0 00:16:39 Well, let's hear from someone like that, my student trustin, he's a bridge person to the core. I talked to trust in during my office hours, when lots of students would kind of come and hang out and talk about their experiences. And they often have very intercultural backgrounds, but they haven't had a chance to talk about these things before let's, let's take a listen.
Speaker 1 00:17:05 So I was born in Singapore to Hong Kong, Indonesian parents, since then, I've lived in a lot of different places across Asia. I spent some time in Jakarta as well as my hometown, which is in west Java in Asia. I also left in Shanghai before studying in Hong Kong. And I recently came back from a year long exchange at a kale university in Tokyo, of course, and John say university and soul. I'm now learning Thai. And, uh, I speak Mandarin Chinese Cantonese and English. So as you could see, there's this really a fusion and even a mix of different cultures that I've been exposed to throughout my life when I was in Kao. Uh, this is the first time I actually see or experience, uh, the topic of culture being discussed in class, especially relating to cultural adaptation. This gave me a lot of opportunity for reflection.
Speaker 0 00:18:07 I asked him if he feels like a citizen of the world,
Speaker 1 00:18:12 It's like this swinging between the feeling of being a global citizen and also being a citizen that belongs nowhere, uh, from people that I've met in Japan and other places, people who are born to parents of different countries or people who have been living, uh, away from the home country for a long time, they also tend to develop this feeling of belonging to nowhere. And sometimes I do feel the same way.
Speaker 0 00:18:38 I also asked him how it is to belong to different cultural worlds. And if he's able to bring them together, it's
Speaker 1 00:18:46 Already hard for me to sort of reconcile this different social circles. So what I do is instead of like switching back and forth, instead of trying to create an intimate circle, I try to keep my worlds separate it, so that, so that could keep the same personnel when I am interacting with any one of my friends, but not half this sort of Jewish and or contradiction when different circles bridge together. So I actually prefer not to introduce my friends to each other because of this. That sounds like a real challenge to manage those different social worlds.
Speaker 0 00:19:23 One of the things, things that we talked about was his future. And I asked him, well, you know, do you want settled down
Speaker 1 00:19:30 In terms of my future career or my future lifestyle? I, I do dream of life where I could be REL half a certain degree of freedom, not being confined to a geography. It does take a lot of resources. You must be in a, in a career or in a professional position that allows for, but between geographies. Yeah, I don't need to work hard if I want to do this in terms of settling down, the more important question is not wherein, but who with, and since I do not feel I need to be fixed to a specific place, uh, I do not have to eat, uh, living in my whole country for the rest of my life. I think this actually is even better because it gives me a certain, uh, degree of flexibility move around, or I put shuttle down in a foreign place, as long as it is with someone that I feel comfortable with. It's interesting how being a bridge person opens up new possibilities, but it can also create difficult choices. And that brings us to part three roots and bridges.
Speaker 0 00:20:55 Well, now that we've listened to these stories of on, I'd like to hear more about your experiences.
Speaker 1 00:21:01 Well, I can relate to the process of discovery that all others described. Although I still live in the country that I was born in, I've lived abroad, traveled extensively and work into culturally all my life. I was born and raised in a typical Dutch polar want to have meters below sea level Fullscope was the village I grew up in. And in spite of being small, it's renowned for its nurseries and apples, grapes and plants. My grandfather and father worked in their own tree nursery surrounded by narrow ditches. So in fact, I grew up on the small islands and the ditches on all sides were prominent in our lives. And even in our sayings as a child, the first thing we got to learn was not how to cycle, but how to swim as the water was a constant threats and needs in safest loads. It's a light globe.
Speaker 1 00:21:54 Don't walk in seven ditches at once. It's typical saying indicating to be cautious and self-responsible, despite it being a small islands, the sense of community was, and is still very strong. If someone asked me my name, it would be phrased as of whom are you asking for my family name, not my first name. I wasn't inside there in the community, but always long to spread my wings. And this covered the world, which I did. I was the first person in my family to go to university. I've worked internationally for NGOs lifting USA and Costa Rica, both in various places. And all these experiences have influenced me in many deeper ways. And even if I'm in the village where I grew up, I still have this experience of a bitch person, um, insider yet outside at the same time over time, sometimes it has created a tension, but I also experienced being interesting and complimentary and next to my family, I'm also bridging with my foster daughter, a second generation migrant daughter with parents from Ghana. So yeah, reflecting about where is home for me? I of course strongly feel that my roots are in the lands that my grandfather and father worked on almost a century and well, actually that soon will be solved because there's no successor in the family, but that's where my roots are. And that's not necessarily where home is now. Home is mostly where my partner is. My kids are, my garden is so I feel connected to my roots. And I'm also an outsider. And home is where the heart is.
Speaker 0 00:23:47 That's really powerful. Yvonne. And you grew up with a nursery, which is plants with roots in the ground. And you grew up with these canals and bridges on this island. So you truly grew up with deep roots yet with bridges to go out and see the world. And it sounds like, like for many bridge people, the place where you have the deepest roots may not be the place that you currently feel is your home.
Speaker 1 00:24:21 I feel that it has been the metaphor. This lens has been the metaphor all so far. Well, mainly my life roots and bitches. What about you, Joseph? You grew up in the United States. You lived in Mexico for several years, lived in France, but you've spent many years in Japan. Now, have you settled down?
Speaker 0 00:24:43 It's hard to give a single answer. So what I did do was take a walk in my neighborhood and I thought about the question where is home for me? <inaudible>, Let's take a walk near my home in Minami old ska. It's in central Tokyo, but an older neighborhood, not a trendy part of town. That's the sound of the Sakoda tram. It's one of the only two street cars that still exists in Tokyo. It runs through my neighborhood, just down the street from my apartment. Sakara means cherry blossom in Japan. And in fact, my street is lined with cherry blossom trees. So in the morning I sometimes come out onto my balcony and I can hear the birds singing in the cherry blossom trees
Speaker 0 00:25:47 And if you walk down my street and turn right at the tram tracks in about a hundred meters, you'll find 10 Tencel, which is a Shinto shrine. It has a Cedar tree with a black and trunk that have burned marks left over from the fire bombing of Tokyo in front of the shrine. There are narrow shopping streets. When I moved in, there was a third generation shoe store that originally sold ghetto Japanese wooden sandals that closed. And now it's a pharmacy. There's also a second generation hardware store that recently went out of business. But my dentist is a third generation local resident. His father and grandfather were both dentists. There's also a shop selling Monaca, which is a traditional Japanese bean paste suite. That's been around for more than 70 years around the, from the shrine there's Titans, which is a new craft beer pub and off to the right. There's a new halau market.
Speaker 0 00:26:53 One of the only mosques in Tokyo is a couple of blocks over. There are five Vietnamese restaurants, four Indian restaurants. McDonald's a burger king. There's riddle, which is a specialty coffee shop that sells kombucha last fall. I got stuck in California. I couldn't come back to Japan because of COVID restrictions. When I did make it back, the husband and wife that run my local bread shop, it's called sun road. They asked me about how it felt to be shut out of this country. Even though I have permanent resident status. I mean, I got caught by changing regulations. If I had been a Japanese citizen, however, I would have been allowed to enter.
Speaker 0 00:27:44 I like high context living means having lots of background information. When there's rich detail that you share with others. I want to live in a neighborhood where I can feel that I love knowing local shop owners. I can't quite explain why I get satisfaction from the simplest interactions in my neighborhood. Like checking out my groceries at the local supermarket. Oh yo. And somehow I'm still very pleased that interacting in Japanese feels so natural to me. All of this really is a different world from where I grew up in San Diego, in California, after having spent years discovering new places, I find having a neighborhood deeply gratifying. So part of me wants to go out and explore the world. But part of me wants to have local roots, but I think both of those desires reflect a need for connection. Sometimes people ask me, can you ever really be accepted in Japan? The language is really hard for English speakers. And of course I don't look Japanese. So people want to know, do I feel at home here? My standard answer is I am at home as a foreigner in Japan. I'm well adapted. I'm an insider here. Of course I'm always an outsider too. So what does that make me an inside outsider, an outside insider. I do still feel out of place sometimes
Speaker 1 00:29:53 When we first started the podcast, we promised to give it a try for six months.
Speaker 0 00:29:57 I remember that we had no idea if anyone would even listen, are we going to have, you know, like 22 downloads,
Speaker 1 00:30:05 But we've had great responses and we've got thousands of listeners and we've made it through 12 episodes and there's a lot more to do next season. We'll continue to dig deeper into the science of culture and the mind's special interviews and lots getting planned.
Speaker 0 00:30:24 So to make this happen, we are expanding the podcast team. We've got an amazing group of bridge people collaborating to bring you the deep culture podcast next season, Rob Fritz, of course, who does the sound design? It has been with us since the first episode, new to the team are Zayna Matar, Danielle glints, and Ishita Ray. We are grateful to have them with us. So thanks to the whole team we're looking forward to working on season two together, season two will start on September 15th.
Speaker 1 00:30:59 Please let us know what you'd like to hear in the coming season. And most of all, thanks to everyone who has spent time with us.
Speaker 0 00:31:07 The deep culture podcast is sponsored by the Japan intercultural Institute and NPO dedicated to intercultural education and research. I am the director of GII. The book we quoted from is the intercultural mind published by intercultural press. Also, you can now hear the deep culture podcast on YouTube. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel, do a YouTube search for deep culture podcast. Also, there are transcripts of the deep culture podcast we've been hearing from educators who are using them in classes. That's great. You can find them on the website of the Japan intercultural Institute. Just do a web search. You can also learn about online courses and GIS learning circle. You can become a member of GII if you like the deep culture podcast, recommend us on apple podcasts. And if you have an idea for a future episode, or just want to get in touch, please write us at DC podcast at Japan, intercultural.org. Thanks again to our sound engineer, Robinson Fritz, our podcast teams, Aina Matar, Danielle Glen's Ishita Ray and another shout out to Karen Hill, Anton checkout, her memoir the view from breast pocket mountain and a special thanks to my students. Trust in you meet up being a middle Dean, thanks to all the members of Jai. And of course, thanks to you. It is always a pleasure to connect with you and share this time with you and our listeners. Thanks so much for hanging out with me during season one, and I'm looking forward to season two
Speaker 1 00:32:51 Things also have wonderful to have worked with you throughout the season. Let's have a break now for summer and see you all in season two.
