Acknowledging what you know

I read a column in the newspaper a few days ago that wrote about a meeting between Finnish and Russian women. They met to discuss differences in culture, manners and such. One of the things the column brought up was that women do not shake hands in Russia.

Really?

I have lived there, worked there, studied there, met a lot of locals.. and I do not recall this. Not that I recall ever shaking hand with anyone either. Well, maybe the other Finns. But the Russians.. we just said hello, hugged or kissed each other on cheeks (once on both sides). I never realised this. I did not acknowledge it as a cultural difference - but I knew it in practice.

And this is what all the books on cultures, intercultural communication, internationality etc. are good on. And the discussions, training sessions, lectures, moments of reflection .. and not to forget writing about it. It is good to reflect on your skills and knowledge and acknowledge that you know something that is good to know but you just never realised you knew..

Next up is my wonderful business trip to Warsaw last weekend! But first I have a birthday to celebrate..

Greetings from Ireland

I was on an international holiday – a trip to, and a bit around, Ireland. It was nostalgic: I visited places I’ve lived in, or been to before, and spent time with old friends - and made a few new ones too (a big semi-public thanks a million to Mirva, Ciaran, Emma, Brian, Mindy, Fidelma, Garret, Alex and Snark!). It was a grand trip. Ireland is a very international country, with so many foreigners living and working there. Anywhere we went, there were foreigners (apart of ourselves). Shops had foreign food – and I don’t mean just exported food or a few specialities, but even small shops had products important to certain nationalities that had no content description in English. Everyone had a foreign friend, lover or colleague. Internationality seemed so natural. And easy.. But I suppose no wonder since the Irish are pretty easygoing people ;)

While in Ireland, I talked about cultural differences with a friend. For example, why are we Finns so fond of buying our own, especially when it's in relation to our home? We want to have our own kitchen ware (preferably Finnish), bed linen (preferably Marimekko design), coffee maker (definitely Finnish!), furniture.. Obviously it makes us feel at home, but is it also to do with our societal norms, upbringing, culture? Finland has a high rate of homeowners and our flats and houses are primarily rented completely unfurnished (not going as far out as the Germans though, kitchens are included in the package). Therefore we teach ourselves to start collecting our own stuff already at young age. On the contrary, in UK and Ireland accommodation is primarily rented furnished, and with full appliances, kitchen ware, tv, the whole works. There’s no need to buy one’s own, since it’s all there. Quite handy, and totally encouraging towards the non-materialisation (good for the environment!) – but no wonder there’s so much shopping for clothes etc. going on.. and from my completely biased Finnish point of view, I really would like my own.

But when you are on a student exchange for a certain period of time and with possibly a low budget, it's quite useful to have a flat that is ready furnished (and despite of this, our car was full of our stuff when we headed to Scotland to study..). Foreign students arriving to Finland might find it quite complicated with the flat rental market. Where to get furniture, how much to invest on all necessary items? Luckily there are furnished options as well, and great services such as Laurea's student union LAUREAMKO's Home in a Box service where the student can rent kitchen ware, bed linen etc. for the time of the exchange. Saves money - and the environment :)

Patience and understanding

The past few weeks have been really busy and full of internationality. Our exchange students have arrived, and all together 20 nationalities are represented. What a mixture of cultures.. but all united with that curiosity and excitement of being in another country and getting to know a foreign culture. Some are very quiet and shy, others outgoing and already friends with everyone.

There are students from countries that I’ve never been to and whose representatives I’ve never met before. It will be interesting for me to learn about their cultures. I’m fascinated by the way our Chinese exchange students have English names for them selves to help us others with pronunciation and to remember their names. However, for example the Japanese exchange students do not do the same, nor do students from any other country, Personally I find it much more difficult to pronounce some of the European names (Belgian for example) due to the way we Finns pronounce the alphabet.

At the moment, with the mixture of cultures and everyone so exited with the beginning of their exchange, coping is taking patience and understanding from everyone. There are inaccuracies in both the messages we are communicating and the way we are communicating to each other, which is bringing about some misunderstandings. Also the expectations foreign exchange students have of Finland before their arrival do not always meet the reality (luckily sometimes the exchange students are positively surprised!). This can be very stressful and lead to a feeling of being let down. But it is all part of the experience. And it’s the way to generate and develop internationality competence.

This brings me to think of the qualities related to internationality competence in regards to communication. Or the kind of qualities that develop during the internationalisation process. These could be..

.. being neutral and equal towards everyone

.. empathy

.. ability to be flexible, to move on from a sudden change or drawback that bothers

.. politeness

.. being open minded

.. ..

Definitely not a inclusive list.

Now if I were to truly practise my reflective competence, I would analyse these qualities in myself, and ponder how I’ve developed them and what their state is. But.. it’s late and there’s another international day ahead tomorrow!

Back to the basics?

I’m a bit hesitant to bring up the language question again, but I feel it is quite an important question – and certainly an issue that has taken up quite a bit of my working time lately.. I called a few foreign students, and one of them said in the very beginning of the phone call (right after I had introduced myself and before I got to asked him about the reason I was calling) that he did not speak English. I was baffled, because he had been intending to come and study at Laurea in English. How could he study without understanding the language?

This got me thinking of the basics of internationality again. Is it about speaking English? Or just a foreign language? Finland is bilingual, meaning that we have two official languages, Finnish and Swedish (to learn the reasons, read about the history of Finland at http://www.finland.fi/History/). Being a native Finnish speaker myself, did my internationality start at third grade when I started to learn Swedish (a foreign language to me despite of it being the second domestic language of my country) or later, when I learned to communicate in English? Being able to read in English opens many of doors to new knowledge, especially in the internet. Being able to communicate in English brings about more possibilities for intercultural communication and experiences. My language skills in Swedish or Russian - not to mention the very basics of Spanish that I knew long time ago – do not give me as many possibilities as my English skills do. So is mastering English a perquisite for internationalisation?

…

No, not necessarily. For example, there are many foreigners that are able to communicate in Finnish, and one can learn a lot from each other and of a foreign culture. But it’s more limited that way. A practical example (yay!): my uncle, who cannot speak any other languages besides Finnish, has a foregn friend who can speak Finnish pretty well, so they get along well. To me the friend seemed a bit quiet, so when I told her that I could speak her native Russian, she really started speaking and telling me about her self. So language really does matter. For better and for worse - since this week so far I’ve been very limited due to the fact I could not offer any other languages for communication over the phone besides English..

the Project

I realised my introduction did not really explain why on earth I decided to call the blog Project: Internationalisation. Well, yes, the 'project' bit does have to do with the fact that I watch too much TV - or too much of the shows that are about agents, spying and saving the world from terrorists - but it also has to do with work, as in the working life everything is about projects, project teams, project funding etc. And internationalisation is a project - generally, of any person, and especially of me. A life-long project I believe (and hope such good fun it is that I hope it never ends ;)!).
So what's this project internationalisation about? Quite simply - about internationalisating, i.e. becoming international or developing to become more international. See what the Wiktionary says > http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/internationalization .
So it's a process (i.e. should see some development here later.. ). A process that involves the willingness to learn and develop, theory and practical experiences as the content of the development, and reflection and assessment as the means of development. This blog works as a way of reflection and assessment, measuring the development - or if indeed any internationalisation is really going on at all... For me, the theory and practical experience (weight on the latter) are present in my everyday work and life in general, so there's a lot to reflect on. For anyone studying or working at Laurea, internationality is part of their studies and work in one form or another. It does not only mean having to practice language skills every now and then, nor does it mean that you must go on an exchange abroad to be international. There all several different ways (for both theory and practice) to internationalise one self, varying from studies that concentrate on international issues or are carried out in international settings to international tutoring or acting as a 'god family' for a foreign student to studying and working abroad or as part of international cooperation networks and projects. (Do go to www.laurea.fi > studies > internationalisation of studies for more.)
Quoting from the wiktionary, international is "Of or having to do with more than one nation". I suppose I really should click on the edit button, as I think it's much more. Its essential how the 'to do' part is carried out. Every tourist visiting a foreign country is not international if they are not in interaction with the foreign culture and are not affected at all, if they do not go home with a bit of extra; be it new information, experiences, development.. Being international has to do with knowledge, skills and competence regarding foreign cultures and nations, and especially about the competence related to interaction and communication with foreign cultures and nations. This involves a lot of reflection; being able to recognise one's own culture and way of communication, as well as the foreign culture and way of communication, and seeing the differences and similarities and acting accordingly. Good manners and sensitivity to diverse situations come in handy.. :)
Being about competence, internationality as an attribute needs updating and 'maintenance'. Or simply: international interaction regularly. One can be international one day and lose the ability later - although never totally if the international experiences have made genuine changes in a person's way of thinking, opinions, attitude or ethics. The need for updating and maintenance makes internationalisation a process - or a project.

Always start with an introduction

One of the most important rules in writing. Always start with an introduction. Tell the reader what you are going to tell him. Introduction, the text, and a closing that wraps it all up and makes the reader think. And each paragraph has an introductory sentence, the issue it self and an ending sentence that leads the reader on to the next paragraph..
I learned to write in English at Starthclyde University under the supervision of Kathy, one of the best teachers I've ever had. Well, obviously I could write before that as well, and in English also, after all I had managed to get into the university - but writing essays, reports, thesis and other texts of professional matter is a wholly different skill. A skill that I might not demonstrate so well during the writing of this blog as I will let my thoughts 'run wild' on this one.
This 'running wild' brings out another issue regarding writing in English: vocabulary. Sure I'll have to have a peek at the dictionary and thesaurus every now and then since English is my second language, but more than that I mean the different meanings of words and spelling among the English used in different parts of the globe. My English is a mixture of the Canadian English I first learned when I was about 17, with a bit of Glaswegian vocabulary and Irish accent added and well kneaded together with the Finnish English I have retrograded to after my journeys abroad. Do not have a clue what I'm on about? I'll give you a practical example (love examples, being a practical person myself..) When someone asks you to write your information on to a form, would they ask you to fill in a form or fill out a form? In this dilemma Finnish is not helpful at all, because in Finnish you would say fill form (täytä lomake), which in English is just bad English and a quite rude way of telling someone to do something.
I run into these kinds of dilemmas nearly every day. If not in my own writing, then in other people's writing. At Laurea, we have approximately 200 foreign exchange students studying each academic year from over 20 different countries, all with different levels of English language, internationality and experience on foreign cultures. So when a French woman writes to you "a demand to ..", do you take offence and think what right does she have to demand anything from me?! I did. At first. The thought disappeared in a bout haft a minute and I realised she has perhaps made a bit too strong of a choice in words and did not mean it quite so.. So I'll just disregarded it in my answer to her and give her a hint that when communicating in an international environment, it's better to be awfully nice and ask for the things you want instead of going right ahead and setting demands. But what I did not realise - until a wiser colleague who masters French (my knowledge does not go beyond Qui and Merci) brought it up - was that it might just have been a bad translation on the French students behalf. Apparently there's a French word very close to the English word demand and it means request.
Hmm. Fascinating, communicating in an international environment, that is. Learn new things all the time, become more international.. Right. I’m off to see what the e-mails from Poland, Taiwan and Spain have got in store for me today!