Intercultural misunderstandings

He was the first from his village, who had made it. He had been given a scholarship to study in the West – the land of milk and honey. He would spend three years in Berlin, Germany, Europe, study engineering and then come back, marry his sweetheart and build a power station, which his village so desperately needed.

Before he started off, people in his village had warned him – the Westerners will not welcome you. They hate us; they say we mistreat our women. He did not believe in those warnings. All his life, he had learned how important it was to treat women with respect. Why should anybody complain about that?

A travel guide, which they gave him before he left, said: “The inhabitants of Berlin are known to be very direct. They have their own kind of charm. You will see when you get there.” He learned what the guide meant a couple of days after he had arrived in Berlin:

He was taking the metro and when he wanted to get off, a good looking girl wanted to enter. Since he had been taught that it was polite to let a woman through the door first, he offered her enter before exiting himself. After a couple of seconds, she reluctantly accepted. Meanwhile, a couple of people, who also wanted to leave the metro, had piled up behind him.

When the girl finally entered, a man behind him started to complain: “First exit, then enter. Those are the rules over here. Typical tourists.”

He smiled helplessly at the girl. But instead of smiling back, the girl gave him a peculiar look. On her face, he could read the following: “Leave me alone. Don’t hit on me.”

He started to wonder, as he left the metro station. What a country was it where men would be so impolite to their women and where women would mistake courtesy for pick up lines? And why were those people saying that his people mistreated their women?