Maybe more than ever, in fact. There’s certainly no dearth of examples of horrible and brutally consequential cultural misunderstandings, so it’s absolutely fine (maybe even helpful…hmm, may I go so far as to leap to, ‘essential’?) to have a good laugh when we can whenever we cross cultures. A healthy, self-deprecating attitude of enjoying what we don’t understand is certainly better than a defensive skeptical scowl - or worse. And it’s in this spirit that I’ve been hosting my “Oops, Your Culture’s Showing!” podcast, where I share with my co-hosts, guests and listeners, some of the more hilarious (well, at least we think so!) cross-cultural experiences I’ve had, and those of my friends and colleagues around the world.
If you’re an ardent “Oopster” and have been enjoying our episodes each month, you probably know that nothing is off the table as long as it crosses cultures. We’ve had episodes on Japanese toilets, New Year’s customs around the world, bungy-jumping etiquette in New Zealand, death rituals from India to Ireland, dining protocols in Africa, de-coding the French mind, elevator and taxicab etiquette around the world…the cross-cultural list goes on. And each month we introduce the new and unusual, as long as it brings a laugh…and an epiphany about the incredibly diverse human condition we call our cultures.
So if you haven’t become an official Oopster yet, all you need to do is head over to: oopscultureshow.blubrry.net (or wherever you get your favorite podcasts), and listen in! This is the perfect time to begin enjoying all our monthly episodes, as we are officially celebrating our five-year anniversary this month, and now you can access any of our over thirty previous podcast episodes from our “Oops, Your Culture’s Showing!” You Tube channel! Best of all, when you subscribe (it’s FREE!), we’ll let you know every time a new “Oops” episode is released, so you’ll never miss one…ever again! (Isn’t that a relief?)
And in honor of our fifth birthday, we’ve just released Part 2 of “The Best of Culture”, a game-show review of the best from the first five years of “Oops, Your Culture’s Showing”! You don’t want to miss hearing about the chicken lanes in Amsterdam, the Goldilocks zone of Lagom in Sweden, pets around the world, mushroom hunting in the Baltics…and so much more, just launched, right here, right now!
And since we’re talking about having some fun with culture, you might enjoy reading my article, “The Serious Business of Being Funny…Everywhere!”, where I explore how what’s funny in Philadelphia can be a total flop in Frankfurt, what gets a laugh in Luxembourg might leave them flat in Liberia, what rolls ‘em in the aisles in Russia might reduce them to silence in Reykjavik…and why! You get the picture. Read on below for more laughs and maybe a few cultural epiphanies, as well!
“When in Rome …” the saying goes, so if you use humor in your presentation (and who doesn’t?), that means that what’s funny in France will not necessarily make them laugh in Los Angeles. Anyone who has made presentations abroad learns this very quickly. As all good presenters know, humor is universal, but jokes may not be. So while using humor is always a good strategy, using jokes can be a poor tactic, precisely because what makes a joke funny often depends on an aspect of the local context. If the audience does not know the context, the joke bombs.
For example, I once prepared a presentation in Hong Kong. Just before I went on…
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