This Week's CultureQuiz: THE CARIBBEAN ANTILLES!
Can You Answer All Five CultureQuiz Questions about East Caribbean Cultures Correctly?
As summer gives way to fall here at my home base in New York City, several thousand of my closest friends usually begin to ask me when I’ll be retreating to my home in the US Virgin Islands (and “do I need any help settling in?”) They know that when the winter winds begin to swirl in NYC, I try to do as much work as I can from my hide-out in the tropics, which is near impossible, as “work” and “tropics” may seem to be a contradiction in terms. I realize I am not garnering much sympathy here, but it is a problem for me, and, from my perspective, a cultural one: truth is, though my good fortune allows me a tropical beach house and some great rum, I still gotta get the work done, just like most people living in the sun-drenched Lesser Antilles (that chain of “little” Caribbean islands that runs north/south, and includes the Virgin Islands, Guadeloupe, St Kitts, Grenada, Martinique, Saint Lucia, etc. Different from that chain of “bigger” Caribbean islands known as the “Greater Antilles” that runs west/east, and includes Cuba, Haiti & the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, etc). What the posters of happy tourists on the beach don’t show is the daily reality of Caribbean life, a joyous, victorious celebration forged from a history of hurricanes, hardship, oppression, slavery and colonization. I am privileged beyond measure to know it and the incredibly resourceful and resilient people who live and work there.
So how much do you know about working in Lesser Antilles (or East Caribbean) culture? Test yourself today with this week’s CultureQuiz on the Eastern Caribbean: go ahead and see how much YOU know, and choose the correct multiple choice answer for each of the following five CultureQuiz questions! (The correct answers follow the quiz, so if you haven’t already subscribed, you can do so right here).
East Caribbean CultureQuiz questions:
You’re walking down the main street of town, and pass some people coming toward you in the opposite direction. As you pass them, local custom requires that you…:
a. Greet only those individuals (with a “Good Day”) who are your same gender and age.
b. Greet only those individuals (with a “Good Day”) who are your opposite gender, but of the same age.
c. Greet everyone you pass with the appropriate “Good morning”, “Good afternoon” or “Good evening”.
d. Greet only parents (with a “Good Day”) when they are walking with a child.
You’ve been invited to go “Limin’” with your friends on Saturday afternoon. You should expect…
a. to spend a relaxed afternoon “hanging out” with your buddies.
b. to spend an adventurous day on the water fishing for the tasty “Lime” fish that inhabits Caribbean coastal waters.
c. to join a community effort rebuilding neighbors’ houses destroyed in the most recent hurricane.
d. to participate in a community charity event where you compete with others to see who can pick the most limes from their tree in a given period of time (usually one hour).
“Roti”, “Callaloo”, “Fungi” and “Sorrel” all refer to…
a. typical traditional dances and musical styles unique to various islands.
b. typical local traditional East Caribbean foods and dishes.
c. typical traditional holiday (Christmas and New Years) celebrations.
d. different kinds of edible local fish.
You are a manager based in the US of a local team working on a re-building project on-island, and in an effort to build “ownership” and a sense of personal responsibility for their work, you want to give your workers the opportunity to solve problems and make some decisions on their own. You are deeply disappointed however, when you discover that workers have started blaming you and each other for not knowing what to do, with many refusing to meet even minimal expectations out of fear of being blamed for doing something wrong. What and why is this happening?
a. Your perception of what is going on is incorrect: everything is going as it should, and what seems to be discontent is actually just a culturally different way of achieving the goals of the project. Don’t worry, be happy, everything is going fine.
b. East Caribbean culture is extremely egalitarian, and individuals on your team are growing uncomfortable being rewarded only if they “stand out” from others.
c. Local teams need an on-site manager to deal with the many challenges of running a project in as fluid and challenging an environment as the Caribbean. You need to be on-site, or appoint a trustworthy individual who can be on-site in your stead.
d. Centuries of colonization, exploitation and slavery have had their effect on how people relate with each other and authority in the workplace, making ideas like taking personal initiative and responsibility for decision-making risky and sometimes dangerous. Better to establish clear lines of authority, provide extensive and clear task directions, and reward teams - and not individuals - for performance excellence.
While working on-island, some friends from the U.S. come for a visit to see you, and to enjoy the beautiful Caribbean climate and friendly lifestyle. One day while you are working in the office, you overhear a member of your team complaining to their co-worker about your friends, that they were rude and disrespectful to people on the street in town on their way to the beach the previous day. Specifically, the complaint had to do with their loud behavior and inappropriate dress. You are embarrassed, but when you confront your friends, they were apologetic but unaware that they had done anything wrong.
a. Some local islanders may have had a bad experience with tourists in the past, which may make them unaccepting of tourists in general. Don’t take these exceptional individual reactions as typical of the culture in general.
b. Tourist behavior often challenges the typical prevailing conservative nature of East Caribbean culture. Conservative dress and behavior is expected “in town” or wherever daily local life takes place. Beachwear is only acceptable, literally, on the beach (not on the street), and loud, raucous behavior is never acceptable anywhere in public.
c. For most islands in the region, tourism plays a dominant role in island economics, making locals dependent, directly or indirectly, upon tourists. This can create a tension between locals and tourists, especially when the behavior of either is misunderstood by the other. Tourists, being in the dominant power position, have a responsibility to treat locals with respect and to learn as much as they can about the culture in which they are guests.
d. All of the above.
Easy? Hard? Neither? So, how many CultureQuiz Questions did you get right? Here are the correct answers below…and the reasons why!
Here are your correct East Caribbean CultureQuiz ANSWERS:
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