One of the most important assertions that I personally, and I know most of us in the J08 class have learnt during our time together, is what is stated at the bottom of the first page of this article - "we must know ourselves before we can begin to understand others". In fact this is the main point that those in my discussion group came out of this course thinking. Before we can get to learn and communicate competently and coherently with those of a different culture, and be able to navigate through the nuances of their cultural reservation points and frames of reference, we first have to appreciate our own and realise the extent to which it places demands and expectations upon us. Until we do this and fully appreciate how our ways of thinking are affected and in some ways determined by our cultural self we will be at pains to communicate in an effective intercultural way. …
