The greatest obstacle to meaningful cross-cultural connection isn’t difference — it’s the invisible assumptions we carry about ourselves. True connection happens when we meet others as independent individuals, beyond national scripts or cultural labels.
Key Principles
1️⃣ Your Culture Is Your Deepest Assumption.
We often think cultural friction comes from others behaving differently. In reality, the hardest assumptions to overcome are those we inherited from our own background — ideas about what’s polite, smart, fair, successful, or acceptable.
2️⃣ ‘Cultural Difference’ Is a Convenient Myth.
Labeling something a cultural barrier is often a shortcut to avoid examining our own discomfort, rigidity, or lack of curiosity. Many so-called barriers are simply unfamiliar behaviors we haven't experienced long enough to normalize.
3️⃣ Assumptions About Others Are Fragile.
Most stereotypes or assumptions about others crumble the moment we have a meaningful, personal experience that contradicts them. What persists is the unconscious story we tell about ourselves.
4️⃣ Connection Happens Between Individuals, Not Cultures.
We don’t truly connect as Japanese, Americans, or Koreans — we connect as two people navigating a situation together. The most honest, productive relationships happen when national and cultural identities are context, not identity anchors.
5️⃣ The Work Is Personal Before It’s Intercultural.
Intercultural competence starts with disengaging from your own default settings. Question your automatic reactions. Ask yourself what feels unacceptable, and why. Growth lies there.
Cultural difference isn’t the enemy of connection — unconscious self-assumptions are. The work of crossing cultures is the work of crossing yourself first.
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