This is it, this will be my last message about foreign cultures. As tomorrow I have my exam of Intercultural Communication, I studied the theories of several anthropologists, e.g. Geert Hofstede, the 7 dimensions of Fons Trompenaars, Kluckholn and Strodtbeck's Dimensions of Culture and so on.
I compared a lot of cultures with each other and concluded several things. Two of my best friends are foreigners but have lived for more than 10 years in Belgium now. One friend is Lituanian (but his parents are Russian), the other one is Armenian (although his passport says 'Azerbeidjan').
Last summer I went out with them and at a certain moment during the night, we were standing in front of a bar, which is run by Armenians. The bar owner was going to leave and head home so he started the engine of his (expensive) car. After he had his engine turned on, he went back into the bar and let the engine of his car turn for 10 minutes, with the left front door of his car widely opened. I had never seen someone doing this before as this is very dangerous to have your car immediately stolen.
So I was standing there with my 2 foreign friends and said to them: "The guy is crazy, I could just jump into his car and drive right away". My 2 friends looked at me and had the same expression on their faces, full of disbelief. They answered me: "But you can't do that".
I responded: "But what if I did?" and there is no saying that we started arguing with each other. Later I came to realise that in their culture this is a quite normal situation, as people trust each other much more. Russian, for instance, are collectivists while Belgians are individualists. Collectivist mean that people do not think only for themselves but also try to think what is best for everyone and especially for their friends (in this situation my Armenian friend knew the Armenian bar owner quite well). So the Armenian owner trusted us and expected that we would watch out for his car. I suppose Belgians would never expect such a thing from anyone, especially as the Armenian owner did not say anything to us about guarding his car.
