My name
is Pieter De Coninck and I am studying Office Management translating and
interpreting at the University College of Ghent. For my Intercultural
Communication class I was assigned to keep a blog in which I write down and
explain my intercultural experiences of this semester.
The main
intercultural experience that I undertook this semester was hanging out with
Amelia Martinez Jimenez , a Spanish Erasmus student from our class, and during
this period I learned a lot about the differences and similarities between the
Spanish and the Belgian culture.
When we
went out to Overpoort for the first time, I noticed that Spanish people are
much more sociable and open to meet new people than Belgians. They are also
much more direct and will just say what is on their mind. I believe that this
has something to do with the fact the Spain is a low context communication
country. I also learned that there is a lot of truth in the rumour that
Spaniards are always late.
After
some talks, I discovered that there are quite some differences concerning time.
Spaniards seem to be very confused when Belgians take lunch around 12.00 and
dinner around 18.00 because in Spain it is customary to take lunch around 14.00
and dinner around 22.00. It also came as quite a shock when I explained that I
had to go to school for 8 hours per day in secondary school. Apparently people
in Spain only go to school for about 5 hours per day. Another big difference,
that I had already noticed during my holiday in Spain this summer, and that has
something to do with time management are the opening hours of shops. In Spain,
during the summer period, most shops close from 14.00 till 17.00 because this
is their siesta time but on the other hand they stay open quite long in the
evening, mostly until 21.00.
I think
that this has been an interesting assignment to learn and understand the
differences between cultures in our world and I believe that these understandings
can really help you if you, for example, have to deal with international
clients in your later business life or if you just want to hang out with people
from abroad.
