Map Your Own Cultural Grammar

Using the ideas from the article, build a profile of your own cultural background — then decide how well it actually fits you.

Gather Your Raw Material

Write four behaviours or expectations that feel completely normal in your culture but that you have seen confuse someone from a different background. Be specific — a gesture, a silence, a habit around time, food, disagreement, or hierarchy.

Place Your Culture

Mark where your culture sits on each spectrum. Be honest — this is your instinct, not a textbook answer.

High-context

Low-context

Power Distance

Mark where your culture sits, then mark where YOU personally sit — they may not be the same point.

High power distance

Low power distance

Keep or Cut

Look back at your four behaviours from Step 1. Sort them: which ones do you still perform abroad, and which do you adapt? Pick ONE that you always adapt and write one sentence explaining why you cut it.

I keep this abroad

I adapt this abroad

Your Core Design Decision

Write one sentence that completes this: 'The single biggest cultural assumption I bring into every interaction is ___.' Commit to an answer — do not hedge.

Stress-Test It

Look back at Step 5. Can you think of a real situation where that assumption led you to misread someone? If yes, does your Step 5 sentence still hold? Revise it or defend it.

Now I See Its Shape

Choose ONE word that names the cultural value that most defines how you communicate — not your country, but you. Write it large. Then write one line explaining why that word, and not another.

Why that word?

Discuss Share your Step 7 word with a partner — do they agree it describes you, or would they have chosen differently?

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