Different culture creates misunderstandings

When I was a junior high school student, I visited Malaysia. One day, I went to the toilet ,There were two kinds of toilet. One was a pay toilet, the other was normal. I chose normal. But, it was very dirty and the most surprising thing was that there was no toilet paper. I heard “some of the local people use their hands.” from been my teacher. I wondered why they use their hands. Ever since then, I have been interested in other country’s culture and life styles. Some differences in culture are small, like this, but some differences in culture can create serious misunderstandings.

First of all, I will examine China. When shopping in China, Chinese throw goods when he or she pass the goods to me. This does not create bad feelings of the person in the shop and they are not angry. It is normal. They do not feel rudeness. While Japanese hand over change .Ｉcompared culture of Japan and other country’s, I think the misunderstanding because of the difference of the culture might lead to the prejudice and discrimination.

I have a friend who has been going to study to the United States for one year. I heard a story from her. When her host family received her, they seemed not to take care of her, because they did not invite her as a guest but invite as a family's member. They did not to have taken care with her. For example, I heard that the key to home was passed to her, and the host family said "Enter the house for yourself when coming home from school." Probably, We Japanese might think "I might have been coldly treated."
For these reasons, I think that the gap of the cross cultural communication is caused because we Japanese invite people from foreign countries as a guest. When we invite the host family from foreign country, we think about "Where will I take him or her?" or "?" what should I make for dinner?” We think about a lot to contact with a foreigner as a guest. However, Americans do not make it like that. They are not doing us a cold-hearted attitude. It is their culture and entertainment.

As a result of examining culture, I think it is very important to understand foreign country’s culture so we can have better communication with the foreigner to prevent the misunderstanding caused by the gap of such a different culture.

I am scheduled to study abroad for America. So I want to learn English and culture of America to prevent the misunderstandings caused by cultural differences.