I can finally explain what it is about Chile that captured my heart! I understand ahora why I immediately fit in so well and felt so at home! It's because I have been a warm-cultured persona living in a cold culture. I don't know where I got estos característicos since I obviously didn't pick it up from my surrounding cultura. But it explains why I've felt so out of place in my own culture and so at home alla in Chile.
Warm Cultures (as observed from my experiences and as written in Sarah Lanier's book Foreign to Familiar):
- Are about relationships. The goal is to make people feel comfortable and accepted. This goal exceeds all others, including those of honesty and efficiency. People in warm cultures may give you directions when they don't really know how to get there themselves just so that they don't have to disappoint you.
- Do not communicate directly when it interferes with their ability to make you feel comfortable and accepted. If you ask directly, they will tell you you can come over for dinner when they don't really have time to cook for you just to make you feel welcome. There are certain "codes" that you have to learn to know whether or not they REALLY want you to come over or whether they're just being polite. Communicating this way can seem tricky to cold-culture people.
- Are group oriented rather than individualistic. Asking somebody to walk to the store with you is not odd or annoying. In fact, going by yourself would probably be considered rude. You would never think of not inviting somebody to an event because of certain social dynamics. Everyone is always invited no matter how popular they are or aren't. Often group activities will seem unproductive to Cold-cultured people because they are. It takes them forever to do anything and they don't care if anything gets done. It's about relating to each other through the process rather than the outcome. And no one person is ever going to take charge of the group. That would be too individualistic.
- Do not have privacy. The whole family piling on mom's bed to watch tv is normal. Strangers piling on mom's bed is normal too. Everyone has a right to everything in the house. Everything is shared.
- Are some of the most hospitable people you will ever meet.
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