Foreigner's perception of global cities

Along this blog, we already studied how the city of Seoul is accessible to foreigners and we are planning to do the same thing with Canada and the city of Paris.

To go further into the topic of this blog we thought that collecting the impressions and opinions of tourists, expatriates, etc. might add value to the analyses carried out. That is why, we created questionnaires that has been sent to classmates that lived for a short time (around 3 months) in those cities/countries. The respondents of these questionnaires are French, Canadian, Chinese and Korean.

The goal of this survey is to give us an insight about the way some foreigners “felt” living in those cities and their perception about the efforts Seoul, Paris and Canada are making to adapt to them.

Of course, because adaptation to a country/culture is different depending on the culture of origin, we will try to analyze the different answers according to the nationalities of the respondents. For example, it seems normal that westerners will have less trouble adjusting to a western country different from theirs than an Asian person.

A caricature of the World seen by Americans. 2012, February 12^th. Retrieved from: My wonderful life. http://alison-staples.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-do-you-see-world.html

To see the different questionnaires, click on the links below:

 - Questionnaire about the city of Seoul: http://fr.surveymonkey.com/s/QS5K8CB

 - Questionnaire about the city of Paris: http://fr.surveymonkey.com/s/Q68NZQ6

 - Questionnaire about Canada: http://fr.surveymonkey.com/s/QZDQBDW

The results

You’ll find below a general overview of the results obtained to this survey. Detailed results will come later on, in following articles.

I decided to split the results into three categories: the answers obtained regarding the place itself and its facilities; the answers got about the local culture and the comparison between the three destinations.

If you have any comment to make, share your opinion or experiences, etc. please feel free to leave a comment on this article or the previous ones.

The city/country and its facilities

The survey was containing several questions about the places themselves and their facilities. One of the questions asked about the troubles experienced by the respondent while doing daily life activities (eating, shopping, visiting, moving).

The activities where most of the respondents encountered trouble while living in those three different places were eating in restaurant and going grocery shopping while very few had to face difficulties using public transportation or visiting touristic spots.

These answers could demonstrate that, because of a high level of tourism in those destinations, public transportation and touristic spots are arranged for foreigners, which would be why almost no trouble was faced for these two activities.

The local culture

As we’ve seen in previous articles, it exists several ways to adapt to a foreign culture such as: assimilation and integration (see the article posted on July, 22^nd, “How state policies can influence on the attractiveness of their country abroad?”). To identify which acculturation process the respondents went through, a question in the survey asked which cultural habits they adopted or kept between their birth ones and local ones.

In those three situations, both westerners and easterners kept their cultural habits and adopt some of the local culture. This behavior can, of course, being explained by the fact that respondents only stayed in those places for a short period so they did not want to put aside their own culture. But it has been noticed that none of the respondents kept their cultural habits without adopting some of the local ones which shows the interest, that people living abroad have, in discovering new cultures.

Before going through the acculturation process individuals staying in an unknown country experience a culture shock. This term “culture shock” was first introduced by the anthropologist Kalvero Oberg in 1954. You’ll find below his definition of a culture shock:

“Culture shock is precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse. These signs or cues include the thousand and one ways in which we orient ourselves to the situations of daily life: when to shake hands, […], how to make purchases, when to accept and when to refuse invitations, when to take statements seriously and when not. Now these cues which may be words, gestures, facial expressions, customs, or norms are acquired by all of us in the course of growing up and are as much a part of our culture as the language we speak or the beliefs we accept. All of us depend for our peace of mind and our efficiency on hundreds of these cues, most of which we do not carry on the level of conscious awareness.”

According to the different answers obtained for this question, we saw that culture shocks have been experienced in France and South Korea, by both westerners and easterners whereas only easterners faced a culture shock in Canada. The common reply regarding the reasons for these culture shocks is language barrier. Indeed, as we saw in previous articles, language is very important has it is the main element of communication. Not speaking the local language makes adaptation harder and slower as the access to the host culture become difficult. These responses reinforce what we said in previous articles about the importance of translations in public places, menus in restaurants, different panels and signs, etc. The multiple translations (to English, Mandarin and Japanese) in Seoul are really appreciated by foreigners. It makes them feel welcome and it prevent them from feeling lost.

Comparison

In order to compare the three destinations, the respondents were asked to grade those places according to the accessibility of the local culture and adaptability to the local life. The degree of simplicity to live as a foreigner in those three destinations has also been asked.

The answers to this part will be given in the future, once articles about the city of Paris and Canada will be published. So watch out this blog if you want to know more about it!

Conclusion

These questionnaires demonstrated, once again, that the first step in adjusting to foreign cultures is to offer various translations of key information. This show how much language is important to integrate or be integrated within a culture.

Culture shocks are experienced by every single individuals living in a foreign country but the intensity of this shock changes from one person to another depending on its birth culture, its host culture, its adaptability to unknown situations, etc. Adjustments carried out by cities and countries to make information, facilities and the local culture accessible to foreigners also play a major role in the intensity of the culture shock experienced.

The answers given to this survey also confirm the fact that is it easier for Westerners to adapt to Western culture than for Easterners and vice versa.