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Jodhpur City, India
26° 17' N 73° 1' E
Apr 19, 2006 12:24
Distance 154km

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Communication Breakdown

Text written in: English

So this journal doesn't neccesarily have to do with the place in which we wrote it, which turned out to be a nice place, but rather with the difficulty in communicating with Indian people. So just a quick note about Jodpur... its a beautiful city known for the prevalance of blue colored houses and a HUGE FORT (which is a great site to visit). We saw the fort, had some good food, and stayed at a nice place. anyhoo, on to communication problems.

 

The problem actually has very little to do with the amount of english spoken. It has to do with cultural differences. Here is a quote on the side of a bus which encapsulates the problem:

"If you cant oblige someone, say something obliging." Which means, in effect, that if an Indian can help it, they will tell you what you want to hear. For example, if you ask an Indian if they know what direction a location is, many times they will tell you yes; in fewer cases (but still more frequent than it should be) they will even point you in the wrong direction. No is a word you rarely hear, in fact, in many cases you may be lied to (lied to by our standards), when you ask for something that someone doesn't have. This is probably the biggest problem when we have tried to communicate our desires here, yet we have learned a few ways to get direct information. Any question where yes does not make sense as an answer is the best way to phrase a question, and this along with the repition of questions often yeilds satisfactory results.

Another obstacle is that certain things deemed very personal by americans is not considered in the same light here. For example, if you are asked how much money you make, this is not a strange question. In addition, personal space does not exist here. You will be touched, stroked, and groped all the time, without it being the least bit weird for the Indian. the reason this hampers communication is that it is difficult to recognize this as normal behaviour, even if you are aware that it is. In my personal experience, I am so quick to make a judgment on whether or not I have a good feeling about someone just based on my very first contact with them. If someone grabs my arm to get my attention, I am immediatly biased toward thinking they are strange. I hate to say it, but I am so embedded in my habits of relating to strangers, that I just cannot get over this problem.

The biggest problem that I run into is that most of the people that go out of their way to approach me are vendors, and probably half of these people are scammers. So I have to balance cultural sensitivity (making a good impression in a foreign country as well) with not getting ripped off. So if someone grabs me and says: "hello friend" I feel obligated to respond, yet often this exchange is merely an introduction to some kind of sale, in which the vendor will attempt to pressure me into staying as long as possible with him. Thus it's hard to identify unbridiled comercial spirit, curiousity, or just plain friendliness (even 5 minutes into the conversation). 

Sadly this leads to us often ignoring most people shouting: "hello, friend" to us on the street. YEt, this pitiful state of affairs is exactly what I want. I'm in a place so different from my own that sometimes I feel like I just cant communicate in a meaningful way with anyone on the street. These differences have helped me to look into a world where my reason and my rules dont function, a place in which it is a challenge to navigate the social landscape, and a place where I have truly seen cultural differences.