Learning Journal - Oct 21

Read the article titled "Taboo". What are your reactions to it?

First of all I looked at this personally (because I am native, but then I was able to step away and look at this from a business point of view) then as a International point of view.

Personally I was offended with the frankness of this man from Harvard University. I felt his cultural and historical understanding of First Nation people, historically was very ignorant. Internationally, if you try to do business with other cultures in other countries, you need to understand where the people come historically, their struggles and their values. These values are the bases of how these cultures / countries make business decisions; (Their individual business decisions models). Take for instance the German culture. You must understand their history in order to understand how to deal and make business transactions with them. Without understanding any of their history and their struggles, I would clearly insult them if I choose to do a formal business transaction, wearing flimsy, cheap shoes (or is my shoes are too casual, this would insult them) Because shoes historically in their culture has a deep meaning and the struggles they had to endure. Historically people in general could not afford shoes in Germany, if you had shoes made of leather you were considered well off, or a person of importance. As time has gone on, this value of importance and respect to the type of shoe you wear in business transactions weighs heavy on international business deals.

With this in mind, I feel this man, has not begun to understand our struggles or our values making the statements he did on this article. I feel he was unable to see our people and our country with the proper vision from an International business point of view. I was truly dissapointed in this mans narrow vision, and ignorance of cultures in his own country.