Tag: intercultural

absolutely intercultural 150 +++ Rock Our World +++ Life We Got +++ Alma Desnuda +++ Tara J King +++ Nunavut +++ India +++

Happy New Year and welcome to Absolutely Intercultural. In 2010 we won the European Podcast Award thanks to your votes and right now I’m busy listening to a really diverse set of podcasts as judge in the 2011 round of the award. Thanks to you all for your votes then and thanks for still being with us as we reach another landmark with this 150^th show.

absolutely photographic
Tourism is a huge industry but if you want to promote tourism to your country it is a good idea to find out how people perceive it first. And how better to do that than to use pictures? What does the name Nunavut mean to you? If I tell you that Nunavut is a country would you know where it was? If I tell you that it is in Arctic Canada do you suddenly have some pictures in your mind about what it might be like? I must admit that I had never heard of Nunavut until I came across Maarten Loonen’s interesting survey. Maarten is a biologist from the Netherlands and most likely to be seen in arctic regions working on geese so when I heard he was interested in people’s reactions to images I was intrigued as to why. As you heard Maarten is very interested in getting more responses to his survey in the next couple of months and when he has had time to analyse the results I will go back and find out what he discovered. You can find the link to his online survey here.

absolutely Indian
I’ve just returned to work from my Christmas break which is of course a big and long celebration in Europe, North America and elsewhere, but not everywhere. Would you miss Christmas if you went to live somewhere else? We’re going to get a short update from Rebecca Chadwick who is in India for a year long film skills course. Having experienced 18 Christmasses in the UK will she miss it or be glad to avoid the tinsel and corny Christmas songs for once?

absolutely connected
Our next piece reminded me a little about the Iraqi youth orchestra which we featured last year. I was contacted by Paul Suhr who is a member of the band Alma Desnuda meaning naked souls. Alma Desnuda had just completed an amazing project together with Tara J King in which they recorded a song and video with children from all over the world. This is the type of project which you just could not have conceived of not so long ago but which accessible Internet and cheap online communication tools makes entirely possible. I think that we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the types of rich connections we can make in a connected world and that creative people are going to find all sorts of different ways to get us talking to each other in the very near future. The project is called Rock our World and the song Life we Got, is a celebration. I know that it’s a cliché to say that underneath it all we’re all the same but I think that the beginning of a new year is a good time to celebrate what unites us rather than what divides us. We’re going to hear from Paul firstly about how his band came about and then about how you compose and record a song with the help of 2000 children from all over the world. You can buy the song on iTunes (proceeds go to the Rock Our World organisation) and don’t forget to go and see the video!

And to do the picture questionnaire.

Our next show will be coming to you from Dr. Laurent Borgmann in Australia on February 3rd so stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Anne Fox

absolutely intercultural 149 +++ Queen and Obama in Australia +++ Day in the life of Laurence +++ Master in International Marketing +++ EXlites solar lighting +++ stereotypes French-German +++

Hello Mates and G’day, this is show 149 of our podcast absolutely intercultural. And it is coming to you all the way from down-under, Queensland, Australia where I am teaching and doing some research for one semester. Two months ago, in October 2011, the Queen of England visited Australia. Only a month later, in November by the President of the United States came to Australia, too. And now, in December I started my summer term as a visiting academic at the University of the Sunshine coast (LOL). So who am I? My name is Elmar-Laurent Borgmann and after all these important state visits which were widely reported about in the Australian media I would today prefer to concentrate on more mundane, everyday aspects of life in Australia as experienced by a European. And yet, I hope we will be able to surprise you with some stimulating intercultural findings. Our interviewees today are from France, from Germany, and of course from Australia.

absolutely down-under
Let us look at an ordinary day in Australia. Some people back in Europe listened to my absolutely down-under reports during my last stay in Australia. They had heard about a “Tropical Christmas by the Pool” or a “National Australia Day” which I described both in previous shows and learned a lot about intercultural differences. However, some of them asked me to concentrate more on a the normal, regular, everyday life in Queensland. And they are right – we do expect holidays and celebrations to be different in different countries – but how about a regular university day? Hmm, what a challenge. I had thought this was too boring to record but maybe not? So, I followed myself with the microphone and recorded my intercultural impressions one morning from getting up at 7 o’ clock until I arrived at the University of the Sunshine Coast at 9. You will notice from my comments how much I like this part of the world – except for the first minutes after waking up – I admit, I am not a morning person. In the podcast you catch me waking up with my windows wide open to the tropical forest. In a second part later in the show I continue my intercultural report about a regular Australian morning going to work on the Sunshine Coast in my car. I would like to share some thoughts about beautiful landscapes but also of rather masculine-looking cars and trucks in this country before I arrive at the University of the Sunshine Coast where finally I see some wild kangaroos, not on a road sign but in real life and much closer than I expected …

absolutely business-like
I will also take you into the university, where international students from Europe will describe how in their International Marketing Class they did some work for an Australian Business. The round-table discussion was recorde after an exam situation a couple of weeks ago right at the start of the summer semester 2011/2012. To me summer 2011/2012 still sounds rather weird as in Europe only winter semesters could span two calendar years. So this is just another reminder that we are in the southern hemisphere. But back to the classroom. I was invited to sit in on the exams of students on the Master of International Business program. Apart from myself as external examiner, there was of course Dr. Leone Cameron, the regular lecturer but also, Mike Arieni, Managing Director of EXlites, a regional business for whom the group of international students had done some research about solar Energy in Europe. I asked the group how this combination of international students, an interculturally trained lecturer and a local business person enhanced their academic progress. Leone’s Master course the students had the chance to get in touch with a real business man and help him prepare his business plan for entering the European Market. Just like Mike, I, too, was impressed by the depth of the students’ research and I had a feeling that Mike took very good notice of the opportunities and challenges that the students presented for the different European countries. In a second part we will also hear from Waldemar Schneider and Clément Slastan about some of the stereotypes the international students confirmed when they lived together in shared apartments. Clément seems to have noticed a certain “lack of flexibility” in the Germans.

Once you have heard the show, please go to our “write us an email“-button in the right margin and tell us whether you liked these slightly unusual intimate insights into my own life down-under and whether you would like to get more such personal reports.

Our next show will be coming to you from Anne Fox in Denmark on 6 January.

Until then –
Bleiben Sie absolut interkulturell!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann

absolutely intercultural 148 +++ Languages +++ Acadie +++ French +++ Yoruba +++ Michot +++ Benin +++ Baloubi +++

Myspace Layouts

In this show we’ll be looking mostly at languages in the US and how that helps or hinders intercultural understanding.

absolutely Francophone
We’ll start with Louis Michot, one of the prime movers behind the Cajun Punk band the Lost Bayou Ramblers. In show 144 we heard about their music and what it meant to the band members as well as its cultural roots. Another topic that we talked a great deal about was the status of the French language in Louisiana. I made a trip to Louisiana many years ago and I have to say that the language was not really evident but when I talked to Louis I discovered that this was because it was mostly hidden. So the question is why would anyone in Louisiana want to hide the fact that they can speak French? And do people in Louisiana still learn French? Is it absolutely francophone?

absolutely informed
So there’s a lot of sensitive history behind the survival of the French language in that part of the United States. Then a few weeks ago, my eyes and ears in Florida, Kole Odutola alerted me to a Communiqué sent out by the Southeast African Languages and Literatures Forum on October 2nd, which read:
We, the members of Southeast African Languages and Literatures Forum (SEALLF) at the second annual conference of the forum held at the Chapel Hill Campus of the University of North Carolina, acknowledge that in view of the internationalization of the curriculum at many American colleges and universities, there is the need to increase the number of American undergraduate and graduate students engaged in the study of critical languages of Africa.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks many US universities beefed up their foreign language requirements in recognition of the fact that to understand another culture it helps greatly if you know a bit of the language. So here was a Communiqué suggesting that the foreign language requirement should more often lead to the learning of an African language such as Yoruba. But why? To find out more I spoke to Dr Désiré Baloubi of Shaw University in North Carolina, the Chair of the Forum behind the Communiqué. And during the course of our conversation I also learned a new acronym, HBCU, which stands for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. So why does an English teacher start a campaign to promote the learning of African languages?

absolutely illegal
The issue of language just doesn’t go away and after finding out how and why Louis Michot learned French, I spoke to his father Tommy Michot to find out more about attitudes to the French language in the recent past and discovered that at one point it was absolutely illegal! We’ll start by hearing as Tommy Michot sings in French a snippet of La Valse de la Meche Perdue with his band Les Frères Michot.

Thanks to all those who took part and remember that if you’ve got a good idea for a show then get in touch and we’ll see if we can include it. We’re always on the look out for interesting people and ideas. Don’t forget to take a look at our webiste if you want to follow up on some of the people or issues we’ve looked at in this show. You’re welcome to leave us a comment about what you thought, a question or a suggestion.

Thanks for your support which got us all the way to a European Podcast Award last year. The nominations are open for this year’s competition and as part of the PR around the award I was interviewed about this podcast and what it meant to win the award. You’ll find a link to that podcast here.

Well it’s been a busy few weeks in which amongst other things I took part in the Managing Cultural Diversity seminar held every year at the Rhein Ahr campus. And this year there are pictures so here is a link to the Facebook Album. And as if this wasn’t enough, my co-host Laurent Borgmann is once again leaving for Australia for a few months. So in order to make things more manageable we have decided to go monthly. So watch out for the next show which will be coming to you from Down Under!

Our next show will be coming to you from Dr. Laurent Borgmann in Australia

The host of this show is: Anne Fox

absolutely intercultural 145 +++ Internship FAZ +++ Facebook no thanks! +++ JUAf charity Tanzania +++ Tradie of the Month +++

Today our show will be all about work and will focus on different work situations. You will first listen to an interview with Kyle Hickman from California who did an internship with a German newspaper, then to Mathew Dunne, a plumber from New Zealand, who worked in England and who is currently working in Munich, Germany. Also, I interviewed Judi McAlpine, an American manager who quit her job to found a non-profit organization in Tanzania. Adelheid Korpp will tell us her reasons, why Facebook will never play a role for her, neither in her working life or her private life.

absolutely committed
In our first category I talk to Kyle Hickman from California. At the time of the interview, Kyle was doing an internship with a big national newspaper in Germany, the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“, and told us a little about the cultural differences he had noticed between California and Germany. For example, he seems to have detected a difference in attitude towards interns who are doing a practical training in a company. While he expected to be exploited as cheap labour – making coffee, copies or “cold calls” he noticed that his internship in Germany was really centered on the professional development of the intern – often even based on the intern’s personal likes and interests. So, from the beginning Kyle was trusted with what he calls “real work” and was able to contribute to the success of the newspaper. However, he also found out that smiling too much in the work place could be seen as suspicious in his host country and adapted his behavior accordingly. He did not find it difficult to integrate, though, as he grabbed every opportunity to be social with his co-workers. Listen out for what Kyle shares about eye-contact and how he had to adapt to a different culture.

absolutely careful
In our second category I talk to Adelheid Korpp. She is responsible for the so-called “incoming students” at RheinAhrCampus. Students from our partner universities who have been in contact with her often want to add her as a friend to their Facebook accounts. However, Adelheid is suspicious of being part of this biggest virtual community in the world. Well, she is probably right because life was difficult and complex enough before we had to check Facebook and Twitter. Sharing your personal information and pictures on the internet can, indeed, sometimes perhaps be harmful for you and for your career. So let’s find out, why she doesn’t want to take part in the big social media hype.

absolutely helpful
In our third category I interviewed Judi McAlpine from the US when we both met in Cambodia earlier this year. Judi was a very successful manager for a huge company in the US. But then she transferred all her resources into a 2-years stay in Tanzania, where she lived in the villages with indigenous people and founded a charity. JUAF is a registered non-profit charity located in the Kikwe village of Tanzania. In partnership with indigenous women, Judi founded a village with resources for vulnerable women and children to empower them to fight poverty. This is done through micro financing, education, and support. Check out their blog for more information. But why would someone like Judi give up her well-paid job in the US to move to third-world-country?

absolutely tradie
In our last category I Interview Mat Dunne who is a plumber from New Zealand. He has travelled a lot around the world for his work. He worked in Canada and in England. Right now he is living in Munich, Germany. In every step of his life he experienced different cultural situations. In the interview he will tell us about the differences in reputation between “tradies” in New Zealand and craftsmen in Europe. It is, indeed, true that the same profession may have very different prestige and reputation in different countries. I was personally surprised during my time in Australia to find that “tradies, unlike their often bourgeois German counterparts would mostly be very good-looking guys with a cool hair- and life style and a surfboard on their cars so that in between two customers they would hop on their boards and enjoy the surf. On page 3 of cheap newspapers you would sometimes even find the picture of a shirtless “tradie of the month”.

Our next show will be coming to you from Anne Fox in Denmark on 14 October

Until then –
Bleiben Sie absolut interkulturell!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann
Editor: Markus Scherer

absolutely intercultural 143 +++ ERASMUS special +++ Experience Report +++ EU-placements +++ Internship +++

Today, we present a show which is going to focus on the European Program called “ERASMUS”, named after Eramus of Rotterdam. However, the name also stands for “EuRopean Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students”. So, University students can apply for ERASMUS grants when they want to study abroad withinin Europe. Therefore we will hear different opinions about this mobility program and the opportunities students gain by studying abroad within the ERASMUS framework. Nowadays it is more and more important for students to internationalize themselves during their studies. This means they have to leave their comfort zones and broaden their horizons by studying abroad. In order to initiate this process, the European ERASMUS program was founded almost 25 years and has been giving out grants for the internationalization of students.

absolutely basic
In our first category Adelheid Korpp is going to tell us, what the program is about and which preparations students have to make. She is an expert on the ERASMUS program. She is responsible for the so-called “incoming students” at RheinAhrCampus and she knows a lot about the grants. She will tell us which countries in Europe take part in the ERASMUS program and what benefits student can expect if they decide to go on an ERASMUS exchange. For good Europeans it is essential to understand each other better particularly in context of the recent discussions about financial solidarity between the European member states.

absolutely experienced
In our second category Timo Schneider will share his experiences with us. He is back from his stay in Worcester, England, where he studied at a partner university of RheinAhrCampus. He will tell us how he heard about the program, what motivated him to put in an application, and of course which benefits he got from his stay. Timo also shares some of his intercultural experiences in sports where he noticed that his previous stereotypes really did not help. He will also give us a very useful advice.

absolutely working
In our last category Carsten Ritterath a student of business administration reports about his preparation for an internship in England. His football coach helped him find the English organisation where one of his tasks was to compare English and German approaches to health management in companies. Carsten managed to get a grant from ERASMUS-placements and he tells us what he needed to do in order to apply for this. He wrote a letter of motivation, a curriculum vitae, he took part in an intercultural seminar and he had to pass an English test. I took this interview with Carsten some time ago so in the meantime he is already back from his very successful ERASMUS stay.

Our next show will be coming to you from Anne Fox in Denmark on 16 September

Until then –
Bleiben Sie absolut interkulturell!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann
Editor: Markus Scherer

absolutely intercultural 139 +++ Kurds and Arabs +++ Iraq +++ NYOI +++ Spiritual Journeys +++ Migration +++

In this show we will talk about: religious intercultural exchange and especially the famous Catholic event “World Youth Day”, a New Zealander who traveled the world and found the most unusual souvenir in Peru (his wife), and I will take you behind the scenes of the inspiring project – the “The National Youth Orchestra of Iraq” which we already heard about in our last shows.

absolutely unexpected part I
We heard from the Scottish conductor Paul MacAlindin himself, from tutors who are supporting the orchestra by teaching different musical instruments and even from students at RheinAhrCampus who helped promote the project through social media such as Facebook and YouTube. This time, in our first category we will hear more about the intercultural differences, the language barriers and the everyday challenges of the “National Youth Orchestra of Iraq”. I talk with Karl-Walter Keppler, the chairperson of the sponsorship association which is organising financial support for the Iraqi musicians so that they can travel to Europe to perform in the Beethovenfest in Germany. Karl-Walter has first-hand intercultural experiences as he, himself, travelled to Iraq last year. But what are the motivations behind his involvement in the project?

absolutely spiritual
In our second category I talk to a student from RheinAhrCampus, Denise Wagner, who is perhaps a little different from other students. Most students nowadays are not very religious. Or if they are, we don’t really notice. However, Denise is an exception. She is an active Catholic and likes to do pilgrimages and so she has traveled to many spiritual places – for example the Greek Island Pathmos. Her next destination will be the “World Youth Day” which is going to take place in Spain later this year. But is she doing this on her own? And what exactly happens when she arrives at these places? Is this about fasting with bread and water in a monastery or about dancing around campfires and playing the guitar?

absolutely unexpected part II
In this category I want to come back to the interview with Karl-Walter Keppler. In this part he gives us insights into the specific work on the project. So what is his foundation doing for the orchestra? Without this support the Iraqui musicians would not be able to pay for their travel to Europe. Karl-Walter is going to tell us about the status quo of the project! Where are they at the moment, what they need and what is going to happen in the future?

absolutely migrated
In our last category Mathew Dunne will share some of his life experiences with you. He is originally from New Zealand, but travelled the world until he met his wife in Peru on a holiday. He loves to leave his comfort zone and travel to unique destinations, but he may have different motivations… On these journeys, Mat has experienced a lot more than most of us. Mat is not just traveling as a holiday maker – he has lived in most of the countries he visited for a longer period of time and even worked there. He will tell us about his motivations and his specific experiences he gathered while working as plumber in London.

Our next show will be coming to you from Anne Fox in Denmark on 22 July

Until then –
Bleiben Sie absolut interkulturell!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann
Editor: Markus Scherer

absolutely intercultural 137 +++ National Youth Orchestra Of Iraq +++ Marketing Project +++ New European Mobility Law +++

“The National Youth Orchestra of Iraq” is an inspiring project led by musical director Paul MacAlindin which is going to play in Bonn, Germany, on 1 October in the context of the Beethovenfest. In show 135 I interviewed Paul about the project itself. Now I am talking to some of the supporters of his project. On the one hand there is Prof. Karin Wolf, who plays the violin and is helping the players to improve and on the other hand there are two students from RheinAhrCampus who are also playing their role in the project.

absolutely open
Karin Wolf, a professor of viola, will share her experiences with us. She tried to collect musical instruments for the orchestra. Karin asked at her school whether people would have instruments which are no longer used and which could be donated to this international project. Furthermore she supported Paul and now she is helping the viola players to improve. In this interview she will share her motivation with us and the reasons why she is taking part in the project.

absolutely professional (part I)
Lucy Warren, our committed exchange student from Australia and co-worker in the International Office, will interview Nadya Kokareva from Russia. They are both involved in the “National Youth Orchestra Of Iraq” project. Nadya is also a participant of the university course “International Business Simulations” at RheinAhrCampus. Nadya will tell us in a first part how quickly her university course and the simulated company turned into a realistic one with a customer, what the students are doing for this customer and how they support the “National Youth Orchestra of Iraq”.

absolutely political
I would like to share a commentary given by one of my university colleagues about a political change which has affected Europe during the last few months. Two students from RheinAhrCampus, Marc Friedrich and Andrea Edel, interviewed Heinz Schaumann a university lecturer and expert in European institutions and law. Marc asked about the newest political developments in Europe; the recent changes in mobility law which were widely discussed in Germany. The countries in Europe have gradually opened their borders to the labor market. Especially those countries which followed the 2-3-2 rule are now the focus of European attention. This rule was made to somehow protect the labor markets of Western European countries for 7 years from workers migrating from East to West. Heinz Schaumann is in a very good position to give us a report about what happened and about the future prospects, for example the advantages and disadvantages for the “old” countries of the European Union.

absolutely professional (part II)
The Arabic and Kurdish players of the orchestra will leave their country in September, albeit, only for a short period of time and will travel to Germany. They will have to abandon their intercultural comfort zones by leaving their home country and coming to a foreign country with a very different culture, to play music in a multi-ethnic orchestra. In our last category Nadya tells us in the second part of the interview what specific role she held in the project and in the simulated company and what YOU, the audience, could do, to support the Orchestra, too! If you are interested in the way the exchange students are involved in the project, you can also follow them on their blog.

Ways to support “The National Youth Orchestra of Iraq”:

YOUTUBE: 1. NYOI plays for kids, 2. General Information, 3. KICKSTARTER

FACEBOOK: 1. German, 2. International
We hope we can motivate some of you to help support the “Youth Orchestra” with their project and their trip to Europe!

Breaking News: Saudi Arabian women want to be allowed to drive on their own! You can get to know something about their situation on Youtube and on their blog! Enjoy!

Our next show will be coming to you from Anne Fox in Denmark on 24 June

Until then –
Bleiben Sie absolut interkulturell!

The host of this show is: Dr. Laurent Borgmann
Editor: Markus Scherer