October 15, 2014
This is not my first experience with re-entry. I’ve experienced two severe bouts of reverse culture shock over the years, along with many milder ones. Here’s what I’ve learned along the way.
This post originally appeared on The Daily Muse. Even if you’ve been working abroad for a while, and you feel comfortable getting around the city and chatting with colleagues, there’s something incredibly intimidating about being invited to give a formal presentation in your second (or third) language. Take it from me: The first week I […]
“Mama, I’d like some Happy Kids Grow Taller and Taller.” “Sure, dear.” That’s a literal translation of a conversation that could happen within a Chinese family. Happy Kids Grow Taller and Taller is a roundabout explanation of the Chinese name for a Spanish brand of chocolate powder. 高樂高 (pronounced gao le gao) is the product’s Chinese […]
I loved this book! I couldn’t put it down and read it all in one evening. I look forward to reading it many more times, since Lisa’s book has given me a nuanced and comforting way to look at my own concept of home (not a simple concept in a nomadic life). I’ve been a […]
Today’s New York Times features a Room for Debate section about the need to learn multiple languages. Six panelists, including author Stacie Berdan, agree that it is crucial to learn more than one language to operate in the new, globalized world. They all refute an assertion by Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard University and former […]
I just read One White Face, a memoir by Hilary Corna, a young American woman who moved to Singapore right out of college and spent three years traveling the the Asia-Pacific region training Toyota dealerships in Kaizen. I enjoyed it, especially her descriptions of Toyota’s business culture and the reverse culture shock she felt when […]
Thanks to a thoughtful recommendation from Elise Bauer, author Scott Seligman sent me a review copy of The Cultural Revolution Cookbook, which is available on Amazon.com. I loved the book’s artful explanation of how disastrous government policy brought forth creative self-reliance. For most Chinese who lived through the Cultural Revolution, the very idea of a […]
These days I give lots of speeches. In Spanish. A language that is not my mother tongue. A language that I speak fluently, without hesitation. But my accent reveals: I come from somewhere else. On the way to an event, I thought of a comment by Rachel DeWoskin. Rachel’s first book, Foreign Babes in Beijing, is […]
I’ve been meaning to write about Nancy Duarte for a long time. Now I have the ideal examples to write this in a California-China-Chile context! Yes! Nancy and my dad worked together many years ago at Apple. In 1990 she founded Duarte Design. The company has since grown into the world leader in presentation design and training. […]