I'm back, baby!

I've been away from the blog for quite some time.  While many things remain the same (like the fact that I still hate Facebook and still miss many of my departed expat buddies), there's lots of change shakin' in our household these days.

So while I haven't written in a while, I have been thinking about what I would write when I finally did return. And the fact I was still thinking about it told me it was time to just do it.

While on my self-imposed sabbatical, I did find myself reading quite a few blogs by other expats.  Some of them are funny and help me feel more connected to others by knowing I am not flailing in isolation, but others made me want to spit at my monitor and bemoan the fecklessness, foolishness, and lack of appropriate punctuation. It got me thinking about why we write blogs in the first place.  I always said I would never do it as I find it completely self-indulgent and, frankly, a little narcissistic to think anyone would care enough about what I have to say. 

This thought translates to all forms of social media, actually.  Early on in my blogging career (which, mind, spans less than a year), I described my efforts to be more connected by means of technology. Almost a year on, I realize I don't want to be *that* connected. In replacing real social connection with technological interaction, relationships become strained and false. Now don't get me wrong - I keep a Facebook account and a Skype log-on as I rely on those methods to keep me connected to people with whom I want to be connected - people with whom I would write letters and talk on the phone given no other speedier, full-color option.

But excessive technological connection actually degrades the quality of our real relationships by leading us to believe that we are truly connected to people because we 'friend' them. However, with no real follow up or investment, these friendships feel false and empty as we think, on the surface, that we have a great social network. But when it comes down to brass tacks*, how many of these people really play an active role in our lives? 

We all only have so much energy, so I have made the decision to focus my little bucket 'o glee on fostering those relationships that represent more than a voyeuristic 'through the keyhole' glimpse at someone else's life by way of an online profile and instead try harder to connect with those people that mean a lot to me by growing our friendship.  And I might even use a little technology to do it.

A lot has been written recently about the mental effects of having too much access into another person's life with whom you do not have a close friendship. Knowing that the long-distance friend who does not seem to have time to respond to your latest email but has the time to post 15 status updates in an hour can be unnerving.  Or what about the friend who was really more for a casual acquaintance but now feels the need to comment on every post you make? Or the person who spies photos of a party on your wall and realizes they weren't invited and kicks up a fuss? Even Kahlil Gibran, author of the ubiquitous wedding reading, "The Prophet", advised us to "let there be spaces in your togetherness". Now if only there were an option for that in your Facebook privacy settings.

So that all being said, I've always thought myself to be a little self-indulgent and narcissistic anyway (hey, man, we all are), so I'll keep blogging away, just perhaps a little less often and a lot less about my personal life.  Watch this space...
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* Ever wonder where that phrase comes from?  Wonder no more. I'm not sure I really care, but when I looked it up and saw there was reference not only to my motherland of Texas, but also to the hometown of a bestie, I thought it worth mentioning.  Spread the word.

The Break Up

There's someone in my life I am considering breaking up with.  He takes up too much of my time, spreads gossip about me to other people, and embarrasses me with bad photos and even more cringe-worthy comments.  He forces me to acknowledge people that are probably best forgotten, and he forces people to remember me when I'd probably prefer some of them didn't.  He makes me feel like that awkward high school kid and a coming-up-on-middle-age fogey all at the same time by jamming almost every social relationship I've ever had into one tiny cyberspace.

Yeah, I'm talking about you, Facebook.

I was a latecomer to Facebook, only signing up about 18 months ago after much effort to avoid.  And at first it was bliss.  I could be a voyeur in the lives of people I had always wondered about.  I could accept a friend request, peek at someone's photos to see how they aged, check out who they married, and what they did for a living.  Problem is, my curiosity really ended there.  But instead of a tidy and brief 'through the keyhole' interaction, I spent the next months blocking pokes and flair and hugs from people I'm certain I will never see in person again.

So I went housecleaning.  I've always loved a good clear out, so I started defriending that guy who went to another school who I couldn't really remember but swears we met at a debate tournament in junior high once.  I defriended anyone that I knew in  my heart of hearts I either was never really friends with to begin or would never see again (and didn't regret the fact). I even managed to figure out how to block all those annoying applications that were desperate for my details.  And peace reigned... for a while.

Then I went messing with my privacy settings.  I locked my profile down so heavily no one could see anything.  Which, frankly, wasn't a huge problem for me.  Until it was.  And I started getting flack from others asking why they couldn't see my wall, my photos, my status updates, etc.  I'm usually pretty good at managing to offend people myself in real-lifesies, so I sure don't need the added complication of unintended cyber offence*. 

I really wish I had the cahones to just quit Facebook altogether.  But as a stranger in a strange land, it plays a role for me of keeping me in touch with my people**, and that's important.  I like keeping up with my high school peeps and those friends I've made around the world.  But I do wish some of the recent trend to be offended by Facebook activities would cease, as it is making what is supposed to be a fun way to keep in touch seem like hard work.

And, really, if you think about it, the stuff we share on Facebook with the people that don't really know us is quite astounding. This video from BBC3 summarizes it perfectly (and gives a giggle to boot):


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* Heck, if I'm being honest, sometimes offence probably was intended.  Which makes me like Facebook even less as it makes me do petty and impetuous things.
** And to my 'people' - don't be miffed with my diatribe. I may want to break up with Facebook, but not with you.  So no hurt feelers or looking for yourself between the lines in my message.

The S-word

All good little children are warned against using the S-word. In my lectures about cultural diversity and understanding, I like to discuss the other S-word*.

Stereotypes.

You would think as a purveyor of all things tolerance-oriented that I would eschew stereotypes. But I actually think they’re pretty useful devices to help us reflect on our own culture and the different cultures around us. And, if we’re being really honest, stereotypes are almost always born from some (at least small) grain of truth. But admitting that can be uncomfortable as it requires us to acknowledge the less-than-perfect in ourselves and in others.

I have lived with the stereotype of many things, some I have embraced and some I have rejected. But there’s a little bit of reality in many of the things used to stereotype. But we tend to focus mostly on the negative when talking about stereotypes.

In a lecture last week I was discussing stereotypes, and I always use Americans as the example for debate**. I stood at the board, pen at the ready, and asked the class (of all Norwegian students) to tell me about Americans. The list was about the same as what I usually hear.

“Loud!”

Yeah, true enough.

“Aggressive!”

Sure, sometimes.

“Competitive!”

I agree.

“Money-oriented!”

Likely the case.

“Lovers of peace!”

Okay…wait… huh?

Never in ten years of doing this exercise had that particular gem dropped from anyone’s lips. Most often it is along the lines of ‘war-mongering’ (I’ll spare your delicate eyes some of the other choice comments).

After I recovered from the shock of what I had just heard, I asked the student to tell me more. He explained that it seemed like the US really wanted to work with other countries for the betterment of the world, and it also seemed, in his opinion, that the US was trying to right some of the overly-aggressive (and warhead-led) charges of the past decade***.

Well, I’ll be.

This warms the cockles of my heart as, when teaching stereotypes, I always prepare myself for the negatives, and this gentlemen reminded me that the best thing about stereotypes is that they can change, and sometimes even for the better.

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* No, not socialism, for all the Republicans out there. Just to clarify.
** As I have previously mentioned, it’s always safer to let others laugh at you in a potentially uncomfortable classroom situation than it is to dare to laugh at anyone else.

*** If you don’t agree with this fellow’s assessment, that’s fine. It’s not about consensus – it’s his opinion.

Stopped

This has been 72 hours fraught with nerves. On Monday morning, Husband and I stopped smoking.

And it hurts.

A lot.

The craziest thing is that we have both been here before. I smoked all through university, then quit when I moved to Scotland in 2002. I remained smoke-free for 3 years, until a bad breakup with the reason I moved to Scotland sent me scuttling for the Marlboro’s.

A few weeks before Husband and I married in 2006 (it was a short engagement, as mentioned previously), we agreed to stop again. (I think it was mainly because he was scared of his mom finding out. She’s a formidable woman.)

So stop we did, and it was a little easier as we had the excitement of a wedding, reunions with old friends, and an Italian honeymoon to take our mind off things. Incidentally, we started again almost immediately after his mother was out of earshot (or 'smell-shot' I guess would be more apropros).  So I'm not sure that time really counts as quitting at all - more of a little break.

This time is markedly more difficult. We actually decided to stop last Friday when we went on holiday. We lasted about 6 hours, which was the time it took to fly from Stavanger to Athens, check in to our hotel, and situate ourselves at an outdoor café.

We ‘stopped’ again every morning of our holiday, for approximately 5 hours, until we both got the post-lunch/ no-nicotine shakes, and went scrambling for a pack at the cruise ship bar. We finally pinky-swore that when we got on the plane to return home on Monday, that would be it. So we inhaled our last fag* at a hotel in Barcelona Monday morning.

Monday night was not too bad as we were busy travelling all day, and by the time we got home we were so exhausted all we could do was collapse into bed. Tuesday morning we both woke up feeling what I can only describe as seasick and hungover, rounded out with a touch of the swine flu. We mutually agreed speech was not necessary and both stumbled around silently, only stopping to frown or grunt at one another.

I’ll spare all the other details, but suffice to say, while it is not quite as dramatic as a detox scene from Trainspotting (oh, you know it if you’ve seen it!), it is rather unpleasant. Today I no longer want to shout at people, so I feel this could be the turning point. Onward and upward!

But why did we decide to stop?

Sure, there’s all the health reasons, and I am not minimizing them, but if they alone were enough then no one would smoke… ever… as we know cigarettes lead to bad things in your body.

We stopped due to simple economics.

In Norway, a pack of smokes costs about 80 nok. Since I smoked about a pack a day, multiply that 80 nok over 365 days. That’s 29,200 nok a year. But wait! Husband smokes the same amount, so that’s actually 58,400 nok. At today’s FX rates, that’s about $10,500.

I ask myself how likely it would be that I would set fire to $30 every morning when I woke up. I think we can all agree that just seems foolish. But I was effectively doing the same thing in the form of a cigarette. While that might not be an altruistic or health-concious reason to stop, it's my reason, and it works for me.

So, yes, kids, smoking is bad for you. But it’s not just bad for your lungs, it’s bad for your bank account as well. When I consider the entire cost of my MBA was what I spend on cigarettes in a year now, it helps put things in perspective (although smoking was decidedly more fun than the MBA, and it gave me more to talk about at parties).

So here I am, yet again a non-smoker. If we know each other in real life, it’s probably best to let the beast lie another few days before prodding its cage!
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* As a point of cultural trivia, a ‘fag’ is what some Scots call a cigarette. Imagine my surprise. It led to all kinds of confusion, some funny, some not.

We're number one! ...or are we?

All my Norway Facebook friends are posting, reposting and cross-posting. Big news in these parts, the UN has announced Norway is the best country in which to live.

Husband originally called to tell me this. What I thought he said was "Hey! Norway is now the best place to live. The UN posted a poll on Facebook!" He let me rant on about shoddy data collection methods for a wee while before he corrected me. What he actually said was "I posted it on Facebook!" I really should listen to Husband a little better.

In any event, just because the results weren't collected by a Facebook poll, as a student of statistics and research methods, I still do think it's worth considering the methodology of the poll. I'm not here to comment so much on the results of the survey, but rather to really understand how Norway got to number one.

The Human Development Index (HDI) provides "a broadened prism for viewing human progress and the complex relationship between income and well-being." However, there are some important limitations of the index, namely that it does not include any factors related to gender or income equality, political freedom, or human rights (of course some clever souls have created separate indices for those).

It's worth noting that this is not actually news. Norway has held the number one spot every year since the HDI was initiated in 1980 (see page 167 of the full report*). It's also worth noting that Norway did not win the top spot by a landslide. Norway's 2009 HDI was 0.971, whereas the number 2 and 3 spots were taken by Australia and Iceland with scores of 0.970 and 0.969 respectively.

The methodology of the HDI has also changed. The report authors mention this on page 170, noting that "The human development index values in this table were calculated using a consistent methodology and data series. They are not strictly comparable with those published in earlier Human Development Reports." If it's consistent, then it should also be comparable. A fundamental measure of 'good' research is that it is reliable, which means that the same tests can be repeated using the same instruments. To change these instruments mid-stream calls into question the statistical constructs and comparability of the annual reports.

One of the reasons the underlying tests that comprise the HDI have changed is because the focus of the report has shifted. As of 2009, the report focuses on migration and opportunities available to immigrants in more developed countries. So the report is not necessarily measuring the best place to live, but rather the best place in which to live if you are in one of the less-developed countries looking for a new home that will afford you a longer life expectancy, easier access to education, and more economic opportunity. The HDI is not a measure of where you can find the best healthcare, school systems, and jobs (assuming these are measures of a good place in which to reside). It's more a measure of how to find better versions of those things based on where you originally come from.

So is Norway really the best place to live? Perhaps. But UN statisticians can't decide that - it's up to each of us to find our own best place. And you probably don't even need statistics to do it.

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* I refer to the full 2009 Human Development Report when mentioning page numbers. You can check out the full report here.

Janteloven

I learned a new word this week: tilbakemelding. It means “feedback”. Feedback is something I’ve been exposed to for many years, from having a supervisor red-line a research thesis to receiving criticism on my teaching style*. I roll with it, because I truly believe that criticism makes you better**.

I, like many other lecturers, use feedback as a teaching tool. I have recently been tasked with preparing a group of students for an upcoming international competition conducted in English, and I decided to use a 'trial by fire' method to whip them into shape as I didn't have much time.

I made them each stand up and give a presentation about whatever struck my fancy, and then I gave them feedback on it – I pointed out the good and the bad. But to help them gel as a team, I also asked the students to give feedback to each other. I’ve used this technique before when teaching in the US and the UK with great success. I should’ve known better in Norway.

Student 1 stands up and gives an adequate presentation. After giving him some pointers, I opened up the floor to the other students. No one budged***. So I gently nudged another student to offer some thoughts. This is how the conversation went:

Me: “Student 2, how did you think that presentation went?"
Student 2: “It was okay.”
Me: “Could you expand on that? What did you like?”
Student 2: “I like that he spoke so slowly. It made it easy to follow.”
Me: “Great! And were there any areas for improvement?”
Student 2: “Yeah, I thought he spoke too slowly. It made it hard to follow.”

And herein lies the problem with asking a Norwegian to give feedback. It’s not that they don’t have any constructive thoughts to offer, but it is very culturally uncomfortable to be seen to criticize another person. This means that there is rarely a harsh word said, but, likewise, there is rarely strong praise given.

After one of my very first lectures in Norway, one Norsk gentlemen approached me and said, “Thank you for the class. It was okay.” I was devastated. “Okay” in my book means barely adequate or could have been (markedly) better. I tried to take it on the chin and wandered back to my office feeling a bit dejected.

A few months later after another lecture, the scenario repeated itself. But this time, after receiving the ‘okay stamp of mediocrity', I decided to push it. Again, I want to do the best job I can for my students, so if there was an issue, I wanted to know about it so I could address it.

“You say you feel it was okay. What could I have done to make it better?” I asked. He looked at me, puzzled. He then explained to me that, when a Norwegian says something is ‘okay’, that’s likely the American equivalent of doing a handstand. Very understated, these Norwegians. He went on to tell me that to get told something is ‘okay’ may well be one of the nicest compliments to get from a Norwegian. This did not compute for me.

And then I discovered janteloven (Jante Law). Janteloven is a set of loose guidelines dictating proper behavior in Norwegian**** culture. According to Wikipedia, janteloven is made of up ten points:

1. Don't think that you are special.
2. Don't think that you are of the same standing as us.
3. Don't think that you are smarter than us.
4. Don't fancy yourself as being better than us.
5. Don't think that you know more than us.
6. Don't think that you are more important than us.
7. Don't think that you are good at anything.
8. Don't laugh at us.
9. Don't think that anyone of us cares about you.
10. Don't think that you can teach us anything.

If that isn’t a testament to an ‘us and them’ culture, I just don’t know what is. I’m not saying it’s bad (or good), just different. I was raised in a way that was almost completely opposite to these teachings, hence why I probably have little cultural clashes about things like tilbakemelding. It also explains why the praise is muted and the criticism softened.

I can’t totally get on board with janteloven, I must say. I think there’s value in humility, but I also think there’s equal value in self-confidence and knowing your abilities. I would rather see balance than extremes.
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* These ‘criticisms’ are usually masked as ‘teaching evaluations’, but students never say the nice things. It’s only the angry ones who seem to take the time to fill them out.
** That’s kind of a lie. I think criticism with the right intent makes you better. Just slagging someone off for no reason is not productive and it just makes you look like a meanie.
*** What this actually means is that everyone suddenly became very interested in a tiny speck on their desk and stared intently at it. People, please don’t think that by not making eye contact with me that I can’t see you. I know you don’t want to be called on. Which is exactly why I will call on you first.
**** And Danish, Finnish, and Swedish culture as well.

Me being me

This week has gone quickly and has left me a little knackered. After an eating, sleeping, and TV-watching weekend in Paris, I was thrust headlong back into the grind as I faced three presentations this week. They were all in some way about international human resource management and culture.

At the second presentation, made to a group of recent university graduates working in the oil industry, I spent an hour describing different academic constructs related to culture and discussed how to avoid pitfalls and conflict solely based on differing cultural expectations. I’ve given this talk (what feels like) a zillion times, and I breezed through, peppering the dialogue with examples of cultural gaffes I myself have made*.

After I finished talking, I opened up the floor for questions. In some ways I don’t know why I go through this exercise as there is rarely a question to be had** and I end up standing at the front, silently and desperately pleading for someone else to open their mouth.

And one recent graduate did just that – opened his mouth, I mean. I hadn’t anticipated that my explanation of my own cultural gaffes would actually deny me some credibility as a cultural “expert”***. He asked:

“If you know so much about culture, why do you make mistakes with it yourself?”

Good question, kid.

At the time I breezed off an answer I thought would satisfy the herd, but the question stuck with me. Why do I make the very mistakes I advise others how to avoid?

I think it comes down to emotion. Even if you know the ‘right’ answer or the ‘correct’ behavior in a given situation, when you are feeling stressed or defensive or sensitive, you revert to your core. And often my cultural core is diametrically opposed to the situation with which I am dealing.

So even though I know that raising my voice to a Norwegian will get me nowhere, when I am being told that my visa will take four months and not the promised four weeks to process, I revert to type. I become that stereotypical aggressive American. Even though I know that conflict is not resolved through hard negotiation tactics in Norway, I still use ultimatums as a bargaining chip. This strategy rarely works, but I can’t seem to help myself.

I can’t seem to help myself because, no matter how many layers of other cultures I wrap myself in, at my core, I am what I am and what I always was and what I likely will continue to be.

I think this realization is in some way freeing as I am allowing myself to make the mistakes I know I shouldn’t. But to be any other way wouldn’t be me being me. So I will keep telling others how to avoid cultural conflict, and I will do a pretty good job at avoiding it myself in most cases. But when I slip up, I will permit myself to be wrong and know that it’s okay.

It’s just me being me.
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* One of the most important lessons I learned when talking about anything that could be perceived as uncomfortable is that you are safer making fun of yourself and having a group laugh at your own expense than you ever will be trying to use veiled humor directed at the audience. I learned this lesson only after managing to insult about 150 Norwegians with what I thought was a funny anecdote about the perceptions of Norwegians by foreigners. Let’s just say 150 sharp intakes of breath and about as many dirty looks later, I resolved never to make the same mistake again.
** My own take on this is not that there are not questions, but that a Norwegian, no matter how beautiful their spoken English, feels awkward speaking English in front of their fellow countrymen. I sympathize with this as I know the level of panic if I even have to utter one sentence på norsk into a microphone, so I just appreciate it and move on. I still do hold out hope that one brave soul might ask away.
*** I put “expert” in quotes as I am really an expert in nothing but the preparation of Tex-Mex food and celebrity trivia.