An ‘intercultural incident’ describes
an experience that someone has during a visit abroad;
something s/he does not expect because the rules or
customs are different from those in his/her own country.
Below are a few things noticed by a Cypriot
woman.
Nearly getting run over
I nearly got run over several times the first time
I went to the UK. In Cyprus if you are a moderately
pretty girl most drivers will stop or slow down to
let you cross. In the UK I soon realized I had to
use pelican crossings and wait for the green light.
Green
light in Bilbao
In Bilbao (northern Spain) locals seem to wait
for the green light at pelican crossings even
if the streets are completely empty.
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao
Motorbike
on pavement
In the UK when a youth rode his motorbike on the
pavement my English friends were so shocked they
spent the next few minutes talking about the incident.
To me that kind of behaviour did not appear out
of the norm, because in Cyprus it is quite common.
In
the first observation, she noted that, “In
Cyprus, if you are a moderately pretty girl (our
emphasis), most drivers will stop or slow down to
let you cross”. Is that true in your country?
And what about
the person who rode his motorbike on the pavement?
How shocked would you be, if you witnessed that?
Answer these questions
in your worksheet (Task 5 and 6).
