MOHAMED ALASHAR (Homework #2)

Before Interacting with people at the cultural festival I was wondering how I should initiate and approach other people. However, I decided to take risk and approach them while trying to avoid cutting off their conversations with people. Therefore, I “sensed” the right opportunity and approached them when I felt that they are bored of what they were doing, or interested in meeting and teaching others about their culture.

The first person I approached was a Taiwanese gentleman. I tried to start the conversation with the question “How do you use chopsticks?” He taught me how to use them and how the city he lived in is more advanced from Atlanta. I learned that his city has more advanced metro and architecture technologies. He

Did not have questions about my country, but it seemed that he did not know my country by it’s actual name, he only knew Dubai, a city in my country,  and its projects, so I told him about the other cities and the minor differences between them.

LEARNING TO USE CHOPSTICKS!

The second person I approached was a Japanese lady. I initiated the conversation by saying  “Hello, this is the Japanese stand. Right?” in a curious way. She explained to me about her language and about different Japanese writing characters. I learned that they have three different “alphabets” to write in Japanese, and that she was wearing the Japanese traditional clothes called “kimono”. She wrote my name in Japanese on a nice piece of paper and gave it to me and then we started talking about some Japanese terms and sentences and their meanings that I learned from my life experience and how they are said in my language.

LEARNING ABOUT THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE!

The third person was hard to find because I decided to hunt for Georgia Tech students. I saw him on the side of the road looking bored or waiting for someone. I started the conversation by showing him the paper with my name, country, and questions. He was a native American English speaker from Georgia. I was surprised that he knew a lot of things about my country because most of the Americans that I have met know only about Dubai, so I only told him about the economical state of the different cities of my country. Our conversation ended when I excused myself to go to my class at 1:00 pm.

MOHAMED WITH A GEORGIA TECH STUDENT

I found myself talking more fluently and comfortably when I knew about the things I was talking about, and I expressed my intentions relying mostly on length and stresses of the words and hand movements. I did not have problems understanding these people because I usually understand what others’ intentions and what they are trying to say even if they do not speak a language I understand.

Remember! Always make your partner look good!