Since moving to the prairies, it seems we have managed to stuff our feet into our mouths on too many occasions as we have missed most of the social cues in this culture, saying and doing all the wrong things the first time out of the wicket. We keep hoping and praying this will change but it seems we are not all that bright in this particular cross-cultural situation.
We finally found out why some gifts we gave out recently were not accepted by the recipients, in fact were returned with a bit of attitude on their part. Thinking it would be more fitting to give a "liquid" gift of money, rather than inadvertently picking up some kind of useless present, we were rather shocked to have those gifts returned to us along with lectures as if we were a couple of irritating five year olds.
What we now know is that the giving of money can be interpreted here as being a gift of "charity".....as if the money represents the idea that the recipient is some kind of charity case in desperate need of funds. Our particular recipients lectured us on how that is not the case for them and they resented being made to feel that way.
Who knew?????
My husband tried to make them understand that there is a difference between giving a charitable donation to the needy, vs payment for services rendered, vs simply a fluid sort of gift that guarantees the recipient can purchase something they would actually like to have. His explanation fell on deaf ears and the money was returned. In a couple of cases the relationships seemed to be in danger of being damaged.
To us it was completely bizarre, to them it was an obvious faux pas on our part. (and apparently our errors born of misunderstanding the culture have been multitudinous over the past few years)
It wasn't until yesterday when someone from here gave US a gift of money that WE finally grasped the "charity case" explanation. The person who gifted us told us not to open the envelope she gave us until we got home and she hoped and prayed that when we did we would not be angry with her. She was so worried that her gift would make US feel like a "charity case". We sat her down and discussed with her why she would think we might feel that way and finally the light dawned on us. THIS is what our own gifted recipients had been trying to tell us. In our own culture it is an honour to receive a gift of money, a way for the person giving to let us know that they love us enough to want us to be able to purchase something we actually need with the money. Here it can be taken as an insult. Sigh.....
Okay, now we get it. Too late of course, but we do understand now what was going on. We feel badly that our well intentioned gifts caused such an uproar and made our friends feel uncomfortable. We feel badly that we didn't really understand at the time what they were trying to tell us.
I think it is good that we are moving on before we mess up anything else around here. While we will still be living in a prairie city, there are a sufficient number of "transplants" from other parts of Canada and other cultures that we may just find a place to fit in...if nothing else we will be more wary and aware of the social cultures around us.
Hopefully.....duh......
3 comments:
Actually, I probably would have been
persona non grata after I had finished
lecturing the recipient(s) on pride....
Oh well.
That's just me.
It is interesting that the kind of pride revealed in our experience with the gifts is exactly the kind of pride in the ability to be self-sufficient that was actually necessary in order for the pioneers to settle this part of the country. Sometimes though it has not been tempered to fit more modern day circumstances...which is just fine for the people whose ancestors settled the place and from who they are descended and who all understand this about each other. The problem is that incorporating newcomers with different cultural backgrounds is then exceedingly difficult for both sides. There is a similar idea in some prairie churches we have discovered that says the minister's wife isn't asked or expected to help with anything because she is some kind of "other" and we need to prove that we can run things ourselves. So, we will turn down her offers of help because we are "honoring her position" (or else we are just used to doing things our own way and don't want her interference) and then complain later that we were short of help. The ludicrousness of that doesn't seem to sink in. The fact that it is isolating for her doesn't sink in. That isn't always the case, fortunately for me, but when it has happened it was a bit jarring.
I see pride sometimes out here as well, very similar, the old school
fisher folk, logger folk, and trapper folk all show similar traits.
Except out here, more often than not, the pastor's wife is worked ragged, but
doesn't dare do things any other way than what the folks have been doing
it for years.
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