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Shall We Overcome?

Want to know to what extent your multi-cultural colleagues really get on with one another? Consider for a moment whom they hang out with over lunch - whilst behavioural norms are reasonably well defined for how to behave in the workplace - people tend to 'switch off' on their lunch hour - hanging out with people with the same cultural, food and language preferences. It takes effort do otherwise, something that in part implies a degree of respect.

That's not to say that this kind of voluntary segregation is negative - it probably contributes to the 'recharging' process - particularly for people who spend most of their time speaking [English] as a second language.

Photo: the highly ritualistic tea making process from the streets of Xiamen. And yeah, back home in Tokyo enjoying a 3am permalag induced start to the working week.

Writing from Mishuku | April 14, 2008 | Permalink