I took an intercultural communications class as a first year student at Capital. Actually, it was my first semester there. I had a lot of fun in that class. Some of the subjects the class topics covered are becoming more and more useful. We learned that certain “non-verbals” have different significance in different cultures. For those of you who are either communications deficient, or who are just plain apathetic about communications, nonverbal communication covers a lot of different ideas: intonation, hand gestures, facial expressions, etc. You get the picture. For instance, if you give some the peace sign in Germany, you are giving them the finger, capicsce? Well, here in Italy there are some of those innocent things that you wouldn’t think are objectionable that might be, or vice versa. Unless they understand the American significance, flipping the bird at someone here will just confuse them. However, I personally made the mistake of talking with my hands the wrong way. There is a cute little hand sign that means that something tastes good. It is similar to the ASL sign for apple: you take your index finger and place it under your cheek bone and twist it back and forth and say “buono” (good). Now, I knew what that meant, but still I was able to mess it up anyway. I was talking to my landlady about a week ago. She asked me some questions about Kevin, and I, in true American form, put my finger to my cheek in thought, rolling my eyes up to the ceiling. I said “hmm”… as I attempted to discover exactly what she meant by the question. I realized she was asking how he liked it here, and I said “e bene” (he’s doing well, or more accurately: he’s good). She gave me this horrified look. The lesson today is not to talk with your hands even if you think you know what you are doing! I’m kidding, but it really sounded to her like I was a cannibal and Kevin was tasty!
Ok, other faux pas have become apparent here. For instance, if you show up on time (like at 5 til), you will probably will wait for 10 minutes before an Italian will arrive, however, if you are having school or a business meeting and you are quite literally “on time” you are late. That is definitely something my high school band director said to us every week “if you’re on time, you are late.” Wow. So being late to school is a bad thing. With our class today, our professor said that she hates it when people are late.
Other faux pas are noise and exuberance in public. It seems that no one here gets excited on the street or in public unless it’s during the passiagata (evening walk). Being a loud American is completely unacceptable. In fact, I am so used to the quiet that even in the peak of the day I think my music is too loud. The pigeons wake me in the morning. They sit atop the cute little tile roof of the house next door (that is to say RIGHT next door, pressed up against my own building) or on the patio on top of the southwestern beams protruding from the exterior. It is so quiet here that their little noises, not even cooing, just the noises rouses me. If the pigeons are loud, imagine how quiet the people are!
I found out another faux pas the hard way. Don’t leave a lot of food on your plate here. Most people will finish a whole pizza themselves for one course of a three-course meal, plus vino, caffe, and dessert. It is apparently a sign that you did not like the food if you leave a lot on your plate no matter if you are watching your figure or not. So those of you on Weight Watchers, forget it while you’re here!
There are some American faux pas that are not faux pas here. For instance, one of campuses is older, and it looks as if the classrooms have not been painted in a very long time. There is graffiti all over the walls. In America, if we had a new group of students from a foreign country coming to study in one of our universities, there is a good chance that the administrators would think it a good idea to paint over the swear words and swastikas on the walls. Another faux pas in America that is not a faux pas here has to do with bumping into people. This might just be a “mid-western” concept, but when I accidentally bump into someone on the sidewalk, I say “excuse me.” Here, it is not necessary to say “scusi” if you knock into someone. One of the girls on our trip went on a rant about how impolite everyone here was. It was a long rant. Eventually, I tried to get her to understand that her problem lay only in cultural differences, but it was really to no avail. While I understand and try to accommodate cultural differences (and sometimes fail miserably, like with my landlady), I can admit my wrongs on a public forum like this. It is upsetting to me that many of the students on my trip are so ethnocentric and cannot even admit that the littlest thing like saying excuse me on the street, might not be wrong, but just dissimilar. That is my own rant.