Attending an English Business Meeting and know about the cultures

On Friday we had a small drinking party with my colleagues so I could not sleep much that night. It was already about 2o'clock when I got back home.

That was my second day in the class room and everybody was in the class room already in groups. May be they were waiting for me. I felt a bit uneasy in the class room because of the hangover but I was not so nervous compared to my first class because I got to know everyone. After I entered the class room the teacher started teaching right away. Firstly, we reviewed the first session which was about comparing cultures.

What is culture for you?
Culture means different lifestyles, traditions, languages, food we eat, business practices, social life, etc. Everywhere in the world, we can see different cultures. If you are in Nepal you can see there are many different cultures and different ethnic groups. In Nepal there are 61 ethnic groups and 70 spoken languages and dialects. Now you can imagine that how many different cultures there are in a single country. When it comes to religion there are mainly two religions in Nepal: Hinduism and Buddhism. And when you think about how many different cultures there are in this world, you'll begin to see how diverse the meaning of the word “Culture” really is.

After the revision of the first lesson, we learned about business meetings. It was a role-play lesson and there were 4 characters and we took turns playing all 4 roles.

Why do we have business meetings, anyway?
Is it really necessary for business? In my own opinion business meetings are important to run one's business properly. There are many things that have to be decided in a set amount of time and not only one person can decide everything. There are rules, customers, employees, etc in business so when we are making important decisions such as a launch of a product or when we are trying to close a deal we have to call a business meeting.

In my case I have experienced Japanese business meetings before but participating in an English business meeting was new to me. We learned that everyone should speak and provide ideas concerning the agenda within a given amount of time and I found it difficult to summarize everyone's opinions and come up with a consensus. Being a chairperson was a difficult task because it was tough to provide alternatives and draw a conclusion at the end. When I was the chairperson it was really difficult for me to reach a conclusion. Maybe I didn't fully understanding the importance of that role.

In that lesson we also learned about the high and low context cultures. We also learned about the person who came up with the high and low context cultures concept. Implicit and explicit communication was new to me. I learnt that low-context is implicit and high-context is explicit communication.

After the class, my classmates and I went to a restaurant for a chitchat. It was a chance for me to make new friends in Japan. I love making new friends and socializing with them. They were really friendly and an active listeners. I think we can find out more about other people through casual conversation.
The conclusion of my Saturday was that it was one of the most wonderful days of my life. I enjoyed having new experiences. Everybody learns something new everyday and for me, it was a day of great discoveries.

Thanks everyone for reading my blog!