Intercultural Reflection: My Trip To Vietnam

Name: Hoàng Thị Quỳnh
Class: 12E11
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION ASSIGNMENT
Topic: Intercultural reflection
Final term essay

Firstly, I would like to share with you a story of my French friend whom I met when doing part-time job in a milk tea shop for students. He has come to Vietnam for 2 years and experienced a great number of interesting things here. Humorously but most honestly, he told me his exciting experiences at the first time he participated in a special party with his Vietnamese classmates. It was a warm and happy party, and as well as other boys, my friend joined in diner drinking in a small restaurant on the roadside. Everyone started counting “one, two, three” and then drank the beer together. Because of his habit, French boy

I learned the ways to behave as meeting others that is greeting with a polite but friendly smile. I learned how to use chopsticks and spoons to pick up food. However, at the first day of the trip, I was totally shocked by extremely special culture here. Similar to people in many different countries in the world including Vietnam, the Indians have their own ways of greeting to express their respectful attitudes to the opposite ones. Most of the friends who I met were polite and friendly; however, what amazed me was that while they shook hands with men in my group, they were very limited to have handshake with women. Then, when we started the meal, I was totally surprise at their way of eating. As in Vietnam, we mainly eat food by chopsticks, in this country, people eat with their hands. Scooping up food in one 's hands is one of unique characteristics of Indian culture. Initially, we were a bit apprehensive, but then after joining with everyone, I noticed that eating by hands was really great. Another interesting thing at meal was that you are only picking up food with your right hand. It seems to be not clean if you eat with your left hand. Moreover, our meal had very little meat, a variety of drinks and much sweet