品茶轩

(附中文版）

Recently while browsing 文学城 , I came across a few articles that provoked some thoughts around the concept of personal boundary, and the effect that cultural background has on one’s personal boundary.

One of the posts I read was about an individual’s encounter with a co-worker, who made a statement about Chinese people being crazy, after having a disagreement with the company’s Chinese collaborator. A few days later, the same co-worker made a disrespectful joke about the individual’s clothing. The writer was upset ， but was hesitant about communicating with the co-worker, as she felt awkward and didn’t want to say anything rude in response.

The first thought that came to me after reading the post was the issue of personal boundary, as well as the issue of communicating those limits to another person when the lines have been crossed.

An individual’s personal boundary is much like a property line that divides and marks off the ownership of one’s property. Personal boundary defines our internal limits; it protects who we are as an individual, and our rights and our sense of self. In our interactions with others and the world, boundaries determine which actions of others are acceptable to us and which ones are not.

We start to establish these limits as a child and they continue to evolve as we grow. Some people’s boundaries are relatively large, others are small, and still others have almost non-existent boundaries. There are many contributing factors to the size of our personal boundaries as well as how clearly we know about them; these factors may include individual personalities, parental influences, as well as the life stage we are in.

For those of us with immigrant backgrounds that straddle across two cultures, the factor of cultural background becomes especially relevant. Different cultures and their inherent value systems impact and shape our boundaries, as well as how we perceive and interpret other people’s boundaries.

Thinking back to my own days of growing up as a youth in China, my personal boundary back then was a lot smaller than what it is now. I think one of the reasons was due to the confined physical space one had back in those days, there were always people around, hardly any personal space, at home, school or any other public areas. There certainly wasn’t such awareness as personal space because people were too busy surviving. You made do with what you had.

This physical closeness was also reflected in the way we interacted with each other emotionally in China, a type of interaction that satisfied our need to remain emotionally close. In fact, it was culturally acceptable or even desirable to be that close. At the same time, the degree of such closeness left us with very small or almost non-existent personal boundaries, something we accepted then.

For those of us who were raised in one culture but have now chosen to live in a different culture, we have also changed in the process of adjusting and adapting to this new environment. With the emphasis of one’s individuality in western culture, we begin to have an expanded awareness of who we are as an individual. With this expanded awareness, we embark on a search to reconcile the values we’ve learned from both cultures in order to integrate and re-define who we have become in this new environment. A search to look for the best of both worlds, a blend of eastern and western value systems that helps us to live a fulfilling and successful life in the West, while at the same time retaining our roots and those values from our Chinese culture that we hold close to our hearts.

In this quest of searching and adjusting, we come across the issue of personal boundary. From not knowing one or from an old and outdated one that no longer suits where we are, we come to define a personal boundary that fits for who we are now. Once we are clear about what our personal boundary looks like, we are then confronted with finding an effective and constructive way of communicating them to the people we interact with.

It is our right as well as our responsibility to protect ourselves, and to show others how to treat us by letting them know of our boundaries. In the above mentioned post, I think it is the boundary of respect that has been crossed by the co-worker. Respect for an individual, respect for someone else’s heritage background, to lump people together and make a generalized, stereotypical remark based on ethnic background is both unfair and disrespectful.

Equally important is our ability to communicate our personal boundaries when situations call for it. Our communication style is also influenced by our background.

Many of us grew up in an environment that did not encourage us to communicate our boundaries even when they have been crossed. On the contrary, one was encouraged to “tolerate”, to “save someone else’s face”, and to “sacrifice oneself for the benefit of the whole”. Such belief system is a roadblock to ways of effective communication. We either become suppressed or desensitized towards our own emotions and boundaries for fear of speaking up and offending someone, or by the time we are ready to communicate, we are like a volcano ready to erupt because too many incidents have been bottled up inside and we haven’t dealt with them when they first came up.

There are many effective communication reading materials and resources out there, the one I come across most often looks something like this:

I feel … (our feelings)
When … (a description of the behaviour that stimulated the feeling)
Because … (our boundaries)
I want … (what you would like to see happen, or a request)

The format doesn’t need to be followed exactly; it is more of a guideline to help you to gain clarity as to what it is that you wish the other person to know about your boundary, as well as a chance for you to ask them to stop the unwanted behavior.

Using the same example following this format, one could say something like this to the co-worker:

“I felt upset when you made that comment about Chinese people being crazy, because as a Chinese person myself, I would like respect for my heritage. I also want to point out that every individual is different and I don’t appreciate generalized statements made based on people’s ethnic origins…”

The objective here is to communicate our feelings and boundaries. Once we’ve done that, we’d then prepare ourselves to listen to what she has to say, one may be surprised by the response. We may get an excuse or an apology, either way we’ve stated our boundaries.

The key here is to be calm, firm, direct and clear, avoid communicating through hints or sarcasms. Most likely the person we’re communicating with in North America is a person from a different culture, we can’t expect others to possess the “Chinese logic” and be able to follow our hints to get to where we want them to go. It will only make the situation more confusing and lead to unnecessary frustration, misunderstanding and alienation.

Communicating this way isn’t an easy thing to do and it takes practice, but it is well worth it. The times when I followed my own advice and communicated this way, not only did I not offend anyone, but I actually gained more respect from the other person.

Having good communication skill is important especially in a professional setting. Many times, it isn’t the technical skills we possess that set us apart, but rather it is “soft” skills such as this that earns us acknowledgement.

中文版

最近，我在文学城上看见几篇激起我感想的文章。这些想法主要是围绕于一个人的界限感，以及文化背景对个人界限的影响。

其中有一个贴提到贴者最近的一个经历，一位西人同事因为那天与中国合作方意见不和，放下电话就大声说了一句中国人不可理喻的话。几天后，她又对贴者说了一句嘲笑她大衣的话。贴者想要回敬她一句，但不知道怎样把握这个尺度。

读完以后，我第一个想到的就是一个人的界限感，以及当你的界限被他人干扰后应如何明确地告诉对方。

“个人界限”就好比地产界线，它清晰地划分出属于每个人的区域。个人界限保护到我们作为一个人的基本权利，自由及尊严。因此在与他人交往的时候，个人界限往往决定我们是否能够接纳以及承受对方的行为。

一个人的界限感从小至大随着环境的改变而演变。对移民来说，我们对文化背景对界线感带来的冲击感受更为深刻。不同的文化背景和价值观不但影响我们的个人界限感，而且影响我们对他人界限感的诠译。

回顾少年时在国内成长的年代，我的界限感是微乎其微。主要原因之一是因为中国人口众多，居住环境狭小，所以私人空间几乎不存在。大家为生存而忙碌着，顾及到的只是怎样吃饱穿暖。从当时的情况来说，这也是非常合情合理的。

从文化背景上来说，我们中国人之间的交流也是喜欢这种比较贴心，问寒喧暖的方式。这种沟通意在缩小感情上的距离，及至满足我们心理上的需要。相对来说我们的个人界限感比较小，有时甚至根本没有意识到它的存在。

移民到北美后，我们有了机会接触到不同的文化，尤其是西方文化中很注重的“个人”这个概念以及人的独立性，从而我们也就开始对这些概念有了逐步的认识。我想对我们这些跨越中西文化的移民来说，绝大部分人都希望能够既可以在西方社会中生活地如鱼得水并且融入当地，又可以同时保持自己的中国情结。这种平衡的，双赢的，中西合璧式的价值观是需要经过很多的自我探索和不断思考才会被实现，这也可能就是为什么我们觉得刚移民时的过渡阶段艰难的原因。

这种价值观的探索也包括对“个人界限感”的思考及明确。只有通过这种探索，我们才会逐渐建立起符合自己价值观的个人界限。然后便是探寻适合的渠道与他人沟通我们的个人界限，尤其是当这种界限被干扰的时候。

保护自己不仅仅是一种权利，它也是一种义务，只有通过沟通，你才能让别人认识到怎样正确对待你以及尊重你。以上述的帖子为例，那位同事不拘小节的说话方式忽略了对他人及不同种族的尊重，也就是说跨越了别人的界限。这种以偏概全的说法是不公平也是无礼的。

文化背景也影响到每个人的沟通方式。记得在国内时，我们被灌输很多以“忍”为美德的观念，另外还有说话给别人面子，以及牺牲个人利益的思维。如果放在现在的环境中，这种思维无疑是人与人沟通之间的一种“障碍物”及心理包袱。但是在当时的这种教育下，我们学会了压制自己的感情，压制自己要说的话，因为我们不愿意触怒他人，不愿意说出令别人失面子的话。而当我们达到实在克制不住的时候，我们已经变得像一座即将爆发的火山，因为我们心中已经积累了那么多一件又一件令我们不高兴的“小事”。

网上及书店有很多关于人际沟通的资料。我在此与大家分享一个我常见的沟通方式。它大致如此：

I feel / 我觉得 ... （你的感受）
When / 当 ... （他人的行为）
Because / 因为 ... ( 你的个人界限 )
I want / 我需要 ... ( 你的要求 )

运用这个方式时，我们可以自己在语言上灵活掌握，无需按部就班，它只是一个指南针，提供一个格式帮助我们向他人澄清及沟通我们的界限，并且要求他们停止我们不能承受的行为。

运用上述帖子里的故事为例子，我们可以用类似这样的方式与这位同事沟通：

“那天当你说了那句中国人不可理喻的话，我觉得很为此困扰及不愉快。作为一个中国人，我觉得我的文化背景应当被顾及和尊重。而且我不认同这种带有种族偏见的说法。”

这里沟通的目的是为了表达我们的感受及个人界限。接着我们就可以听一下她的说法，可能她会给你一个藉口，也有可能她会向你道歉。但最主要的是我们已经表达了我们的想法及限度。

表达时的要点在于维持平和的态度，以及运用坦率明确但不偏激的语言用词。避免运用暗示及嘲讽的交流方式。尤其是暗示方式，因为西人不懂得我们中国式的逻辑思维，他们没有办法按照这种思路来猜想我们的意图。

正确运用人际交流方式不是一件轻而易举的事，但通过多练习，它还是可以被逐渐掌握的。我本人在职场用过这种交流方式，不但没有得罪人，反而得到了他人的尊重。尤其是在西人的专业职场，仅仅专业技术过关是不够的，更重要的是能够随心所欲的运用正确的方式与他人交流。

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