The study of intercultural communication ethics is more important to learn and understand than ever before. We are living in a historical moment where the world has become so small through immigration, social media and technology advances. People are exposed to more cultures and thus, it is urgent that people learn how to navigate the 'goods' of these different cultures. Intercultural communication manifests itself verbally, but a large portion resides in the non-verbal behavior of different cultures and this can be tricky to understand unless we employ ethics to help determine the 'good' even if it is an inarticulate good. While I was reading, the section about culture shock really resinated to me because I think this is something most people have experienced at some level when they are confronted with different cultural communication. Not only do we experiences culture shock when we travel to different countries, but in the US, there are so many different cultures that one might even experience culture shock within their communities or cities.
As I previously said, in the historical moment, the US is a true melting pot of different cultures, so a person can experience culture shock within their communities. The difficult part of this is that people may not be quite as prepared for the culture shock as they would if they were traveling, so finding a culture's 'good' can be more difficult. Also, people can be more resistant to ethical intercultural communication in their own community as they feel protective over the 'original' or 'traditional' culture as described in the book (166).
My extended family has experienced this local change, in St. Cloud, MN, and have most definitely been resistant to this change. Like many people know, there has been a surge of Somali immigration to MN recently and a large portion of that immigration has been to the St. Cloud area. The 'original' cultural communication and the new cultural communication of the Somalians have clashed in their differences. The St. Cloud citizens refused to employ intercultural communication as a form of resistance to the changes that were happening and some considered them unwanted. Instead of both cultural groups trying to find the 'good' of the cultures, they exacerbated the culture shock both groups were feeling. This is just one example of culture shock, but I think it is important for Americans to not only think of how to reduce culture shock when traveling, but how to have intercultural communication within their own communities.
Golden observation! Your discussion of the ability to encounter culture shock within one's own community is incredibly relevant for a country that is experiencing greater and greater waves of immigration and cultural flow within the past years. I, too, have a similar story in my hometown with the influx of a new community of Korean students and families arriving to attend the nearby university. I also know that several of my friends and family living across the nation have experienced similar situations as well. Clearly, this is not an isolated incident. Just as the book said, it is common for a preexisting community to become protective of the "original/traditional" culture and I agree with your statement that many communities risk furthering intercultural conflict by resisting the opportunity of ethical intercultural communication. In reading this section I began to wonder if culture shock, in itself, was a positive or negative experience. The book hints at possibilities of both, but I'm curious what determines whether or not a particular person leans toward accepting the culture shock or resisting it (as the people in your hometown and mine did). It would be interesting to see how people weighed the different aspects of culture shock to determine their position or their action.
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