READING 1
READING 1.
Read the text. Choose the correct answer.
WHY TRAVEL DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MAKE YOU OPEN-MINDED
Travel is often described as one of the best forms of education.
It allows people to encounter new languages, unfamiliar customs, different food, architecture, social norms and ways of thinking.
But does travel automatically make a person more culturally open-minded?
Not necessarily.
A person can visit twenty countries and still interpret every experience through the standards of their own culture.
Consider a traveller who arrives in a country where shops close for several hours in the afternoon.
They may immediately conclude:
“People here are inefficient.”
Another traveller may ask:
“What social, historical or climatic factors explain this routine?”
The behaviour observed is identical.
The interpretation is different.
This distinction lies at the heart of intercultural competence.
Cultural awareness begins when people recognize that their own habits are not universal.
Concepts such as punctuality, privacy, politeness, hierarchy and personal space vary considerably across societies.
Even something as simple as silence can have different meanings.
In one culture, silence during a conversation may indicate discomfort.
In another, it may communicate thoughtfulness or respect.
Eye contact can signal confidence in one context and excessive directness in another.
The problem arises when people transform a cultural difference into a value judgment.
Different becomes:
wrong
unfamiliar becomes:
rude
unexpected becomes:
unprofessional
This is one reason stereotypes are psychologically attractive.
They simplify complexity.
If someone believes:
“People from Culture X are always indirect,”
they no longer need to interpret each interaction individually.
But the simplification creates another problem.
No culture is internally uniform.
Age, profession, region, education, personality and personal experience all influence behaviour.
Two people from the same country may communicate very differently.
Therefore, intercultural competence requires two abilities that may initially seem contradictory:
1. recognize that cultural patterns exist;
2. avoid treating those patterns as rigid rules about individuals.
The goal is not to become culturally neutral.
That is impossible.
We all interpret the world through experience.
The goal is to become more aware of the assumptions influencing our interpretation.
Travel becomes educational not simply when we see more places, but when we learn to question the conclusions we draw from what we see.
Grading method: Highest grade