A Mix of Cultures

This past week I observed a group of Asian Americans, specifically a Vietnamese family. It consisted of the father, mother, their four children (two boys and two girls) and other relatives. Their ages range from approximately eighteen to fifty something. The parents own a nail salon and everyone that works there is family.

After doing research on traditional Asian culture and beliefs, this particular family does not follow your typical Asian traditions. The parents were born in Vietnam but then moved to America at an early age, married and began a family. Their relatives started coming to America and come to work in their salon. This lets me know they are a collectivist culture as they have a very strong family bond and make sure everyone has a job.

I can also tell that they are of high uncertainty-avoidance culture by the way they interact with people from other cultures. Obviously they are comfortable with each other as they are family. They are friendly to all customers but they are more comfortable and open with their regular clients. They have developed relationships with these particular customers so they talk to them about their family and things going on in their lives and vice versa. If the customer is new they just do whatever services the customer request without holding a conversation with them.

By observing the way they interact with others within their culture and other cultures, language use and non-verbal behavior, even though the traditional Asian person would have more of a high power distance, this family has adapted more to low power distance. They speak in a loud voice to each other but their tone is softer when they are speaking to someone of a different culture. They don’t use direct eye contact that much and I noticed they talk back to their parents in a disrespectful way at times.

The parents practice more of the feminine culture. The father cooks and cleans as much as the mother does and the mother seems to be more assertive...