Practice 跨文化交际入门 (6).pdf

Cross-cultural Communication They are simple rules. The rules are: keep between the lines, and don’t use the lane over there—that’s the public transport lane. Unless you’re a bus, a taxi, or an electric car, simple rules. And look at this: every single car manages to drive between the lines, it’s fantastic. Now, this is a little clip that I took this summer driving down to Italy. This is a police car. That car has got nothing to do with the police car. It’s just a little, short clip, but look at it. I mean, would you do that in Norway? You know you wouldn’t. This is another clip in France. What they do—yeah, yeah, look—what happens is that, you see, they drift. I love that guy in the BMW, the French guy is going. “Left or right? I do not know yet. I have not decided.” It’s fantastic. And in some countries, you can’t even see the lines. Where are the lines? Where are they? I suggested once to an Indian colleague of mine, “Perhaps, if you painted the lines more regularly, people would follow the rules.” And he just said, “No, that would be a waste of paint.” That’s why we have traffic wardens in Norway. This is a traffic warden in Norway giving a ticket, a fine to this car. Now, I’m just going to check. You see, Norwegians know these rules instinctively, it’s your duty to learn the rules, but can I ask you why that car is going to get a fine? Too close to the zebra crossing there, pedestrian crossing. What is the minimum distance? People mumbling “25”. You know this stuff, it’s like a stupid question. So the day I parked my car in Oslo… let me just explain what is going on. You see, the line goes under here and then underneath the wheel, this is no parking. I was a little bit in a hurry. And my wife said to me, “I think you should move your car forward a little bit.” I said, “Why?” “Just… just move your car. It’s… you’ll get a fine.” “Why?” “Just… just, please, move your car.” You could see she was really uncomfortable. And this irritat