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Le Coucher de Soleil sur Les Falaise d’Étretat symbolise la fin de mon séjour en France. The Sunset over the Cliffs of Étretat symbolize the end of my stay in France.

My final days in France! At the end of my fifth week in Tours, there was certainly a sense of change–the Institut’s “cours de semestre” of four weeks just ended, many friends that I made were leaving, and I had just moved into student housing. But the change brought excitement as well–my sister Kelly was traveling from the US to visit me and see my lifestyle in the heart of France!

Over the course of her séjour, we explored the charming sights and towns throughout Normandy–Etratat, Honfleur, Deauville, Bayeux, Omaha Beach, Mont St. Michel–my new hometown of Tours, and a last visit to Paris. 

During my sister’s visit, I realized just how seamlessly I have been able to adapt to living in France. As she pointed out places, monuments, people, or cultural behaviors that seem novel or unusually to her, I grasped just how comfortable I had become living in the European country. 

Culturally, I had adjust to the “French clock” without fail–long lunches, late dinners, afternoons for enjoying the weather and friends through day outings or resting at the park, nights at the Guinguette. I became a regular at some of my favorite restaurants and knew the best dishes or desserts to order (Nutella with Baguette for 2 € will always be the best!). And I immersed myself in the French interests like music (at La Fête de la Musique), soccer, and even cycling en route to les Chateaux. 

Linguistically, I actually learned and developed the skills to hold conversations in French:ordering in restaurants, situations at hotels, talking about costs, discussing billing or order details; I was especially proud of managing to get a free ticket to Mont St. Michel! I became calm and measured rather than panicked when listening and responding to native speakers–doing my best in confidence rather than embarrassment. I developed a stronger French vernacular, embraced a real French accent, and noticed the intricacies and common language of everyday speech by being able to now listen to other people. 

Wow! The growth didn’t hit me while I was in middle of my stay because I still felt inferior compared to native speakers. But taking my sister around France and leading the way with my language skills, I realized just how much I benefited from the past six weeks. 

Additionally, my final week in Tours brought me a newfound international community. Living in student accommodations with a smaller student population for my final week at L’Institut de Touraine, I met students from all over the world–Spain, UK, Sweden, and even Japan–and learned all about their lifestyle and culture back home and any differences in France. These encounters were the first time that my French language and French culture were what connected me to a group. Sure, interacting with French people allowed me to better understand French language and culture but I was seen as American (fairly enough). With the other international students, the French language and experience connected us, and I needed to tap into that newly fostered part of me to bond with them. 

This final week in France felt like the end of an era. Seeing many of the places, monuments, and restaurants that became home for me for the final time was certainly bittersweet–I have no idea of when, or if, I will see Tours or the Loire Valley again. While its difficult to leave now, it  means that I must continue to study French to make sure I return and make these places feel like home again!

Picking Up Kelly from the Tours Airport then immediately heading to Normandy to visit the Cliffs at Etretat, The American Cemetery at Omaha Beach, and Le Mont St. Michel over the weekend. Normandy was so great I had to visit it again! The American Cemetery is a must- visit for any American citizens… a truly powerful place to feel American pride even thousands of miles from home.

My Final Week in Tours! Showing off the city to Kelly (2 images), La Fete de la Musique takes over the city, a final week “pique-nique” with my classmates at the Institut, and a photo of the city on my final evening in Tours. À bientot, Tours!

My final night in France meant exploring Paris one final time! A return trip to my favorite crepêrie, a visit to the Pantheon, and a final nighttime walk past the Louvre, where my summer abroad started! A great full circle moment to reflect on my growth and experience.

I have known about Hofstede’s work on cultural dimensions since high school when I took IB psychology. And I have always appreciated how useful it was to have some language that helped discuss some of the notable patterns in cultural differences between countries.

However, I believe my thoughts on cultural dimensions have gained more nuance now that I have been able to be apart of culture different than my home cultures for two months.

I specifically want to articulate my thoughts on the Individualism—Collectivism dimension. Costa Rica scores compared to Japan and the US (my home countries) as the following:

Individualism— 15 (CR); 46 (JPN); 91 (US)

As the scores indicates, the US scores the highest relatively on the individualism scale, making Costa Rica the least individualistic out of the three and Japan right around the middle.

Growing up constantly comparing the US and Japan (my two cultures) had manifested Japan as almost a baseline for what I consider to be a collectivistic culture and the US as an individualistic one (although I recognise this is my metacognition being lazy and wanting to simplify concepts).

I can understand why Japan is almost at the cusp between being considered more collectivistic or individualistic as it is not exactly collectivistic perhaps in our traditional sense of family, but more so in regards to company loyalty and the overall population/environment.

I think this is the major difference that made me at first question why Japan scored higher than Costa Rica on this scale. Because to me, Japan is more collectivistic (as in there is a difference to how that is defined to me perhaps compared to the Hofstede Insights team).

From my observations petty crime is much lower in Japan (as there tends to be feelings of obligation to look after others even if they are strangers), whereas petty crime is quite high in Costa Rica. Or even the cities tend to be cleaner in Japan as again, there is a sense of responsibility felt towards how we as individuals are impacting our environments which did not seem to be as prevalent in Costa Rica (and mind you, on a whole the cities in Japan are more populated than the ones in Costa Rica).

However, the way Costa Rica was more collective showed up in their family cultures. Ticos care deeply about their family bonds, often living close to their extended family, spending holidays (even small ones) or weekends with them.

In comparison, I saw my extended family in Japan and even in the US maybe for major holidays once or twice a year only because we all lived far apart from each other. Even on a day to day basis my host parents spent a lot of time with each other, whereas people and parents in Japan typically work extremely long hours every day.

Overall, this has made me think deeply about what makes a culture collectivistic and what “group” responsibilities mean to each culture.

From my perspective, although family priorities can be viewed as collectivistic, this still feels relatively more individualistic than collectivistic for me because you were born into these families, it has become an extension of the self.

In comparison, looking out for your impact towards complete strangers feel more collectivistic because it feels more concerned with the community as a whole than your family that you have perhaps more of a direct care for or stake in.

However, I acknowledge that perhaps as the social contract theory theorises, looking out for strangers come with the trust that they will look after for you in return, so perhaps it is still self-serving in a way.

I wonder if therefore, it would be more beneficial to think about what type of group orientations exist within cultures than to just say that they are relatively more collective as clearly that can appear in many ways. And what cultures count as the extension of the self and therefore we can determine perhaps that some countries are more individualistic than first meets the eye.

All in all, something I have been thinking about a lot regarding the dimensions is how they all work a lot more dynamically together. For example, if Ticos are more family oriented this directly could be influencing also the more indulgent or feminine (nurturant) aspects of the culture I have observed. Specifically, as spending time with family requires a balance with work and the ability to share perhaps more intimate vulnerable parts of yourselves within those circles.

This is all to say, cultural dimensions are clearly a great jumping point and there can be some expansions on the way we even define the dimensions; could cultures even be placed on spectrums or is each country like it’s own constellation (it’s own thing)?

One cultural difference I noticed almost immediately upon arriving in Germany was how much more cash is used here. If I’m in the grocery store and have to pay with a card, I have to let the cashier know. While this may seem like a very small difference between the U.S. and Germany, it took a while for me to get used to. I don’t often carry much cash on me at home (if any), because in every store or restaurant I go to in America, it is assumed that people will pay with a credit card. In Germany, it’s not incredibly uncommon for a restaurant or shop to only accept cash. 

It was surprising to me that the types of payment people use most frequently are opposite from where I live. I think this difference stuck out to me because it felt scary at first to have more cash with me. I had a conversation with another American student about this fear and we concluded that our culture has probably taught us that a credit card is safer to carry around. Unlike cash, money stolen by the use of a credit card is easily traceable. Talking through this cultural difference with my friend helped me to better understand why this change of payment type was such an adjustment for me. 

They say you learn a lot about others and your compatibilities with them when you travel together.

Well, let’s just say I stand by this argument.

During my time in Costa Rica so far I have had the privilege of going on excursions and touring some of the wonders this land has to offer. And in those moments, whether it’s using the public transport or driving around, those different cultural approaches to travelling become more transparent.

Compared to the insanely punctual and the excessive number of directions that Japan places in their public transport systems (and even in general), private knowledge is key in navigating Costa Rica.

Even trying to find the fees of riding certain buses were unclear online and a lot of charter buses only had uploaded their schedules on Facebook or you could only access an updated version by contacting the bus companies on Whatsapp.

Even more so, when my friend and I rented a car we realised that people honk to say thank you or even flash their lights.

But these differences I expected. They seem more obvious or explicit.

Critical incidents I had with people’s preferences and actions while travelling were more enlightening to me.

Now, I want to be careful as I recognise the encounters I have had with a small number of people barely begin to represent the whole population of a country or culture.

But I would like to take this opportunity to complete the DIVE exercise with some of the encounters I had with the other girl who was also home staying at my friend’s home stay during a trip to one of Costa Rica’s top tourist destinations: La Fortuna.

This girl was interestingly memorable to me. Coming from a French background, (northern France that is) she offered us (my friend and I) with some insight (frustrations) on what may be our cultural differences.

This girl was calm, collected, cool even, but it was extremely hard for my friend and I to understand what it is that she wanted. What it is that she was feeling in any given moment.

Every time my friend and I would ask, oh, what did you want to do? would you like to join us? don’t feel pressured to stay! these were answered pretty drily: I’m good with anything… yes I can join you… uh, no it’s okay, I can stay with you guys… (description)

But what did she really want??? Our initial response to these moments were met with confusion and frustrations. We felt very conscious and aware of her presence and felt bad because we could not tell if she was enjoying whatever mischief we were up to. She also did not offer a lot of comments and verbal cues that would perhaps help give us an indication to what she was feeling.

I believe our annoyance with the girl is indicative of a culture that desires to over clarify our consideration for others and in return are sensitive to whether they are pleased or not. And an expectation therefore that we carry for others to then let us in the loop of whether they indeed are pleased or not. (interpretation)

It was hard to verify this incident as she was the outsider in this culture (in Costa Rica). But I did give this a thought. And I wonder if—regardless if it’s just her personality, it is the norm in her culture, or the language barrier making it difficult to fully communicate and express your true personality/considerations—to her it is not that big of a deal to constantly appease others and that you can just be. She definitely felt like the type of person to be comfortable with silence even with strangers. (evaluation)

Overall, reflecting on this however, I feel as though the V in the DIVE model tremendously shapes the usefulness of the exercise… an opportunity to not be stuck in your head… and an opportunity (even if the verification isn’t perfect either) to think beyond the confines of your own thought bubbles, which are likely informed by our own cultural norms and confirmation biases anyway.