Weekend Recap
Well, this has been the most eventful week for me with the highest highs and lowest lows. For starters, I had a weekend trip with the gang during my trip to Barcelona. I think I forgot to talk about that in my last blog. The city was beautiful, and I’ve included a few photos. Incidentally, this was my first overnight trip since I missed the trip to Valencia while dying of Covid.
Unfortunately, my cell was stolen my first night out in Bar-cell-ona. Get it? It’s almost funny in retrospect, although in the moment I felt more enraged than anything. After all, I’m an American tourist out in Barcelona at nighttime; it almost seems par for the course for someone to steal my phone. Thankfully I purchased a new one and retrieved my information Thursday night, just in time for our weekend trip to Malaga! I really don’t learn my lesson.
Me before my phone was stolen
I’ve also included some pictures of the group’s trip to beautiful Malaga. If I had to choose a word to summarize our trip, I would choose beaches. Every day we were at a beach, whether it was hidden at the edge of sloping hills, gigantic at the edge of the city, or a small beach with a floating waterpark off land. We also had some of the best burgers, tacos, and fish I’ve had in Spain.
Me after my phone was stolen
Communicating in Spain
Communication Differences and Preferences from Communication Scale? Previous Miscommunication Situations? Challenges or Miscommunications in Work Environment?
Alright, onto the prompt. Before coming to Madrid, the program organizers in the U.S. highlighted that Spain is a country much higher in social context than the U.S. To be honest, I have yet to truly feel this. The majority of my Spanish interactions have felt quite straightforward and courteous. However, the majority of my Spanish interactions have also been surface-level greetings and conversation with my coworkers.
I imagine the biggest limitation is my Spanish fluency. I know, that same old story again. It’s true, however, that my limited ability to converse in Spanish is why I’m not having in-depth conversations. Such conversations would likely bring context clues and subtle meaning into play to a degree I’ve yet to access. Perhaps unspoken communication has already been a factor in my conversations that I’ve completely missed.
Here’s a picture of Ben taking my picture atop the Castle Gibralfaro in Malaga! I thought my outfit looked cool. Ben said I looked like Vector.
The best example I have of a communication difference is my supervisor saying it’s completely fine that I arrived late to work, which is actually something the instructors warned us about in advance. Not to say this is a reoccurring event, but I certainly get the sense that it was not as fine as my supervisor says it is.
The vast majority of the miscommunications I’ve experienced have been, as always, due to gaps in my Spanish. I either don’t hear someone, I miss words spoken too quickly, or I just don’t know the words they’re using. When this happens, I generally default to asking, “hablas Ingles,” while swallowing the embarrassment in my throat. Alternatively, I just smile and nod which works about half the time.
The gang about to go snorkeling! Plus some other tourists.
My Theory
I can speak to the instances when the conversation felt quite low in social context. When the organizers explained that much of the meaning in Spanish conversations is nonverbal, they added the caveat that Spaniards are often more direct about personal questions. I followed this up by asking, “How can Spain be higher in social context if they ask personal questions directly,” and the organizer nodded and said, “exactly,” by way of explanation.
One such instance is when my coworkers asked me if I had met a Spanish girl that I liked yet. I may have misunderstood, but from what I gather the follow-up question was whether I found the women in Spain attractive. Perhaps the more important question was if I had met a Spanish girl who liked me yet. Regardless, I would call such questions quite direct for a country supposedly high on the social context scale.
I have similar interactions on the same subject with my host mother. My theory behind Spanish communication is factual questions about someone’s personal life are asked directly, while requests or feelings are communicated more subtly. Another way to look at it is that everything shifts one level down. Things that Americans would only imply are asked outright, while things Americans would only think are implied. My third hypothesis is that business is high in context while social interactions are low, although this seems unlikely since workplace interactions appear mostly the same to me.
Here’s a picture of me walking down the Alcazaba, a fortification built during Muslim-ruled Al-Andalus. Looking better without the t-shirt.
What’s Left
Whatever the reasons for the seemingly more direct speech of Spaniards, it’s become obvious to me that there is no simple explanation. Different rules apply in different contexts, further complicated by the differences of individual personalities. After I master speaking Spanish, or at least attain fluency, my next step will be to master reading between the lines to speak the Spanish cultural language.
With just one week left there’s barely any time to progress my Spanish linguistic or cultural fluency, but I plan to fit as much in one week as I have in the last month, if not the entire trip. Words can’t express how much I’ll miss this city, the people in it, and the people that came here with me. As a group we’ve come together to know each other as not colleagues but real friends. I’ve grown more than I can tell, so I’m glad I have these blogs to look back on and see my growth.
