Cultural Significance: Is It WE or ME?

In addition to learning how to adapt during the SARS epidemic, Harry and I needed to learn how to navigate the world of Hong Kong. During the early days of our transition, friends from church took us to grocery stores, outdoor markets, furniture shops, government offices—wherever we might need to go for necessities. In teaching us how to move around the city, they guided us onto minibuses, double-decker buses, one-story buses, and through the underground maze of the train system (MTR). Eighteen-thousand taxis offered another form of transportation. To move from a city of 80,000 to one of seven million required many adjustments, including no more one-stop shopping. (Goodbye, Walmart!) After they led us around a few days, I assumed they had other responsibilities; I completely missed the cultural significance of building relationships. I hated to monopolize their time. So, I bought a map book, gathered my courage, and set out to brave the labyrinth of Hong Kong. Yes, I lost my way sometimes but always made it back to our flat. Independence felt good.

The Cultural Significance of Relationships

Next time I met one of the Chinese ladies who had helped us, she asked when I needed my next lesson. I proudly told her I could find where I needed to go with the map book. Her face spoke volumes; I had offended her. Her reaction confused me; I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong. My reaction confused her: why did I reject help? In my mind, independence was the goal. In her mind, relationship was the goal. I had caused her to lose face by neglecting the relationship. Although I realized everything in Hong Kong was different—the population, the food, the streets, the stores, the homes, the language, the way people dressed, what I hadn’t recognized was the cultural significance of WE over ME.

Cultural Differences

I moved from an individualist culture where people value independence to a collectivist culture where people value interdependence. Together is better than alone. The group provides protection. Multiple generations live together. Privacy is elusive. Even your laundry dries outside where others can see. (Most apartments/flats don’t come with a clothes dryer. They come with a washing window that has a pole where you hang your clothes—outside, in full view of everyone… or at least of your neighbors. Once Harry and I looked out our kitchen window and saw our neighbor’s unmentionables. We closed those blinds, never to open them again.)

In a collectivist culture, needing one another builds relationships, and those relationships define your identity. I wasn’t Nancy; I was the pastor’s wife, her teacher, his neighbor, their friend. With those relationships came responsibilities. Since I was her pastor’s wife, one woman expected me to assess her spiritual growth.

Not knowing the expectations of this new culture, I assumed they were the same as the expectations of my home culture. How wrong I was! I’ve found we do the same thing when we read Scripture. Reading the Bible is a cross-cultural experience. The writers lived in a different context and culture with a different worldview. Like 70% of the world today, biblical culture was collectivistic—a “WE” culture not a “ME” culture.

Biblical Culture Was a WE Culture

After Cain killed his brother, God told him:

When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.

Genesis 4:12

What was Cain’s major concern? Not unyielding ground but isolation and the danger of being alone. He said to the Lord:

My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.

Genesis 4:13-14

Just as I misunderstood what my guides were saying with their gift of time, we sometimes misunderstand what the Bible is saying. Unless we learn what the authors assumed, we’re in danger of substituting our assumptions for theirs… and misreading Scripture.