How knowing history from many points of view can help you communicate.

Recently we had a wonderful Turkish-American over for dinner. This gentleman was originally Kazakh but his family fled the Soviets to Turkey and then the family immigrated to the US. He has been doing business in Turkmenistan for over fourteen years, so that is longer than most. He is one of the most successful foreign businessmen in the country.

We called the evening “The Nature of Turkmenistan” and asked him to talk to our embassy community about the Turkic peoples – their history and present circumstances. He said first of all it was important to realize that in Central Asia, people define themselves much more in terms of their culture rather than religion. For Central Asians, the traditions of the past go much further than Islam and the more you know about them, the closer you can get to creating beneficial relations. He said the five most important ways to create successful relationships with Turkmen were respect, respect, respect, respect, and respect. I have noticed this myself with Turkmen and through all

He also spoke about how widespread the Turkic peoples are – from Germany to China – from Siberia to northern India. About the universities at Bukhara that taught in Greek, Arabic, Chinese and Sanskrit in the first millennium. Al Bukhari for example, who came from Bukhara, created commentaries that makes him second only to Mohammad in the understanding of Islam. Architects and craftsmen from Samarkand created the Taj Mahal in India, geography, algebra, encyclopaedism came from Turkic peoples, for example.

At the same time I happened to be reading Life Along the Silk Road by the Chinese cultural scholar Susan Whitfield. It is a set of fictional stories that depict life from 700-1000 BCE from the viewpoints of a merchant, a soldier, a courtesan, a Buddhist nun, and others on this great cultural highway that ran from the Mediterranean to Turkmenistan to the capital of China, Chang-an. It became clear that the very Uighur who are fomenting in China today, actually were paid by the Chinese to fight their battles for them. They then turned around and extracted a contract with China that forced China to pay exorbitant prices for their nags and elderly camels for many years afterwards. To maintain the idea that theirs was the Middle Kingdom, the Chinese pretended it was tribute. She also showed that it was the Tibetans, not as religious people, but as secular Turkic fighters, who controlled the Silk Road for many years. In fact many of the things I think of as Chinese, like certain kinds of architecture, ideas, actually came from the Turkic peoples. In fact the Tang dynasty emperors were Turkic-Chinese!

I remember discovering something important while doing research for the well-known education historian Barbara Finklestein, for a paper on how war is taught in schools in Asia. It was that in the Chinese and Japanese documents before World War II, Americans were thought of as colonists. I lived in China and asked people if they still think of us as colonists. And they do. Of course we don't think of ourselves as colonists. This is not in our history books. If anything, we think of ourselves as spreading democracy.

This is one of the reasons, I believe, why there is so much misunderstanding between peoples. We are all taught different things. So when we look at each other, we look with a certain set of lenses. We all don't have the same truths!

How do you break down such walls? Well everyone has to find their own methods. What I do is say, as soon as it makes sense to do so, that I know we Americans are thought of as colonists, or that I know the Chinese were mistreated after they built our railroads. The change is immediate and they begin to open up and really work together with me. They don't blame me for what someone else did to them. They are happy that I recognize the truth as they know it.

The world is certainly an interesting place to live in. Just think what could happen if we all had a shared meaning of how we all got to this point in history. I think the future would be remarkably different. I think we could learn to co-exist.

Dialogue Skills Question: How our “Thinking” can cause problems

Think about how you think says my great book Dialogue by Linda Ellinor and Glenna Gerard. Fine-tuning our self-mastery is the start of creating good dialogue skills. Having a correct sense of the “other” is the next step. Notice when you make a judgment about someone. Notice when you make an assumption. Ask questions to see if your judgment or assumption is correct. “I heard you say...... Do you mean......? You may find, as I did, that you make a lot of assumptions that are not correct. At least you are recognizing them! You are on your way to creating real, authentic dialogue that will be very satisfying to yourself and the people you talk with.

Any other tips for good dialogue?

Outreach Question: What about these international clubs?

I decided to join the local women's club this year. The Ashgabat International Women's Club welcome members from the embassy, international and local communities. Each month they have a meeting and once a year they have a charity bazaar. This is not the kind of activity I like to do but I decided to see if I could help so I agreed to be on the Board. It was interesting to watch, and learn to respect, different ways of doing business and getting things done. At the same time I tried to fix some of the problems that prevent more Americans from joining. As we met throughout the year I realized what a great opportunity this has been to demonstrate that Americans can be part of a team. And we don't need to lead the team.

We turned the meetings into cultural evenings, and the bazaar into a international community event. We began to learn more deeply about each other's cultures. At the bazaar, many embassies were deeply supportive because they saw it as a way to show each other and Turkmen people, how it feels to be part of a global community.

It was a wonderful event. There was a great feeling of friendship and cooperation. There are some times when bilateral relations gets in the way of community, so supporting such clubs is a good way to create a different perspective, both for yourself and how others think about Americans.

Etiquette question: Social graces in the international arena.

I was paid a compliment the other day. Or at least the woman thought she was giving me one. She said, you are not like other Americans. You are open, helpful and friendly. I was really surprised. I think Americans are open, helpful and friendly, don't you? At least that used to be what people would say about us. I know Americans are amongst the most generous of people. It may be the times that are making us less wanting to reach out to foreigners.

As Emily Post says, don't try to be different from what you are at home, but be the same as nicely as possible. The way to relate to people can create an impression with far-reaching consequences. So maybe, since etiquette is a kind of social ethics, we need to think about being nicer to be around.

Do you have success stories?

Good Idea:

Creating movie nights with other diplomats turned out to be a great idea! Recently we invited the Russian and Kazakh DCMs (both were without families at the time) to our home for dinner and a movie. The movie was awful, but the men were happy to have something to do in the evening and to be part of a family again. At the time I was desperately trying to put together an Earth Charter environmental conference in Almaty. I happened to mention this to the Kazakh and he offered me free conference space at the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research.
I am just back from the conference which was a great success.

What kind of outreach do you do? Let us know!