by Dan Morrice, for Bridges for Communities
What would it look like to go one step further than celebrating diversity in cultures? How about building friendships across cultures, seeing people from all walks of life listening to, learning from and living well together?
(This article is Part 2 of our series on The Power of Friendship. You can check out Part 1 here).
We’ve found that much of the prejudice and misunderstanding in society evaporates when people simply meet, find out what they have in common and start to build real friendship. As author, Jon Yates demonstrates in Fractured, it’s not just the meeting that matters, it’s going beyond the niceties, forming friendships built on equality, empathy, and emotional depth.
But what if, like me, you’re a little shy, and you don’t always know where to start when getting to know someone from a different walk of life?
At Bridges for Communities, we get that question a lot. Almost everything we do is based on forging friendships across cultures, so drawing on the lived experience of countless volunteers, we collated seven top tips on forging friendships that flourish across every tribe and tongue.
ONE
One of the first keys that people highlight is finding something in common. Almost every friendship is forged on joint interests, but that common ground is less obvious between different cultures. We’ve found a few ‘universal languages’ which work wonders, such as food, music, craft and sport. Anything fun.
The beauty of food is that everyone has an opinion about what they like, there are no hierarchies in taste. Discussing what you do for work can lead to unhelpful comparisons, but the pursuits and passions people have outside of work are a level playing field, even if it’s as simple as the flavours that find their way onto the dinner table. Taste and see.
TWO
As you find common ground, you can start to build shared experiences, doing something together takes the pressure off having to make conversation all the time, and actually gives you something to talk about. We have volunteers who cook for each other, swap recipes and teach each other particular skills, from brewing Arabic coffee to baking banana bread. The joy of sharing cooking skills is that it’s give and take, both parties are learning from each other.
We have other volunteers whose friendship is built on playing in the same football team. When Nico signed up for our befriending programme and was matched with Salah, he invited Salah to his regular Monday night game. They instantly clicked, not just because Salah was one of the best players in the team, (which he was), but because they had something to do together which forged their friendship and gave them something to talk about afterwards.
Of course, not everyone plays sport but everyone enjoys something. We know people who do wordwork, make pottery or garden together, with open minds and muddy hands. Others simply go for walks in beautiful places, getting out into nature is a catalyst for camaraderie. There’s something about the sun on your face which warms your heart to the person you’re with, as you look out together in the same direction. Whatever you enjoy doing, the chances are, there’s someone from a completely different walk of life who loves exactly the same thing, so… Tip Number 2 – Build Shared Experiences.
THREE
One of the most important things is to give and receive hospitality. Hospitality is an essential part of every culture and there’s dignity in both giving and receiving. Cooking someone a meal shows love and respect, but enjoying a meal someone else has cooked shows honour to them as well.
Friendship should never be all one-way, so giving and receiving, and enjoying both is a wonderful way to build friendship with someone from another culture.
FOUR
One of our favourite tips for building friendship across cultures is simply to be kind. Every culture understands kindness. Every human being enjoys giving and receiving kindness. Kindness requires creativity and thoughtfulness. Remembering someone’s birthday or a particular anniversary and making their favourite food, knowing their favourite flowers, their favourite football team, remembering to call them when they’ve got an exam or a driving test to wish them well, anything that goes beyond the normal niceties to let them know you really care about them. Tip Number 4: Be Kind.
FIVE
An essential one in this generation is to… Sacrifice some screen-time to make space for friendship… in ‘Bowling Alone’ the political scientist Robert Putnam explored all the possible theories behind the decline of community engagement and friendship in the last few decades and discovered that one of the main factors was… TV.
People who watch lots of TV are much less motivated to volunteer, engage in their community or build friendships with people, even those similar to them, and especially people who are different to them, even though, they theoretically have lots of spare time.
Unfortunately, this trend has increased even further with smartphones. Social media not only distracts us, it also creates echo chambers where you’re only exposed to one viewpoint repeatedly without having the opportunity to hear from and catch the heart of someone outside of your digital bubble.
Now I appreciate the irony that I’m giving this tip on an online platform, which you’re reading on a screen, so we’re not advocating for cutting out screens altogether and going back to the stone age, but if you give up maybe a night or two of TV or social media, it’s amazing how much time and energy you suddenly have for someone else. Think of the opportunities that await on the other side of your physical and digital bubble so… Tip Number 5: Sacrifice some Screen-time, to make Space for Someone Else.
SIX
Possibly the most foundational tip in communication across cultures is to share stories. All of us are wired for stories, stories shape how we see and understand the world, how we define ourselves and relate to each other, they’re easy and engaging ways of sharing your life with others, so sharing funny anecdotes, family memories, lessons learned is a great way to get to know people.
If deeper topics come up, such as faith, family or politics, stories can be a way of discussing them. Rather than having a debate, you can simply share a story of how you came to have a certain view without feeling like you’re trying to convince the other person. Tip Number Six: Share Stories.
SEVEN
The final tip is based on a quote by Walt Whitman popularised by the character Ted Lasso during a game of darts, which is: ‘Be curious, not judgmental.’
Curiosity asks questions. It takes the posture of a learner. It hones the art of listening. At Bridges, we like to say, ‘Listening is loving,’ when someone shares something, I try to remember it and ask them about it next time. When someone says, ‘Ah you remembered that…’ it’s so special. You can’t remember without listening, and you won’t listen without curiosity. It’s so key.
It reminds me of something Martin Luther-King once said:
“Men hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other and they don’t know each other because they don’t communicate with each other, and they don’t communicate with each other because they are separated from each other.”
Curiosity is the first step in overcoming the separation.
So when you’re building friendship with someone from another culture, find out about them, learn their history or their language, their role models or heroes, visit their church or mosque, their football club or cricket club, whatever it takes to get to know them a bit more.
Our Final Tip: Be Curious.
Check out the video below to hear these tips from our team at Bridges for Communities