Everyone speaks English. \u00a0Don’t worry. \u00a0You don’t have to do anything different. \u00a0You can get everything you need and don’t need to bring much from home.<\/p>\n
Two words: Bull Dung! \u00a0Yeah you heard me. \u00a0Offended? \u00a0Well click off this post. \u00a0If not, read on.<\/p>\n
When I worked for a major financial investment firm a few years ago, I saw that many of my colleagues who had fancy business degrees did not go near the international calls. \u00a0I made them and enjoyed them. \u00a0If you were expecting everyone to speak English, you were living in another world. \u00a0Really? \u00a0Do you English speakers think that you are the world’s true majority? \u00a0Think of the millions of Chinese and Spanish speakers. \u00a0My limited Spanish was of real help because the firm’s clients’ English phone skills were limited but not their Spanish skills. \u00a0It would have been better if I knew French or German but Spanish was still accepted. \u00a0But yes, you had to get through the operators first to get to the person you wanted. \u00a0The automated ones were worse but somehow, were able to pick up my Spanish. \u00a0I started retaining simple key words and numbers in French and German very quickly to get past the machines.<\/p>\n
I loved my international clients! \u00a0Loved, loved, loved them. \u00a0A knowledge of world history \u00a0and world current events was always a good ice breaker. \u00a0It is very difficult to develop a trust in five minutes. \u00a0I was dealing with very sensitive documents with some deals worth billions of dollars. I miss the financial industry. \u00a0It was such a rush.<\/p>\n
Oh and the things that I discovered and learned at the time like the country of Lichtenstein (I want to go there so bad!), \u00a0wonderful dishes to make (sometimes deals did not close in a short amount of time), places to see, cultural differences, what raising children is like where they are from, etc.<\/p>\n
Anyway, what does this have to do with my current music education research? \u00a0Everything! \u00a0You are told that everyone speaks English in Mumbai. \u00a0Well, it is true in a loose sense. \u00a0Hundreds of languages are spoken in India and English is the connecting language between all Indians. \u00a0However, I have an American accent. \u00a0When you speak to an Indian who has a British-Indian accent while they speak English, some of them have trouble deciphering your American accent, especially on the phone. \u00a0There is a lot of: “can you repeat, please” and “could you speak more slowly” and “I am sorry, I am not used to an American accent (refer to the first two phrases in this sentence.)” \u00a0I think it would be a lot worse if I had a thick Boston, New York, or southern accent.<\/p>\n
Speaking loudly, slowly, and enunciating is not offensive. \u00a0People do no have the time to be offended here. \u00a0You will instinctively know when it is appropriately to do these things. \u00a0They are probably as fascinated with me as I am with them. \u00a0I have so much to learn from them. \u00a0Their insights are amazing. \u00a0And yes, I love the variation of a British accent here. \u00a0So musical.<\/p>\n
This next part will be repeated in an India, music education post but needs to be spoken about here too.<\/p>\n
After the trouble with speaking to people on the phone with the schools, I decided to do a non-structured interview where I took notes on the computer, a round table discussion, if you will. \u00a0I DID NOT whip out the computer right away. \u00a0It was normally introduced after 15 minutes of discussion. \u00a0This was EXTREMELY effective and the people I met felt very comfortable around me. \u00a0I did not spring the video camera on them (maybe one organization knew about it in the emails) until I established a relationship with them. \u00a0Video cameras are intrusive. \u00a0I then came up with the policy that I will create interview questions that they will approve and will video tape the interview. \u00a0They will have the final say about the video before i post it to the blog. \u00a0This makes people even more comfortable and for this type of research, it completely works. \u00a0That is why the media has not posted yet.<\/p>\n
Better yet, I started the conversation talking a little bit about myself and deluged a lot of the information (and some Hindi words) to let them know that I have done my homework. \u00a0That is when the conversation took off lightening fast. \u00a0Sometimes, I would sit back and listen and not take notes. \u00a0The places where these conversations went were amazing and totally unexpected. \u00a0I could not have predicted some of the twists and turns. \u00a0I can’t wait to share them with you later on.<\/p>\n
Mentioning the Bollywood movie 3 Idiots<\/em> is a great conversation piece! \u00a0It definitely reflects the Indian culture even though it was made 6 years ago. \u00a0It even leads to discussions on how Bollywood effects children’s exposure to music and hearing loss (more about that in the research portion of my blogs later.) \u00a0I even talk about the Indian chick lit novel that I am reading, not the novel itself, but how the author works in a high powered financial job during the day and writing chick lit is her release. \u00a0So yes, getting to know your client through pop culture is great. \u00a0They are impressed that you took the time out to care about getting to know about their culture. \u00a0Also, you may learn a thing or two.<\/p>\n As I have mentioned before in a another post, reading British chick lit has also helped me. \u00a0The British idioms that you learn in those books help with speaking to people in Mumbai and understanding them when they use them. \u00a0Some are not so popular in America. \u00a0Many people were shocked that this was my first trip abroad. \u00a0Reading and seeking knowledge helps. \u00a0I can’t stress that enough. \u00a0Hit up your local library and get started! \u00a0Delve into genres you are not comfortable with. \u00a0It will help if you ever do research like this.<\/p>\n Knowing the history, going back to the time of Christ is very important as well. \u00a0It helps explain so much about what is going on today. \u00a0Bombay is definitely not an exception to this. \u00a0This is how I am able to pick up Hindi. \u00a0Some of the words have British influence and some are Latin based thanks to the Portuguese that held control hundreds of years ago. \u00a0The Muslims also held control as well except my Arabic is pretty much nonexistent. \u00a0It also helps you understand the culture too. \u00a0Take a step back and look at America now and think about how the history from a couple hundred years ago shaped today’s society.<\/p>\n I must also mention that having someone as a translator with you (my chauffeurs) has been wonderful. \u00a0I was finally able to get the charger adapters. \u00a0My hotel is woefully inadequate in that there is no tourist store to purchase the necessities and the mall across the street is not much better. \u00a0I was able to get awesome chargers for $10! \u00a0My chauffeur was tipped well for his efforts.<\/p>\n Also, don’t look down your nose at the blue collared workers. \u00a0Strike up a conversation with them. \u00a0They love to share what they know and a lot of times, it was dead useful information. \u00a0They will also go out of their way to help you. \u00a0I have three chauffeurs that fight over me for my business. \u00a0I am a great client. \u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Off to my next interview with another organization. \u00a0Loads more to come.<\/p>\n Post scrip: This monolinguistic culture in America has got to go! \u00a0A high school diploma should only be given to those who have mastered 2 languages with English being one of them and the second one being of the student’s choice. \u00a0I am guilty but at least I have moderate Spanish skills to get by.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everyone speaks English. \u00a0Don’t worry. \u00a0You don’t have to do anything different. \u00a0You can get everything you need and don’t need to bring much from home. Two words: Bull Dung! \u00a0Yeah you heard me. \u00a0Offended? \u00a0Well click off this post. \u00a0If not, read on. When I worked for a major financial investment firm a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-music-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41,"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/41"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}