Hong Kong
The experience of the organisation, Life Education, in adapting its Australian-originated
programme to the culture of Hong Kong is a good example of the issues that
need to be attended to in cultural adaptation. Account had to be taken of
some quite subtle cultural differences such as the culture's attitude to assertiveness:
'The Chinese culture of being accommodating at all times; assertiveness and
voicing honest opinions of others is often viewed as being rude'. As well
as these philosophical differences, there were some practical difficulties.
For example, larger class sizes in China compared to Australia meant that
work in the mobile classroom was quite limited for space.
Nevertheless, the Project's sensitive approach meant that these difficulties were overcome. One example concerned getting into groups. With English-speaking students it seems appropriate to ask the students to form groups themselves, but with Chinese students the educator is more likely to group together the students who are already adjacent to one another which avoids the difficulty that some students have in 'finding friends'.
