Why did you talk that way?

Indeed there are many ways to bring across a certain point but across various cultures, it would be very hard indeed. Imagine trying to speak to an American with "Singlish" or trying to speak one dialect to a person of another dialect group (i.e. Hokkien Language to a Hakka). During the lecture, the video has a situation where someone was trying to differentiate the meaning of "being pissed" in two very different countries. One meant being drunk while the other meant being angry. I had no idea being pissed meant being drunk either. But this would once again show the diversity of discourse throughout the world and stress upon the fact that everyone would really need to understand each culture's use of language to avoid most misunderstandings.

The activity on the Australian and the Thai reaction towards an elderly neighbour has certainly opened my eyes to how different cultures react differently towards the same situation. The different teachings and many other environmental factors in the country really would depict how one would react to the same situation.

About Power Distance, this is certainly something which I can see very very clearly in my family and certainly in other very traditional family. My father has always the last say and sometimes is quite stubborn to changes but I do luckily have my sister to help out in persuading my father that sometimes what he has in mind is not always the best. When we were all young, we were beat "senseless" if we were to do anything that would let others gossip about my parents not teaching us well or when we do anything wrong. Now, the situation is quite different though. My parents do listen to what we have to say and decide upon the next course of action and I could really see how power distance could change with age too! It would be interesting to compare this on a national level amongst several sensitive powerful figures and their past interviews shown on television.