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Friday, September 16, 2011

Lessons from cross cultural training

In Europe, when you travel further East than Berlin, you will be subjected to "Cultural Sensitivity Training" as it could happen that you meet someone from another ethnic background. White means something different in various countries. One thing is simple and I have not come accross anyone else that does it: Chinese Family names come first. Easy, right. Ho Ching Dew is Mr. Ho.

As I am not Chinese (No, really, I am NOT), my first name comes first, the last name last.
Can someone please tell the people in the banks and authorities about this fact? Just tell them that Caucasians and Chinese are NOT the same and that they also don't use the same logic for names.
Maybe eventually people will stop calling me Mr. Stefan (to which I am not reacting, cos there could be a Mr. Stefan. There are only a few families named Pertz. I react to Stefan or Mr. Pertz)

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