Why the smell of lions can be misleading [The Culture Guy Podcast]

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In this episode Christian talks to Joe Lurie, author of the book Perception and Deception – A mind-opening journey across cultures.

The book is is an engaging and insightful introduction to cross-cultural communication in a globalized world. It contains dozens of intriguing intercultural experiences, gathered from Joe’s research and his decades living abroad and managing UC Berkeley’s International House, a cultural center for the campus and residence for over 1,500 U.S. and international students and scholars annually from over 80 countries.

At International House, with residents from Turkey to Thailand to Togo and Texas, everything from lunch to laundry is a cross cultural experience. In his book, Joe explains how he discovered that his perception of a situation could be “deceptive” when he looked at it simply through his own Lens.

In this episode Christian and Joe talk about what it means to describe the sea to a frog who never left his pond, and Joe tells the story of his first visit to Africa, during which the smell of lions turned out to be just as misleading as his western expectations of behavioral standards.

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