Communication Across Cultures

Running head: COMMUNICATION ACROSS CULTURES
COMMUNICATION ACROSS CULTURES
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1COMMUNICATION ACROSS CULTURES
The technology and the innovation and revolution in the field of information has made
communication across continent and cultures much easier. In this globalized world the social
networking sites such as facebook, whatsapp, instagram, snapchat, blackberry messenger,
telegram are contributing to people across cultures and continents come across each other,
connect to each other and that facilitates in the process of exchange between people belonging to
different cultures. The thesis statement of this essay is to provide a discussion about the
interaction between people belonging to different cultures and the role of the modern day
innovations in revolutionizing and facilitating such contacts shall also be discussed. Two persons
with whom I have interacted over the social media shall be discussed. Both of them belong to
different cultural backgrounds. The focus of the discussion herein is to focus on the aspect of
interaction between me as a person having roots in California, the United States of America and
the other two persons belonging to the eastern hemisphere of the world. One person is from Iran
and the other person is from India. My first encounter with them had been at California and ever
since then we have remained in touch with each other. With the coming of facebook, keeping in
touch with them have become more regular and much more economical, and that has somehow
allowed our friendship to grow.
The first person is a third generation American citizen of Iranian descent, whose name is
Avin Sajjadi. Her ancestors had come to California at the wake of the Iranian Revolution in the
year 1979, and have ever since then they have been naturalized as citizens of the nation. Avin
was born and brought up in California, she lives with her family in the region which is in popular
culture called as Tehrangeles, the neighbourhood in Los Angeles which is populated majorly by
Iranians. The area bears a close resemblance to the city of Tehran of Iran as mentioned by Avin.
She had recounted tales of why her ancestors and others from Iran found Los Angeles as the

2COMMUNICATION ACROSS CULTURES
ideal place to settle outside Iran. The presence of mountains in the region reminded them of the
Alborz mountain in Tehran and the cars of Los Angeles reminded them of the wide range of cars
that ran across the streets of Tehran. Though she remains out of Iran, her cultural practices, her
language, her customs are very much rooted in Iranian traditions. She follows Islam, but she is
temperamentally very secular and open minded, which she says is a cultural legacy of the regime
of Shah. It has been conducive for her to maintain the secularism as the culture of openness of
the US has allowed that to happen. She celebrates Nowruz with a lot of enthusiasm, cooks
Persian dishes and speaks Farsi fluently though she has been to Iran very few times. Iranians of
Los Angeles are generally very highly educated and so is Avin, as it is in their culture to seek
education and rise up the social ladder. The discussions with her have always been of very
intellectual nature and they are extremely emancipatory in nature. The posts which she share in
facebook are also reflective of it, which are mostly related to culture, literature, music et cetera
and almost none on politics. She usually comments in Farsi when her Iranian friends comment
and with others in English (House, 2015).
The second person is a man from India, from a city called Bangalore in southern part of
India. His name is Rajeevan Gowda. He had come to California to pursue his studies at a
university specializing in software technology. He is a hindu by religion, and has a lot of dietary
restrictions. He is a strict vegetarian due to religious reasons. He was fluent in English despite
being born and brought up in India. It was a result of his schooling from an English medium
school and college. However he had a peculiar accent which was a result of his native language,
Kannada. He was a very studious man and was very well behaved which was a result of his
culture. I have discovered that to the ethnicity and the city he belonged to is known for having a
strong tradition of IT sector related studies and jobs which has earned his city the epitaph of