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One thursday a couple of lucky PR people got the chance to join the Intercultural Understanding class for a day, to see what goes on in the classes which everybody talks about.
We were going to play a game called BAFA.
We were all divided into two cultures (the BA-culture and the FA-culture), each culture got a room and was told to decorate it and all wear something to indicate that they belonged to the same culture. Each culture got their own set of rules that the members had to follow and certain games they had to play.
In the FA-culture everybody was given a pile of cards and to communicate with each other you had to play the game, but before and after playing the game there were certain rules of politeness you had to follow; you had to sit down and small talk with the other person, and you had to touch the other person at least once during a game. Who won or lost the game wasn’t important, the most important thing was your behaviour towards the other player.
 In the BA-culture you had to trade cards to get points, you should collect cards in the same colour, three cards of the same colour gave 10 points, four cards of the same colour gave 20 points etc. In the BA-culture you were not allowed to speak any other language than the animal language, you used to trade
cards with. Each card had an animal sound, so to make a trade you would have to say the animal sound equal to the card you wanted, i.e. if you wanted a red card you would have to say as a cow, to tell how many cards you wanted, you would have to scratch yourself on your arm a number of times. NO in “animal language” was shown by raising the elbows and leaving the hands hanging down. You were not allowed to touch each other during a trade, it wasn’t allowed to sit down or speak any other language than “animal language”, and if you met someone who didn’t follow the rules you should avoid the person.
Later when we went to visit the other culture, the challenge was to try to figure out the rules and try to fit in, without breaking the rules of your own culture. Seeing that the rules of the two cultures was almost the direct opposite, it was nearly impossible to fit in, but it was really funny to try and to get a taste of how difficult it must be to live in a strange culture, and adapt to the traditions and rules, without abandon your own.
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Story: Javanna Z. Dybbroe
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