“Draft:Peach and Coconut Cultures”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

“Peach and Coconut cultures” is a metaphor that explains how different cultures distinguish the layers of personal information by divulging some publicly while keeping the rest strictly for close relationships.

Coconut cultures are more difficult for outsiders to enter: there is a hardened shell protecting the interior, but once you break through, the “coconut” opens up and becomes warmer and friendlier. “In coconut cultures ... people are initially more closed off from those they don’t have friendships with. They rarely smile at strangers, ask casual acquaintances personal questions, or offer personal information to those they don’t know intimately^[1],” - says Erin Meyer, a professor at INSEAD business school, in her book The Culture Map.

Peach cultures are soft and sweet on the outside, “they smile frequently at strangers, move quickly to first-name usage, share information about themselves, and ask personal questions of those they hardly know^[1].” Yet inside they have a tough shell meant to protect the pit, which is their real self.

Background

Kurt Lewin, a famous social scientist, was one of the first to attribute personality makeup to the context of the culture that the person belongs to^[4]. The Dutch organizational theorist Fons Trompenaars later elaborated on Lewin’s model and explained how different cultures separate public layers of information about themselves from those private^[5]. Since then the models suggested by Fons Trompenaars became known as the peach and coconut models of personal interaction.

According to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmyfjKjcbm0 the TED Talk] given by Fons Trompenaars, the distinction between peach and coconut cultures explains the conflicts in cross-cultural friendship, business interaction, and diplomacy. “Coconuts” think that “peaches” are superficial and hypocritical and mean nothing by their affability, while “peaches” view “coconuts” as cold and snobbish.

Example of a misunderstanding between Peach and Coconut cultures

Erin Meyer, an American management professor who moved to Paris, tells the story of her Russian colleague (“Coconut”) encountering a “Peach” on his first trip to the USA.

“I sat next to a stranger on the airplane for a nine-hour flight to New York. This American began asking me very personal questions: was it my first trip to the U.S., what was I leaving behind in Russia, had I been away from my children for this long before? He also shared very personal information about himself. He told me he was a bass player and talked about how difficult his frequent traveling was for his wife, who was with his newborn child right now in Florida^[6].”

To not seem rude, Meyer’s colleague shared some personal details thinking that, perhaps, his neighbor was looking for friendship.

“I thought that after this type of connection, we would be friends for a very long time. When the airplane landed, imagine my surprise when, as I reached for a piece of paper in order to write down my phone number, my new friend stood up and with a wave of his hand said, ‘Nice to meet you! Have a great trip!’ And that was it. I never saw him again. I felt he had purposely tricked me into opening up when he had no intention of following through on the relationship he had instigated^[6].”

The problem here is that peach and coconut cultures have different sets of social markers to indicate the appropriate tone to take with strangers. New acquaintance and budding friendship have different social indicators depending on the culture of the people in question. Friendliness and openness of manners do not necessarily signify an invitation to become friends.

Ways to bridge the gap between Peach and Coconut cultures

According to the article “Cracking the Coconut: Stretch Your Behavior to Work Globally^[3]” there are three steps to achieve fluency between “peaches” and “coconuts”.

Criticism

Before moving abroad, some chose to take cross-cultural training seminars to get a better understanding of the culture they would be joining. In the article “Cross-cultural training: How much difference does it really make?” an interviewee recounts how "the thing she most remembers (about cross-cultural training) is Austrians are like coconuts and Americans are like peaches^[2].”

Barbara Schaetti, an academic of interculturalism specializing in intercultural conflict resolution from the Union Institute at the University of Cincinnati, says that the approach used in this sort of training is “too cross-cultural, too comparative^[2].” And other experts in the field lament that peach and coconut is a "cultural stereotype"^[2].

Those from the world of academia are not the only ones to criticize the peach and coconut cultures model as Oliver Burkeman, the author of the article on the model admitted that “the peach/coconut divide is absurdly oversimplified^[7].”

References

1. ^¹²³{{Cite book|title=The Culture Map|last=Meyer|first=Erin|publisher=|year=|isbn=|location=|pages=123-124}}
2. ^¹²³{{Cite journal|last=|first=|date=|title=Cross-cultural training : How much difference does it really make?|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/24/news/crosscultural-training-how-much-difference-does-it-really-make.html|journal=The New York Times|volume=|pages=|via=}}
3. ^¹{{Cite journal|last=|first=|date=|title=Cracking Japan's Coconut Culture|url=https://insight.japantoday.com/cracking-japans-coconut-culture/|journal=Japan Today|volume=|pages=|via=}}
4. ^{{Cite book|title=Some Social-Psychological Differences between the United States and Germany, Character and Personality 4|last=Lewin|first=Kurt|publisher=|year=|isbn=|location=|pages=}}
5. ^{{Cite book|title=Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business, 2nd ed|last=Trompenaars|first=|last2=Hampden-Turner|publisher=|year=|isbn=|location=|pages=83-86}}
6. ^¹{{Cite journal|last=Meyer|first=Erin|date=|title=One Reason Cross-Cultural Small Talk Is So Tricky|url=https://hbr.org/2014/05/one-reason-cross-cultural-small-talk-is-so-tricky|journal=Harvard Business Review|volume=|pages=|via=}}
7. ^{{Cite journal|last=|first=|date=|title=This column will change your life: are you wasting your warmth?|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/14/change-your-life-peaches-and-coconuts-oliver-burkeman|journal=The Guardian|volume=|pages=|via=}}