cross-cultural communication

As foreign language learners , we all know that language is for communication,
and the use of learning foreign languages is for doing "cross-cultural communication".
People living in different countries,speaking different langauges and naturally, they cultivated their own culture.
In order to do cross-cultural communication, we need to know another country cultural background though learning its language ,and then compare it with our own culture as well as language to find out the similarties and differences between 2 different languages and cultures so that we're able to communicate with people from another "world" without any misunderstanding or even causing conflicts. (So, we should admire those interpreters working in UN cuz if they picked up any single wrong word to interpret the meanings that might trigger a war to occur.)
Anyways, that's the concept of cross-cultural communication between people from different countries.

but recently, i read the articles written by Debroah Tannen and i found another cross-cultural communication between men and women.
the author mentioned that girls and boys actually grow up in different worlds, even if they're brought up in the same house.
That is because girls and boys grow up in two different gender groups of childhood ,and established their own habits of communication from their peers.
you may wonder why the kids growing up in the native-language spoken ountry whose parents speak a foreign language with accents, but their kids do not carry any accents while speaking . The reasaon is because kids learn to talk like their peers. they learn how to pronounce words from their playmates, also learn how to "talk" or "have conversations" with other people. therefore,men and women have already established their own habits of communication since childhood.
according to Anthropology, little girls play in small groups, and their intimacy of friendship is based on telling each other "secrets" . in other words, the more secrets they sharing together, the more closer their friendship is. (haha, i can tell that is just so true)
Compare to boys, the bonds between boys are based on "doing things together" rather than "talking togther"
the groups that boys play in are larger and more hierachical. Boys compete, challenge with each other for the higher status of hierachical structure in the group. In order to maintain or gain higher status in the group , they sidetrack other boys' stories ,and crack jokes about them. Or they often talk about who is best at what. Those are very unlike girls' telling each other secrets or stories to show their etiquette of equality.

So,girls and boys actually developed their own cultural habits of communication in childhood. As they're grown-ups, they still keep those habits while talking to other people, and that's how it causes problems between cross-cultural communication between genders.
Girls' building their intimacy by talking , so naturally when they want to get closer with their boyfriend or the guy whom they like, the communication way that they use is to "talk". Actually, in girls' world of mind , there is a hierachical ranking,too. But unlike boys' hierarchical ranking by competion in the group, girls' hierachical intimacy of friendship is based on "closeness".   The more you know your friends' secrets, the more closer you are to your best friend. Therefore, girls wish their boyfriends,husbands or the guys whom they like to be their best friends of male version, whom they could share secrets, stories or everything else together.

and now you may wonder how it causes problems?
since men prefer to hang out doing things togther rather than to "talk", and even if they do talk, they either sidetrack ,make jokes about other guys' stories or challenge others' opinions,so that they can maintain their status in the group.
So when a woman feel like telling her boyfriend or husband, her problems or everything else, the response that she recieves from the man is quite out of her expectations. She expects that her boyfriend will ask her something more about the problem to show his "interest" to the issue or (this is very important for girls ) ,whereas he spontaneously either goes off the plot or provides her a solution to show his "one-upmanship". ( i think to provide solution is not really a matter of making girls upset, but "one-upmanship", which is the "metamessage" perceived by girlls that's how the misunderstanding begain. )

Another interesting phenomenon causes problems is both of man and woman taking different physical positions
In men's group, they're used to sit at angles to each other and looked elsewhere, sometimes glancing at each other. That's quite different from girls' facing to each other when they're having a conversation. That's why girls often feel that their boyfriends are not paying attention to her talking because they're looking elsewhere while listening.
i think the author's viewpoint is quite true. cuz whenever i'm talking to my little boy students, they 're either looking elsewhere or staring at ONE SINGLE spot,(but not looking at me) so that i thought they're not listening to me at all

Haha~ very interesting, isn't it?
It's interesting cuz people living in different countries develop, carry on their own habit of living style ,and possess their own unique and specific culture which is differentiated from others.
After i read the articles written by Deborah Tannen, i started to wonder maybe the different habits of talking between men and women that's a "univeral culture" among all of people no matter which country they live in.

here're the articles link. If you're interested, take a deep look
Sex,Lies and Conversation
https://classes.tmcc.edu/cgoodman/Readings/TMCC1351c/SexLies.htm

Talk in the Intimate Relationship: His and Hers
https://and-if-not.blogspot.com/2006/03/talk-in-intimate-relationship.html