Foreign to Familiar

Foreign to Familiar by Sarah  A. Lanier is a book worth reading.  Lanier wrote the book for others going to live overseas, but would be helpful for those living and working in a community of diverse cultures.  This brief book (it is less than 150 pages) is written about hot and cold-climate cultures.  As a member of a cold-climate culture, it gave me food for thought on how to interact and better appreciate individuals who do not think or act like me because they were raised in another culture.  This book is not a manual for the easily identified parts of culture (music, food, clothing, language).  It does talk about the intangible parts of culture.  Some of the chapters include Relationship versus Task Orientation, Individualism versus Group Identity, Different Concepts of Hospitality, and Different Concepts of Time and Planning.  I knew about some of the things that she mentions, but Lanier has put it all together to help others be more sensitive to differences in communication because of culture.